Whole-Grain Cereals Cut Heart Failure

Eating seven or more weekly servings of whole-grain
breakfast cereal may help men avoid heart failure, a new study shows.

Heart failure is a condition in which the heart can't pump blood effectively
to the lungs or the rest of the body, usually because the person has narrowed
or hardened coronary arteries (the vessels that supply blood to heart muscle),
has previously suffered a heart attack, or has high blood pressure.

The cereal study was presented in Orlando, Fla., at the American Heart
Association's 47th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and
Prevention.

Data came from the Physicians' Health Study, which included more than 21,400
male doctors followed for 18 years.

"The Physicians' Health Study shows that even in a population with
overall healthy behavior, it is possible to see less heart failure in those who
eat a whole-grain cereal breakfast," Luc Djousse, MD, MPH, DSc, says in an
American Heart Association news release.

Djousse, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, also
works at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. He was among the researchers
who worked on the cereal study.

Cereal Servings

When the study started, the doctors were about 53 years old on average and
didn't have heart failure. They provided information on their medical history,
weight, smoking, and exercise.

They also noted their weekly servings of breakfast cereal at the beginning
of the study. Whole-grain cereals were defined as those containing at least 25%
whole grain or bran by weight.

The doctors were followed for about 18 years, on average. Every year, they
updated their medical history.

During the follow-up period, 898 of the doctors were diagnosed with heart
failure.

Those who reported eating at least seven weekly servings of whole-grain
breakfast cereals were 21% less likely to develop heart failure during the
study, compared with those who ate no whole-grain breakfast cereals.

Those findings take a host of other risk factors into consideration,
including blood pressure, physical activity, smoking, BMI (body mass index,
which relates height to weight), alcohol consumption, and diabetes.

However, the findings don't mean that eating whole-grain breakfast cereal
allows you to skimp on other heart-healthy habits, such as being physically
active and making sure the rest of your diet is nutritious.

Talk to your doctor to gauge and improve your heart's health.

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Reviewed by Louise Chang
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