New research suggests that steaming bowl of porridge could help lengthen your life.
A recent study revealed whole grains reduced mortality, especially death linked to cardiovascular disease (CVD) and excluding cancer deaths, the JAMA Network Journals reported. Whole grains are generally recommended as a healthy dietary addition, but in the past data on the link between these grains and mortality have been inconsistent.
"These data indicate that higher whole grain consumption is associated with lower total and CVD mortality in US men and women, independent of other dietary and lifestyle factors. These results are in line with recommendations that promote increased whole grain consumption to facilitate disease prevention," the researchers wrote in their study abstract.
To make their findings the researchers looked two large studies: the first of which encompassed 74,341 women from the Nurse's Health Study; the second was made up of 43,744 men from the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study. All of the participants in these studies were cancer and CVD-free at the beginning of the study.
Over the course of the studies the researchers documented 26,920 deaths. After the data was adjusted for risk factors including age, smoking and body mass index the researchers found eating whole grains was associated with lower CVD and overall mortality. The researchers estimated that for every serving (28 grams) of whole grains was associated with a five percent lower overall mortality rate and a 9 percent reduction in CVD mortality.
"These findings further support current dietary guidelines that recommend increasing whole grain consumption to facilitate primary and secondary prevention of chronic disease and also provide promising evidence that suggests a diet enriched with whole grains may confer benefits toward extended life expectancy," the study concluded.
The findings were published Jan 5 in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.
