Pass the oatmeal? Whole-grain foods protect the heart by reducing several risk factors
Eating four to six servings of whole-grain foods per day is associated with multiple cardiovascular benefits, according to a new meta-analysis published in European Heart Journal.[1]
The authors focused on data from more than 6,500 adults from the United States, Europe, Asia, Canada, Australia or Brazil who participated in one of 87 different clinical trials. Overall, eating 48 grams of whole-grain food—oats, brown rice or quinoa, for example—each day was associated with improvements in body weight, waist circumference, total cholesterol, blood pressure, LDL cholesterol, glucose and interleukin-6 levels. These are all known risk factors of cardiovascular disease.
“This is the largest and most comprehensive meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials on whole grain intake and cardiovascular risk factors,” senior author Helda Tutunchi, PhD, a nutrition specialist with Tabriz University of Medical Sciences in Iran, explained in a statement. “Unlike previous reviews, we looked specifically at how much whole grain people need to eat to get the greatest benefits. We also evaluated the certainty of the evidence and found high-certainty evidence for improvements in several outcomes, including body weight, waist circumference and total cholesterol.”
Tutunchi added the impact of eating more whole-grain foods appears to be through “several modest improvements acting together” as opposed to “one large effect on a single risk factor.”
The authors did note that most of these studies followed patients for short periods of time, making it less certain that whole-grain foods are associated with long-term benefits. In addition, they added, these studies were focused on various cardiovascular disease risk factors, but not cardiovascular events such as myocardial infarction and stroke; additional research is still necessary to see if eating more whole-grain foods can help adults improve their cardiovascular outcomes.
Experts share perspective on these findings
Cecilie Kyrø, PhD, a senior scientist with the Danish Cancer Institute, and two colleagues wrote an editorial about these data for European Heart Journal.[2]
“Encouraging patients to replace refined grain foods with minimally processed whole grains is likely to yield modest but meaningful improvements in body weight, waist circumference, and blood lipids, perhaps particularly in individuals with type 2 diabetes,” the group wrote. “At the population level, even small shifts in these markers can translate into substantial reductions in cardiometabolic events.”
The group added that adults appear to benefit from eating more whole-grain foods than is typically recommended in dietary guidelines. And as important as these foods are to a person’s diet, it is just as important to minimize the consumption of ultra-processed foods.
“From a policy perspective, the challenge is to make minimally processed whole-grain staples accessible, affordable and culturally acceptable, while avoiding a drift towards ultra-processed products that merely add whole grains to otherwise highly processed formulations,” they wrote.
Click here for the full analysis in European Heart Journal, a European Society of Cardiology journal. Click here for the editorial.
Michael has more than 19 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.