Eat more wholegrains to lower risk of death from heart and circulatory disease, says study

Eating more wholegrains has been linked with lower risk of death from heart and circulatory disease. The American Heart Association (AHA) has reviewed 12 studies in to the association between a diet rich in wholegrain with lower risk of death from heart and circulatory disease and cancer.

The review of the combined studies was published in the AHA’s journal Circulation. It involved 786,076 people in the US Scandinavia and the UK and results showed that eating at least three positions of wholegrain a day was associated with a lower risk of death from heart and circulatory diseases and cancer.

The senior dietitian at the British Heart Foundation, Victoria Taylor, says of the review, “Eating more wholegrains is a simple change we can make to improve our diet and help lower our risk of heart and circulatory disease.

“Unlike in the US, the UK doesn’t have specific recommendations for the number of portions of wholegrains we should eat every day, but we do have a recommendation on the amount of fibre we should eat.  Wholegrains are a great way of increasing the level of fibre in our diets and on average our intake of fibre is not meeting guidelines.

“Choosing brown rice, whole-wheat pasta, wholemeal or granary bread instead of white and swapping to wholegrain breakfast cereals like porridge are all simple ways to help us up our fibre and wholegrain intake.”

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