At Tufts University, researchers have uncovered something interesting about whole grains and our health.
In their study, they found that adults who are middle-aged or older and eat at least three servings of whole grains every day tend to have smaller increases in waist size, blood pressure, and blood sugar levels over time.
This research is a big deal because these factors are important in preventing heart disease.
The study used data from the Framingham Heart Study Offspring Cohort. This project started in the 1970s to look into what affects our risk of getting heart disease in the long run.
The team at Tufts focused on how eating whole grains and refined grains (like white bread and pasta) impacts five key risk factors for heart disease.
These include waist size, blood pressure, blood sugar, triglycerides (a type of fat in your blood), and HDL cholesterol (the good kind).
They looked at the health of 3,100 mostly white participants, who were in their mid-50s on average when the study began.
Over about 18 years, the researchers checked how these people’s health changed depending on how many whole grains they ate.
According to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, we should eat at least three servings of whole grains each day. A serving could be a slice of whole-grain bread, half a cup of rolled oats, or half a cup of brown rice.
The results were pretty clear. People who ate fewer whole grains saw their waist size increase by more than 1 inch on average.
But those who ate more whole grains only saw about a ½ inch increase. Plus, the group that ate more whole grains had smaller increases in blood sugar and blood pressure.
There’s more: eating fewer refined grains was linked to a smaller increase in waist size and a bigger drop in triglyceride levels every four years.
So, what does this all mean? Eating whole grains can do more than just help us keep our weight in check as we get older. It seems to also help in controlling blood sugar and blood pressure, which are key in fighting heart disease.
If you’re interested in keeping your blood sugar healthy, there’s more to read.
For instance, studies show that what you drink at breakfast could affect your blood sugar for the rest of the day. And there are new ways being explored to reverse high blood sugar and muscle loss.
For those wanting more information about blood sugar and wellness, recent studies have looked into how common stomach drugs might help control blood sugar in diabetes and the importance of preventing low blood sugar in people with diabetes.
This study, published in the Journal of Nutrition and involving author Caleigh M. Sawicki, adds to our understanding of how what we eat affects our long-term heart health.
It’s a reminder that simple choices in our diet can make a big difference in our health as we age.
If you care about nutrition, please read studies about how Mediterranean diet could protect your brain health, and the best time to take vitamins to prevent heart disease.
For more information about nutrition, please see recent studies that olive oil may help you live longer, and vitamin D could help lower the risk of autoimmune diseases.
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