Health

Cereal can be good for your heart

NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted March 8, 2004

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Cereal boxes may be right. Consuming dietary fiber from fruits and cereals may indeed lower the risk of coronary heart disease, according to an article in the Feb. 23 Archives of Internal Medicine.

However, while eating vegetables may be good for other aspects of health, vegetable fiber seemed to have no impact on coronary heart disease or mortality, according to the study.

The dietary fiber from fruits and cereals may act by lowering blood pressure and reducing cholesterol. Although studies suggest that the more fiber a person eats, the lower the risk of heart disease, few studies have looked at the relationship between dietary fiber and heart disease.

Mark A. Pereira, PhD, now at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and colleagues, analyzed the pooled results of several studies from the United States and Europe that included 91,058 men and 245,186 women to determine whether the source of dietary fiber had any effect on the reduction of heart disease risk.

The researchers found that for each 10 g/day increment of cereal and fruit fiber consumed, there was a 14% decrease in risk for coronary heart disease and a 27% decreased risk of dying from coronary heart disease.

Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2004/03/08/hlbf0308.htm.

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