Study: Whole Grains Mean Fewer Strokes

C H I C A G O, Sept. 27 -- Women who eat lots of whole-grain foods cansignificantly reduce their risk of strokes, researchers say.

Those who ate the most whole grains — the equivalent of two tothree slices of whole-grain bread daily — were 30 percent to 40percent less likely to have the most common kind of stroke than women who ateless than half a slice or the equivalent daily.

The findings, based on data on 75,521 participants in HarvardUniversity’s Nurses Health Study, appear in Wednesday’s Journal ofthe American Medical Association.

From 1984 to 1996, 352 strokes occurred in the study group. Mostwere ischemic strokes, caused by blockages in brain-feedingarteries. Most of the estimated 600,000 strokes reported each yearnationwide are this type.

The study is yet another suggesting that healthy eating leads to healthyliving.

Even One Serving a Day

Strokes, the nation’s third leading cause of death, afflict menand women equally but are more likely to be fatal in women.

In the study, the more whole grains women ate, the less likelythey were to have a stroke.

The findings suggest that “replacing refined grains with wholegrains by even one serving a day may have significant benefits inreducing the risk of ischemic stroke,” wrote the authors, led byDr. Simin Liu of Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Whole grains consumed by study participants included whole-wheatbread, whole-grain cereal, popcorn, wheat germ, oatmeal, bulgur andcouscous. Refined-grain foods included sweet rolls, white bread,white rice and English muffins.

Liu said it is unclear exactly how whole grains might preventstrokes, although they have been linked to lower levels of theso-called bad cholesterol that can clog arteries.

His study sought to determine if components of whole grains suchas vitamin E and fiber might be responsible. But he found a riskreduction independent of those factors, suggesting that othermechanisms are at work.