Incorporating Whole Grains Into Diet Can Help Extend Life Span

Health experts around the world have always urged the need to replace processed white grains with whole grains. Now, a new study conducted by a team of researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston suggests that consuming whole grains can have much more benefits than previously expected.

According to the new study, eating whole grains may help people live longer. During the study, the researchers found that people who consume two to three whole grain servings per day reduce their risk of premature death by 20 percent during the study period, as compared to people who ate no or fewer servings of whole grain in a day.

Study author Dr. Qi Sun claims that whole grain intake reduces the death rate, especially deaths from certain types of cardiovascular disease such as heart attack. Whole grains contain the entire grain kernel, including the germ, endosperm and bran or the outer husk. Oatmeal, brown rice, whole-wheat flour and whole cornmeal are some of the whole grain foods.

Processed or refined whole grains are devoid of the bran and the germ, in addition to iron, B vitamins and fiber. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, white bread, white flour and white rice are categorized as refined grains.

During the study, the researchers reviewed the data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) and 12 other published studies. The study included 800,000 women and men who were the residents of the US, UK and Scandanavian countries.

The studies spanned across the years 1971 to 2010 and there were almost 98,000 deaths recorded during the study period.

The researchers, however, could not establish a direct cause-and-effect relationship between consumption of whole grains and longevity. But the review of studies showed that the risk of dying prematurely from a heart attack or stroke reduced by 25 percent when the subjects had at least three servings of whole grains in a day.