Many health reports connect the eating of whole grains with health benefits. Despite the widespread discussion, there is little published data that suggests what quantities of whole grains need to be eaten by people and how exactly a given level of consumption correlates with either better health or improved life expectancy.
A whole grain is a cereal grain that contains the germ, endosperm, and bran, in contrast to refined grains, which retain only the endosperm. Common whole grains include wheat, oat
barley, maize, brown rice, rye, millet, quinoa, amaranth, triticale, teff, and buckwheat.
In a new survey, Dr. Hongyu Wu has examined the connection between eating whole grains and the risk of death. For this, he drew information from two studies, each with a large number of participants. The first study considered involved 74,341 women, drawn from the Nurses’ Health Study (1984-2010). In the second study, the records of some 43,744 men, takne from the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (1986-2010), were reviewed. Each of the participants were free of cancer and cardiovascular disease when the studies began.
Over the course of each study, there were 26,920 deaths. By first adjusting the data for potential influencing factors such as age, smoking and body mass index, the study produced a strong correlation that eating more whole grains was associated with lower total mortality and lower cardiovascular disease mortality.
Although the study is interesting it must be noted that correlation is not the same as causation. Furthermore, although there was a connection to a lowering of death from cardiovascular disease there was no evidence that eating whole grains lowered the risk of death from cancer.
In terms of the quantities that need to be consumed to achieve the potential health benefits, the Dr. Wu calculated that each serving (28 grams/per day) of whole grains was associated with 5 percent lower total mortality (in general).
The findings have been published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine. The research paper is titled “Association Between Dietary Whole Grain Intake and Risk of Mortality.”
