Greater consumption of whole-grain foods correlated with lower total mortality and lower cardiovascular disease mortality, according to a report published online Jan. 5 in JAMA Internal Medicine.
Although the health benefits of eating whole grains are well known, studies that specifically examined the relationship between whole-grain intake and mortality have yielded inconsistent results; several even found an inverse relation between whole-grain consumption and CVD mortality. That may be due, in part, to wide variations among the studies in dietary assessments and failure to properly adjust for participants’ demographic and lifestyle characteristics.
To avoid those pitfalls, researchers examined the relationship using data from two large, prospective cohort studies that meticulously assessed diet every 2 years for an extended period: the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (HPFS).
For the analyses, Hongyu Wu, Ph.D., of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, and her associates assessed data for 74,341 women in the NHS who were followed for 26 years and 43,744 men in the HPFS who were followed for up to 24 years. There were 15,106 deaths among the women and 11,814 among the men.
After the data were adjusted to account for many confounding factors, a greater intake of whole grains was associated with lower total mortality (hazard ratio, 0.91) and lower CVD mortality (HR, 0.85). Every additional daily serving of whole grains was associated with a 5% decrease in total mortality and a 9% decrease in CVD mortality.
Continue for food-substitution analysis >>