Penny Kris-Etherton and Kristin Harris at Penn State’s Department of Nutrition Sciences, reviewed research on whole grains and coronary heart disease risk in an effort to explain mixed results from one study to another. They concluded that, “due to the varying nutrition compositions of different whole grains, each could potentially affect CHD risk via different mechanisms.” Whole Grains high in soluble fiber tend to decrease LDL cholesterol and improve insulin response, for example, while those high in insoluble fiber may have a prebiotic effect, while lowering glucose and blood pressure. While intervention studies have not proven the observered epidemiological link between whole grains and weight loss, visceral fat loss has been shown. Differences in processing of whole grains may also affect their heart-healthy potential.
Current Atherosclerosis Reports, September 7, 2010 [Epub ahead of print]
Scientists at the National Institutes of Health, Louisiana State, and SUNY Buffalo worked together to follow 259 healthy pre-menopausal women for two years, to see if whole grain consumption lowered levels of C-reactive protein. They found that women who ate even small amounts of whole grains – up to one serving a day – had, on average, 11.5% lower concentration of hs-CRP in their blood. Women eating a full serving (16g of a 100% whole grain food, in this study) or more of whole grain had, on average, 12.3% lower CRP levels. Since earlier research has found that higher CRP levels are associated with adverse reproductive outcomes, the researchers postulate that whole grain consumption has the potential to improve the health of young women of child-bearing age.
Journal of Nutrition. September 2010; 140(9):1669-1676. doi: 10.3945/jn.110.124164
Some carbohydrates found especially in whole grains resist digestion and instead are processed by the body through fermentation in the lower colon. This process creates short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) that show an intriguing range of health benefits. Researchers at Lund University in Sweden carried out an intervention study with 5 healthy women and 10 healthy men, offering each of them 8 different cereal-based dinners in random order on separate evenings. In the mornings, all subjects ate identical breakfasts, after which their glucose response and their blood concentration of butyrate, a SCFA, were measured. Whole grain evening meals high in indigestible carbohydrates, such as barley kernels, resulted in higher butyrate concentrations and lower glucose response than refined-grain meals such as white wheat bread. The researchers hypothesize that this may explain why whole grain is protective against type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Journal of Nutrition, September 1, 2010 [Epub ahead of print]
Scientists working with Zhimin Xu at the Louisiana State University Agricultural Center have found that black rice (sometimes called “forbidden rice”) contains health-promoting antioxidants called anthocyanins, at levels similar to those found in blueberries and blackberries.
Presentation at the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Boston MA. August 26, 2010.
A study of 97 apparently healthy men between the ages of 20 and 50 living in Mwanza, Tanzania investigated the relationship between eating habits and the spread of Metabolic Syndrome risks. Mwanza in habitants, living on the shore of Lake Victoria, traditionally ate a diet high in fish, but in recent years the diet has shifted to include more exotic foods such as donuts and ice cream. Scientists using anthropometric measurements, a dietary questionnaire, blood pressure movement, and blood and 24-hour urine collection found that – although Metabolic Syndrome risks often rise with age – 62.5% of the young and 53.3% of the middle aged had MS risks. Young adults in Mwanza ate fish less frequently than the middle-aged. The findings suggest that the lowered intake of fish and raised intake of non-traditional foods may be linked to an increased risk of Metabolic Syndrome in young men.
Journal of Biomedical Science. 2010 Aug 24; 17 Suppl 1:S34 (Hamada et al.)
Many gluten-free products are low in nutrients, and offer technological challenges to food processors. Scientists at the Research Center for Food and Development in Hermosillo, Mexico, experimented with amaranth, a food with a long culinary tradition in Mexico. They found that bread formulation with 60-70% popped amaranth flour and 30-40% raw amaranth flour produced loaves with an even crumb and higher volume than most gluten-free breads, and that cookies formulated with 20% popped amaranth flour and 13% whole grain popped amaranth also worked out well. Both foods offered acceptible dough functionality without some of the additives often needed in GF foods, and the final foods had a very high nutritional value.
Plant Foods for Human Nutrition, August 24, 2010 [Epub ahead of print]
One in ten Chinese adults is estimated to have diabetes, with another 16% on the verge of developing it. With a rate of increase in diabetes faster than in Europe or the U.S., Chinese nutrition experts seeking to promote whole grain brown rice in China carried out a pilot study with 32 Shanghai residents, to learn about attitudes to brown rice. Only a quarter of the group had ever tried brown rice, and almost all (30 of 32) ate white rice daily. While most participants had an inferior view of brown rice before the project, after tasting it and learning of its health benefits, their views became more positive, and 27 of the 32 expressed a willingness to participate in a future long-term brown rice intervention study.
Journal of the American Dietetic Association. August 2010; 110(8): 1216-21.
Researchers conducted a study in Japan to evaluate the effect of isoflavones and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) on the risk for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD.) Researchers found that patients with COPD had a lower intake of both isoflavones and PUFA than the healthy participants. Isoflavones and PUFA, which are found in traditional Japanese foods such as soy products and fish, may have a protective benefit against COPD.
Molecular Nutrition & Food Research. 2010 Jul; 54(7):909-917. (Hirayama et al.)
A team of researchers at Cornell University, including WGC Scientific Advisor Rui Hai Liu, analyzed the phenolic content and antioxidant activity of 12 diverse varieties of black rice, and found that antioxidants were about six times higher in black rice than in common brown/white rice. The black rice bran had higher content of phenolics, flavonoids and anthocyanins.
Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, July 14, 2010; 58 (13): 7580-7.
In India and some other countries, sprouted (malted) grains are commonly used as weaning foods for infants and as easily-digested foods for the elderly and infirm. A study at the Central Food Technological Research Institute in Mysore, India, measured the changes caused by malting finger millet, wheat and barley. They found that malting millet increased the bioaccessibility of iron (> 300%) and manganese (17%), and calcium (“marginally”), while reducing bioaccessibility of zinc and making no difference in copper. The effects of malting on different minerals varied widely by grain.
Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. 14 July 2010; 58(13):8100-3.
Brazilian scientists carried out a comprehensive review of historic diets native to different parts of Central and South America, and of recent research that sheds light on their protective effects. Benefits of traditional, largely plant-based Latino diets included lower cholesterol, lower diabetes risk, lower blood pressure, and other benefits.
Clinics, 2010; 65(1):1049-54 (Navarro et al.)
Scientists at the Harvard School of Public Health followed 39,765 men and 157,463 women as part of the Health Professionals Follow-up Study and the Nurses’ Health Study I and II. They found that those eating several servings of white rice per week had a higher risk of Type 2 diabetes and that those eating 2 or more servings of brown rice had a lower risk. They estimate that replacing about two servings a week of white rice with the same amount of brown rice would lower diabetes risk 16%.
Archives of Internal Medicine. June 14, 2010; 170 (11): 96-9.
