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Mom and dad always said: "Eat your fruits and vegetables," but a UW study is telling grandma and grandpa to eat their pumpernickle bread.
The study looked at cereal, fruit, and vegetable fiber intake in elderly persons and their risk of cardiovascular disease. The results showed that elderly people who eat cereal fiber, including whole grains and bran, have a 21 percent lower risk of cardiovascular events such as heart attacks, strokes, and cardiovascular disease.
Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, a senior fellow in the Division of General Internal Medicine, led the study. It was published in the April 30, 2003 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The subjects were 3,588 men and women age 65 and older who were free of known cardiovascular disease at the beginning of the study in 1989-90. Dietary intake was assessed at the start by using a 99-item, picture-sort version of the National Cancer Institute food frequency questionnaire. The five response categories ranged from less than five times per year to five times or more per week. Intake of cereal fiber, fruit fiber, and vegetable fiber was estimated using the frequency of consumption of specific fiber-containing foods. These foods were then weighted by their general fiber content according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The main foods contributing to cereal fiber intake were dark breads and high fiber or bran cereals. Apples, oranges, and bananas were the main foods contributing to fruit fiber intake and beans, broccoli, peas, corn, and cauliflower were the main contributors of vegetable fiber intake.
The lower cardiovascular disease risk appeared predominantly related to fiber intake from dark breads such as whole wheat, rye, or pumpernickel, rather than to fiber intake from high-fiber bran or granola cereals, other cold cereals, or cooked cereals.
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