Eating plenty of whole grains can help keep your arteries healthy, potentially warding off heart disease and stroke. There are different constituents of whole grains. Besides the fibre and the B vitamins, they have a lot more which makes their nutritional value highly complex.
An increased consumption of whole grains represents a wholesome and palatable opportunity to reduce the risk of atherosclerosis and heart disease, Health news reported.
Thickening of the lining of the carotid arteries, which deliver blood to the brain, signals atherosclerosis, the build-up of fatty substances and other material that increases the risk of heart attack and stroke. To investigate this, researchers from Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina studied a multiethnic group of 1,178 men and women, participating in the Insulin Resistance Atherosclerosis Study.
They estimated their whole grain consumption based on how much dark bread, cooked cereal and high-fibre cereal they ate. For each participant, the thickness of the two innermost layers of the carotid artery was measured at the study's outset and again five years later. It was found that those with diets containing the largest amounts of whole grains had the thinnest carotid artery walls and showed the slowest progression in artery wall thickness over a five-year period.