Yet another thing whole grains are good for: your blood pressure. Reuters reports on a recent Harvard School of Public Health study that revealed that men with the highest whole-grain consumption were 19 percent less
likely to develop high blood pressure than men who ate the least amount
of whole grains. Reuters reports that the researchers looked at data from 51,529 men whose health had been tracked since 1986, when they were 40
to 75 years old. The researchers looked at a subset of 31,684 men free of
hypertension, cancer, stroke or heart disease at the study’s outset.
During 18 years of follow-up, 9,227 of them developed hypertension.The men in the top fifth of whole grain consumption, who averaged
about 52 grams daily, were 19 percent less likely than the men in the
bottom fifth, who ate an average of about 3 grams of whole grains
daily, to develop hypertension during follow-up. Reuters reports that when the researchers looked at separate components of whole grains,
only bran showed an independent relationship with hypertension risk,
with men who consumed the most at 15 percent lower risk of hypertension
than men who ate the least.
Read more about whole grains and blood pressure from Reuters.