The Whole Truth About Whole Grains

11 reasons to make the switch now.....

 Want to statistically reduce your risk of death from all causes (in other words, your total mortality rate) by 15% just by making one dietary change? Choose whole grains whenever you can.

We all know we're supposed to eat more whole grains. We know they're "good" for us (full of fiber, phytochemicals, and vitamins and minerals). Yet most Americans eat less than one serving of whole grains a day. So what's stopping us?

Maybe it's our fear of "brown" food. But you might be surprised how easy it can be to embrace the brown if you set your mind to it. Some of you will have no problems switching to whole-grain bread but will draw the line at whole-wheat pasta. For others, it might be the other way around.
The bottom line is that switching to whole grains is one of the most important things you can do for your health. So make the switch everywhere you can -- and draw the line wherever that may be for you.

For me, about the only refined-grain products I eat are the occasional sourdough and French bread, pizza crust (when I buy it out), and sometimes pasta (which I always cook al dente because it has a lower glycemic index this way). I used to think I could never accept whole-wheat noodles as "pasta." But never say never! In developing the recipes for my next book, I used a whole-wheat pasta blend and I really started to like it.
And don't think that you can keep eating white, refined-grain products and just supplement them with some extra fiber. Research suggests that the various nutritional components of whole grains work together to affect our health.

A Bite of Whole-Grain History

When the industrialization wave hit America in the later 1800s, a new way of milling and mass refining took hold in the grain business and never let go. Removing the bran and germ seemed like a good idea at the time, since it meant that grain products could sit on store shelves much longer without spoiling.
But the worldwide epidemic of B-vitamin deficiencies (pellagra and beriberi) that followed was only the beginning. Frankly, we are only just realizing the nutritional fallout from almost eliminating whole grains from our diet over the past hundred years.

11 Ways Grains Are Great

Here's a quick list of all the ways that whole grains benefit your body. After reading it, you may ask yourself, "What don't they do?"

1. They're digested slowly.

Whole grains are digested more slowly than refined grains, which has beneficial effects on blood sugar and insulin (keeping levels of both down). A recent study found that the more whole grains men and women ate, the lower their fasting insulin levels were. And this is a good thing.

2. They reduce mortality rates.

After analyzing data from more than 15,000 people aged 45-65, researchers from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health found that as whole-grain intake went up, total mortality (the rate of death from all causes) went down.

3. They help reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes.

The Nurses' Health Study found that women who ate more than 5 grams of fiber from whole-grain cereals daily had about 30% less risk of developing type 2 diabetes than those who ate less than 2.5 grams of whole-grain fiber a day.

Other research found that women who ate a diet low in cereal fiber and high on the sugar (glycemic) index doubled their risk of type 2 diabetes.

4. They help control weight.

One study found that women who ate three or more servings of whole-grain foods a day had significantly lower body mass indexes (BMIs) than those eating less than one serving a day. (This was found in men, too, but the link was more significant in women.)
Another study found that women whose diets included the most whole grains were half as likely to gain a lot of weight over a 12-year period as those who ate the least whole grains. This slimming effect was seen even in teens.

5. They may protect against metabolic syndrome.

Research has found that metabolic syndrome -- a condition that raises the risk of diabetes, heart disease, and stroke -- was found much less often in people who ate the most cereal fiber and whole grains compared with those who ate the least.

6. They reduce risk of heart disease.

At least 25 studies have found that people who regularly eat whole grains have a lower risk of heart disease.
"The evidence is quite consistent and convincing that people who eat at least one serving of whole grains a day have a lower risk of heart disease and stroke," reports Mark Pereira, PhD, a nutritional epidemiologist at Harvard Medical School.
In studying the dietary habits of male health professionals, researchers found that for every 10 gram increase in cereal fiber eaten each day, the risk of heart attack was reduced by nearly 30%. A more recent study found this beneficial effect is even stronger in women.

8. They cut cholesterol levels.

Researchers at Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago found that adding oats to an already low-fat diet helped women cut their blood cholesterol by an additional 8 or 9 mg/dL after only three weeks. (That came on top of the 12 mg/dL reduction seen with the low-fat diet alone!)


Antioxidants found in oats cut cholesterol by suppressing the molecules that make blood cells stick to artery walls. When these cells stick to artery walls and cause inflammation, plaque deposits build up and narrow the passageways where blood flows, leading to "hardening of the arteries."

9. They reduce blood pressure.

Eating foods containing barley decreases blood pressure and improves several other risk factors for heart disease, according to a recent study. (Other studies of high-fiber, whole-grain foods have also reported significant reductions in blood pressure.)
The researchers also noticed a decrease in total cholesterol (an average of 21% reduction in those eating lots of soluble fiber, such as that found in barley and oats), and "bad" cholesterol. Levels of "good cholesterol" either increased or did not change.

10. They can decrease your risk of stroke.

A recent Harvard study found that a diet with large amounts of whole-grain foods was associated with a decreased risk of stroke in women.

11. They reduce cancer risks.

More than 40 studies looking at 20 types of cancer have suggested that regularly eating whole grains reduces cancer risk.
It's thought that whole grains may accomplish this by blocking DNA damage, suppressing the growth of cancer cells, providing antioxidant protection, and preventing the formation of carcinogens. The particular components of whole grains that may be protective include fiber; antioxidants including vitamins (like vitamin E) and minerals (like selenium); and various phytochemicals.
Among the types of cancer that whole grains help protect against are gastrointestinal cancers such as stomach and colon cancers, along with cancers of the oral cavity, pharynx, esophagus, and larynx.

Your Whole Grain Line-Up

If you're ready to go brown, whole-wheat bread is a great place to start. But don't stop there.
Here are nine common whole-grain foods that you'll probably find at your supermarket:

• Brown rice
• Oats
• Whole-wheat flour
• Rye flour
• Barley
• Buckwheat
• Bulgur (steamed and dried cracked wheat)
• Millet
• Quinoa

And don't think that cooking them has to be difficult and time-consuming. Here are a couple of easy (and yummy) ways to prepare some whole-grain favorites.

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Losing Weight as a Millennial: It's Complicated

Young adults are less likely to seek professional help for weight loss.Debbie Zeger had the world at her fingertips: A recent college graduate in New York City, she was eager to try new restaurants with friends, grab drinks with colleagues and say yes when someone cute asked her on a date. What she wasn't eager to do was exercise or continue the Weight Watchers plan she'd started soon after graduating. 

"It wasn't fitting my lifestyle, and I wasn't necessarily willing to make the changes I had wanted to long-term," says Zeger, who's now 29 and works for a university's development office. 

So Zeger, who swam in high school but stopped exercising consistently in college, continued to put taking control of her health on the back burner and look the other way when it came to the scale. It wasn't until she accompanied a colleague to a Weight Watchers meeting last January that Zeger felt ready to make a change. “You weigh in and you see the number, and it’s real and you can’t hide from it,” says Zeger, who re-joined program the next week. 

"I hear so many people say, 'I want to lose 10 pounds or 5 pounds, and they say this for their whole life," she continues. "I thought, 'I don't want to be there.'" 

While weight-loss discussion, research and interventions tend to focus on children and middle-aged and older adults, millennials (generally defined as people born between 1980 and 2000) are just about as likely to be overweight and obese – and more likely to be so than when their parents or even older siblings were their age, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"The obesity epidemic for this generation is quite a problem, and that's really shifted," says Jessica LaRose, associate professor of health behavior and policy at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, where she studies obesity prevention and treatment in young adults. 

That may be in part because – on top of universal contributors to weight gain including environmental, genetic, lifestyle and socioeconomic factors – some issues like high stress levels and poor sleep habits seem to be intensified among members of this generation, LaRose says. What's more, she adds, the increasingly drawn-out transition to adulthood "is also associated with peaks in unhealthy eating-related behaviors." 

All that adds up to an increased risk of chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease later in life because "the earlier the onset of overweight and obesity," LaRose says, "the [more the] health consequences are intensified."

But millennials – who are more often stereotyped as privileged, green juice-sipping yogis than as battling significant health problems – face some barriers to weight loss that older people tend not to. 

For one, young adults are less likely to seek professional help for weight loss, so it's hard for researchers to study what works best for them, LaRose says. At the same time, millennials value convenience and low price tags, so traveling to see (and pay for) nutritionists, trainers and psychologists, or to join weight-loss support groups, is less appealing, finds Artem Petakov, who co-founded the behavior change program Noom. "Millennials just don't have time," he says. 

And then there's the power of social media, which can promote a negative body image and relationship with food. "You can't win – no matter what, there's always going to be someone saying something negative about the way you look," says Lindsey Corak, a 26-year-old personal trainer at Life Time MetroWest outside Boston who weighed both 240 and 115 pounds before settling at her current healthy weight. "That's definitely something we struggle with at a young age that I don't think the older individuals struggle with."

Indeed, a recent survey of nearly 1,500 14- to 24-year-olds in the U.K. found that all social media platforms except YouTube had a negative impact on mental health – raising anxiety, depression and body image issues. Alexis Joseph, a dietitian and founder of Hummusapien in Columbus, Ohio, believes it. "I see people in 7th and 8th grade and high school getting obsessed to an unhealthy degree with healthy eating, and then they end up in my office and it started because they saw someone on Instagram using coconut flour and paleo blah blah blah," says Joseph, a millennial herself. "The diet culture has almost been accelerated because of social media." 

All that said, millennials have some key advantages when it comes to successfully losing weight or getting healthier. For one, they benefit from advances in nutrition research that support eating a variety of unprocessed foods over low-fat, packaged diet foods, as well as strategies like intuitive eating over calorie counting, experts say. "It's really focusing on a holistic approach," says Corak, who also runs Life Time's group weight-loss training program, TEAM Burn, which draws people ages 18 to 78.

Advances in exercise science that promote high-intensity interval training and strength-training over long stretches of cardio for fat and weight loss have helped, too. "It used to be, 'Work as hard as you can, burn as many calories as you can,'" Corak says. "Now it's more, 'Work smarter, not harder.'" 

Millennials also tend to more readily embrace the behavioral component of weight loss, Petakov of Noom finds. "That psychological awareness has been really resonating with people because they say, 'I was waiting for people to talk to me not just about the calories in and out, but rather: How do I feel? How do I get myself to stick to this? How do I make lifelong changes?" he says.

 

And again, technology can be as much of a help as it is a hindrance among this population. "Younger patients have the benefit of being more tech-savvy," and they grasp tools like FitBit with ease, finds Dr. Tyree Winters, an associate professor of pediatrics at Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine who specializes in weight loss and maintenance among young patients. 

Ultimately, though, the pillars of a healthy lifestyle – eating plenty of (but not only) vegetables, moving daily (but not obsessively), sleeping enough and managing stress – cut across ages, and the best methods to achieve it vary by person more than by age, experts say. While Petakov has seen over-65-year-olds lose weight and maintain it with Zoom (a virtual tool), for example, Zegar lost 60 pounds – and has kept it off – after enrolling in Weight Watchers the second time. Her advice? "You just have to start. Pick a day and commit to yourself that you're going to change your lifestyle." 

 

Source: By Anna Medaris Miller