Do you consider yourself a refined individual? In that context, “refined” has a positive connotation suggesting a lack of impurity and an evolved, civilised sensibility. Context, however, is everything. Put “refined” into the setting of foods like sugars and grains and you get into decidedly negative territory as has been highlighted in a new study showing that unrefined grains will lower your disease risk for major diseases and in the process prolong your life.
The study involved a meta-analysis by Harvard researchers of 12 studies conducted between 1970 and 2010 in countries including the United States, United Kingdom and Scandinavian countries. In all the studies included health information gathered from 786,076 people.
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The analysis revealed that people who ate 70 grams (about four servings) of whole grains per day compared to those who ate little or no whole grains, had a 22 per cent lower risk of dying during the study overall. Specifically, this broke down to a 23 per cent lower risk of cardiovascular mortality and a 20 per cent lower risk of cancer mortality.
According to the researchers, these effects of whole grains could be due to a number of bioactive compounds in whole grains as well as fibre that act to lower cholesterol production, reduce the glucose response and increase satiety.
The kinds of foods you want to be including in your diet then are foods like bran, oats and quinoa. When it comes to grains in your diet, it is kind of like our legal system: you want the grain, the whole grain and nothing but the grain.
