Wholegrains reduce heart disease risk by up to 40%

[calypso47]

Not only do whole grains provide basic nutrition in it's many
uses, it appears to also contain many substances such as fiber
etc. which relate directly to health risk:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=25073

[Tc]

All this really says is that whole grains is better or
healthier than refined grains. Generally, if you eat whole
grains you will not eat refined grains or you will eat less
refined grains.

It could also be argued that refined grains are healthier than
cyanide. It doesn't mean that refined grains are healthy, it
just means that they are healthier than a known poison.

This reminds me of the infamous chocolate cake study. In the
70's or the 80's someone proposed that potatoes did a number
on the blood glucose levels and the insulin levels. The
response was a study that compared a potatoes bg effects
against the bg effects of a slice of chocolate cake. When the
numbers showed that potatoes caused less of a blood glucose
spike than chocolate cake the supposed scientific-minded
author declared potatoes a healthy food.

One would think that in a field of science like nutrtition,
this kind of flim-flam wouldn't exist. Hey, it's supposed to
be science, which implies a sense of independent and a lack
of bias. Yet this kind of biased nonsense continues to
abound. And the scientific journals and the peer reviewers
seem to allow it to happen. I guess these guys have to make a
buck somehow.

TC

calypso47@voyager.net wrote:
> Not only do whole grains provide basic nutrition in it's
> many uses, it appears to also contain many substances such
> as fiber etc. which relate directly to health risk:
>
> http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=25073

[Montygram]

This kind of flim-flam is the exception, not the rule, but if
you understand the reason for the claims, it can be somewhat
helpful. Most people, however, are misled. My diet was all
whole grains, nuts, beans, seeds, with some fruit and
vegetables, and I almost died, because my body couldn't digest
food after a while. In general, except for fruit, the other
foods have anti-nutritiive qualities, and I don't eat them any
more, except for garnish or in small amounts, such as a bit of
tempeh (which is fermented, thus removing most of the
anti-nutritive qualities of soy). I now use a lot of organic
"white" pastry flour (with the germ). I make all my own grain
products, using coconut oil, organic sugar, baking soda, etc.
I don't bake at a high temperature, to avoid too much
acrylamide formation. And I don't use highly unsaturated oils
or cholesterol-containing foods (like eggs or butter) due to
the very unhealthy aspects of oxidation of these items. Some
of the benefits of whole grains may be their ability to sop up
the oxidation products and remove them from your body
undigested or partially digested, which would be a major
health benefit, but you could just avoid these food items and
eat the more tasty "white" flour products. If you don't break
it, you won't need to fix it, and that's one things these
"studies" rarely take into account.

To say that whole grains supply basic nutrition is not saying
much - do do all kinds of other things, inlcuding refined
flour products.

[Enrico C]

On 25 May 2005 12:19:27 -0700, TC wrote in
<news:1117048766.981993.22830@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> on
sci.med.nutrition :

> All this really says is that whole grains is better or
> healthier than refined grains.

I am not clear about that, because they just say: "compared
with those who rarely eat wholegrain foods. "

Anyway, if they actually mean "compared with refined grains
eaters", even that would be very interesting to lots of people
who eat grains!

> Generally, if you eat whole grains you will not eat refined
> grains or you will eat less refined grains.

True.

> It could also be argued that refined grains are healthier
> than cyanide.

They are indeed!

> It doesn't mean that refined grains are healthy, it just
> means that they are healthier than a known poison.

True. But refined grains are not poison, if you don't exceed
with them.

[Actually, *everything* is a poison, given the right amount].

> This reminds me of the infamous chocolate cake study. In the
> 70's or the 80's someone proposed that potatoes did a number
> on the blood glucose levels and the insulin levels. The
> response was a study that compared a potatoes bg effects
> against the bg effects of a slice of chocolate cake. When
> the numbers showed that potatoes caused less of a blood
> glucose spike than chocolate cake the supposed
> scientific-minded author declared potatoes a healthy food.

LOL :)

> One would think that in a field of science like nutrtition,
> this kind of flim-flam wouldn't exist. Hey, it's supposed to
> be science, which implies a sense of independent and a lack
> of bias. Yet this kind of biased nonsense continues to
> abound. And the scientific journals and the peer reviewers
> seem to allow it to happen. I guess these guys have to make
> a buck somehow.

That review on whole grains seems to me a different matter
from the potatoes and choco-cake study.

--
Enrico C

[calypso47]

"All this really says is that whole grains is better or
healthier than refined grains. Generally, if you eat whole
grains you will not eat refined grains or you will eat less
refined grains."

Support for such speculation is easy to confirm, can you
direct us to the research? Otherwise it is an exercise in
weak logic.

"It could also be argued that refined grains are healthier
than cyanide. It doesn't mean that refined grains are healthy,
it just means that they are healthier than a known poison."

Pick any commonlly consumed food and the above logic holds,
but is irrelevant. The study shows, and several other similar,
that consumption of whole grains has related health benefits,
neither of the above quips support anything else. Comperable
research to the contrary would show whole grains not different
or less beneficial while holding as many other nutritional
factors stable as possible. So for example showing that
replacing whole grains has less benefit when equal amounts of
yams for the same nutritional levels are substituded. Your
examples of this please?

"This reminds me of the infamous chocolate cake study. In the
70's or the 80's someone proposed that potatoes did a number
on the bloodglucose levels and the insulin levels. The
response was a study that compared a potatoes bg effects
against the bg effects of a slice of chocolate cake. When the
numbers showed that potatoes caused less of a blood glucose
spike than chocolate cake the supposed scientific-minded
author declared potatoes a healthy food."

Was that the one done by the strawman institute?

"One would think that in a field of science like nutrtition,
this kind of flim-flam wouldn't exist. Hey, it's supposed to
be science, which implies a sense of independent and a lack of
bias. Yet this kind of biased nonsense continues to abound.
And the scientific journals and the peer reviewers seem to
allow it to happen. I guess these guys have to make a buck
somehow." Support please in indepentantly done research by
recognised experts in evaluating quality of research methods
and practices and journal reporting in nutrition, as to level
of "flim flam"?

[DaveT]

calypso47@voyager.net wrote:

>Wholegrains reduce heart disease risk by up to 40%

My favorite pseudo-statistic: "Up to..."

The article itself is not much better: "...can have a 20 to 40
per cent lower risk..."

(I do choose whole grains myself...just objecting to the flaky
use of numbers.)