Eat more fibre to live longer

Eat more fibre to live longer

From: Mind Your Body of the Straits Times, Mar 3, 2011, Thursday

Health bite
=====================================

A team led by Dr Yikyung Park, a staff scientist at the National Cancer Institute, studied almost 400,000 people and found a strong link between a high-fibre diet and a longer life.

In 1995 or 1996, participants aged 50 to 71 filled in a questionnaire on how often they ate 124 food items. Nine years later, 20,126 men and 11,330 women among them had died. National records were used to find out their cause of death.

The study found that those who ate a diet rich in whole grains, fruit and vegetables (adding up to 29g of fibre per day for men and 26g for women) were 22 per cent less likely to die after nine years than those who ate the least fibre (13g and 11g per day).

Those in the high-fibre group were also less likely to die of cardiovascular, infectious and respiratory diseases. Fewer men on a high-fibre diet died of cancer, but this link was not found in women.

Dr Park said the team found that fibre has anti-inflammatory properties and grains are also rich in beneficial vitamins, minerals and chemicals.

The researchers noted that people who ate more fibre were generally healthier, more educated and more physically active to begin with, but the study, which was published in the Archives Of Internal Medicine, adjusted for these differences.

In 2003, the Health Promotion Board developed dietary guidelines which advised adult Singaporeans to eat more whole grains such as rolled oats, brown rice and bread.

The New York Times