Press Release - Oct 22, 2007

To listen to an interview with lead author Dr. Luc Djousse and Ira Dreyfuss, host of HHS HealthBeat from the US Department of Health and Human Services, click here.

Boston, MA - Luc Djousse, MD, MPH, DSc, and J. Michael Gaziano, MD, both of the Department of Aging, observed a 28 percent decrease in the risk of developing heart failure in people who ate whole-grain breakfast cereal seven or more times per week compared to those who ate refined cereal. Djousse presented this finding at the American Heart Association’s 47^th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention on March 2, 2007. These findings also appear in the October 22, 2007 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

In the US, foods considered “whole grain” contain 51 percent or more whole-grain ingredients per serving. In addition to the above finding, the researchers also observed a 22 percent decrease in heart failure risk in people who ate whole-grain cereal two to six times per week and a 14 percent decrease in those who ate whole-grain cereal up to once per week.

According to the researchers, if this data is confirmed by other studies, a healthy diet including whole-grains found in breakfast cereal and other foods, along with other measures like exercise and not smoking, may help reduce the risk of heart failure.

This research, apart of the Physicians’ Health Study, was supported by grants from the National Cancer Institute, and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.

For more information, contact BWH Media Relations at (617) 534-1600 or bwhmediarelations@partners.org.

Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) is a 747-bed nonprofit teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School and a founding member of Partners HealthCare System, an integrated health care delivery network. BWH is committed to excellence in patient care with expertise in virtually every specialty of medicine and surgery. The BWH medical preeminence dates back to 1832, and today that rich history in clinical care is coupled with its national leadership in quality improvement and patient safety initiatives and its dedication to educating and training the next generation of health care professionals. Through investigation and discovery conducted at its Biomedical Research Institute (BRI), BWH is an international leader in basic, clinical and translational research on human diseases, involving more than 800 physician-investigators and renowned biomedical scientists and faculty supported by more than $400M in funding. BWH is also home to major landmark epidemiologic population studies, including the Nurses' and Physicians' Health Studies and the Women's Health Initiative. For more information about BWH, please visit www.brighamandwomens.org.