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Diabetics may benefit from adding bran to their diet

Category: General Health

Cholesterol tests have shown that individuals with type 2 diabetes often have certain risk factors for heart disease. But new research from the American Heart Association has shown that eating bran can help reduce some of these risk factors.

The study compared medical records to food questionnaires filled out for other research and found that diabetics who reported eating higher levels of bran were 35 percent less likely to die from cardiovascular disease.

Lead researcher, Lu Qi, said that diabetics often have a harder time controlling heart disease risk factors, and that adding bran to their diet could be a simple way to help solve this problem.

"Patients with diabetes face two to three times the risk of cardiovascular disease and premature death compared to the general population," he said. "These findings suggest a potential benefit of whole grain, and particularly bran, in reducing death and cardiovascular risk in diabetic patients."

Heart disease was listed as the cause of death for 68 percent of diabetics in 2004, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.