Researchers say women who eat foods high in fiber -- particularly from breakfast cereals -- are cutting their risk of coronary heart disease.
Writing in The Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers in Sweden and at Boston's Harvard Medical School say their study of more than 68,000 women over 10 years found "evidence that an increase in foods high in dietary fiber, especially cereal products, may be protective against CHD in women."
"This provides further reason to replace refined forms of starch with whole-grain products," study authors say. Women eating the highest amount of fiber in the study were found to cut their risk of coronary heart disease by 23 percent.
Fiber also reduces both total and low-density lipoprotein (LDL, the "bad") cholesterol. However, according to the authors, the magnitude of the cholesterol-lowering effect is believed to be relatively small, based on research on high doses of bran fiber.
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