Word: oat
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Well-intentioned as it may be, the A.H.A. is stepping into a quagmire by trying to serve as a dietary oracle. Too often scientific ground shifts, and today's notion of sound nutritional advice becomes tomorrow's myth. The latest case in point: oat bran. Two years ago, the high-fiber grain was elevated to alimentary sainthood after a few studies showed that people who ate a diet rich in the stuff enjoyed a significant drop in their cholesterol levels. Doctors began recommending the grain to patients, and food manufacturers rushed to add it to everything from muffins to tortilla...
Last week the halo slipped. According to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine, oat bran has no special power to reduce cholesterol levels. In fact, it works no better than low-fiber grains and causes more bloating and diarrhea than some. In a study performed at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Dr. Frank Sacks and colleagues randomly switched 20 healthy men and women between two six-week diets: one contained 100 grams of oat bran daily, the other 100 grams of low-fiber wheat. Cholesterol levels dropped an average 7.5% -- no matter the diet...
Winningest Products. Good things came in small sizes: Chicken McNuggets, Chrysler minivans, 3M's Post-it notes. Health was hot: Nike Air shoes, oat bran and Diet Coke. But old reliables stole the show: Waring blenders, fountain pens, Etch A Sketches, convertibles, suspenders and condoms...
...world's great culinary traditions. But miraculously the meal remains a monument to pre-microwave American cooking. Not even McDonald's has had the audacity to create McTurkey, nor does Domino's deliver cranberry pizza. So too are the food faddists outflanked, as sun-dried tomatoes, imported chevre and oat-bran anything give way to overstuffed lassitude...
...American Medical Association. Certainly, many people have an overly simplistic view of the relationship between diet and heart disease. Observes Dr. Allan Brett, an assistant professor at the Harvard Medical School: "Some patients have been led to believe that lowering cholesterol is like magic: eat a bowl of oat bran, and you're cured. For most, that's not true...