Dietary fiber from all food sources cuts ischemic heart disease death risk

By Jimmy Downs

Friday Spet 14, 2012 (foodconsumer.org) -- Prospective studies have shown an inverse association between dietary fibre intake and risk of ischemic heart disease mortality.  But a new study in European Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggests that the sources of dietary fiber make no difference in the risk reduction.

F L Crowe of Cancer Epidemiology Unit, Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK ad colleagues conducted the study and found each 10 grams of dietary fiber per day regardless of its source or the type of food that provides the fiber was correlated with a 15 percent reduced risk for ischemic heart disease death.

The study was meant to examine whether dietary fiber from various food sources differ in their effect in ischemic heart disease risk and try to establish the association between the total and food sources of dietary fiber with ischemic heart disease death risk in the subjects participating in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition-Heart  study.

A total of 306 331 men and women from eight European countries were enrolled in the study. Dietary fibre intake was estimated using center or country-specific diet questionnaires and standardized as a 24-h diet recall.

During an average 11.5 years of follow-up, 2381 ischemic heart disease deaths were recorded among participants without cardiovascular disease at baseline. The researchers found all food sources of dietary fiber were associated with reduced risk of ischemic heart disease death and each 10 grams per day was correlated to a 15 percent reduction in the risk of death from ischemic heart disease.

For specific fiber sources, each 5 g/day higher cereal fiber was linked to 9 percent reduction, each 5 g/day fruit fiber intake was linked to 6 percent reduction and each 2.5 g/day vegetable fibre intake was associated with 10 percent reduction in the risk of dying from ischemic heart disease.

The researchers concluded " A higher consumption of dietary fibre is associated with a lower risk of fatal IHD (ischemic heart disease) with no clear difference in the association with IHD for fibre from cereals, fruits or vegetables."