Cholesterol and heart disease prevented by whole grain diet, Australian study says

• A new report from Australia's leading scientific research body suggests that a diet high in wholegrain foods can keep heart disease, and the need for prescription drugs, at bay.
• A CSIRO review of international studies suggests this diet can reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke by up to 40 per cent.
• As Liz Foschia reports, that's comparable to the effects of the most powerful cholesterol-lowering drugs on the market.
• Alan Barclay: There's a whole range of evidence from research going back many years now, showing that they can protect us from a whole range of diseases that are common in our society such as cancers, cancer of the stomach or bowel, even the breast and prostate cancer.
• Liz Foschia: There was also some evidence that a diet consisting of wholegrains could be beneficial for those at risk of heart disease.
• Peter Clifton: What we've done, we've looked all the data relating to health outcomes -- particularly deaths in relation to dietary intake.
• And the dietary intake was focused on wholegrains and refined grains to see whether there was any strong relationship between, you know, increased consumption of wholegrains and death from heart disease and stroke, and there was.
• Liz Foschia: What he found was that a person who ate wholegrain foods regularly could decrease their risk of heart disease and stroke by between 20 to 40 per cent.
• Liz Foschia: Wholegrain foods cover wholemeal breads, breakfast cereals and oats, brown rice and wholemeal pastas.
• Peter Clifton: Three serves a day, and a serve really is somewhere between 30 and 45 grams of cereal, and two slices of bread.
• Some of them bind cholesterol in the bowel, and therefore help us to get rid of extra cholesterol from body.