Wheat, Barley, or Oats? Which is Best for Health?

Whole-grain foods are at the bottom of the healthy food pyramid – meaning that they should figure largely in your diet. Eating whole-grains has been reported to improve the risk factors for coronary heart disease, so a natural question is, ‘which whole-grain?’

A meta-analysis reported in the Cochrane Database Systematic Review examined randomized controlled trials of whole-grains over 4 weeks on coronary heart disease and its risk factors. They found 10 studies that met the standards for inclusion in the meta-analysis. In 8 of these, the whole-grain component was oats. Overall, the total cholesterol and the low-density-lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol were lowered by 7.7 mg/dL and the LDL by 7.0 mg/dL. Clearly, these changes were dominated by the 8/10 studies that tested oat grains. It was noted by the authors that most of the studies were funded by companies with commercial interests in whole-grains. Maybe the oats suppliers invested more in showing the health of their product, and the other grain-farmers will catch on. Until then, it seems to be healthy enough to choose any whole-grain.