High fibre breakfasts may have a big impact in protecting the health of heart attack survivors, researchers say today.
A new study links consumption of fibre in food to reduced risk of death after a heart attack.
But researchers found that people who ate high fibre breakfast cereals enjoyed the strongest protection.
The British Heart Foundation said the findings showed how "simple swaps" could boost health – such as switching wholegrain bread for white bread.
Senior dietician Victoria Taylor said: “We can’t say for sure what caused the fibre benefit seen here. But we do know that, on average, we’re not getting enough fibre in our diets.
“Fibre comes from a range of foods including fruit and veg, beans and lentils and also from cereal products, which this study found to be particularly beneficial."
Secondary prevention guidelines do not tend to make dietary recommendations due to the lack of clear evidence, say Dr Shanshan Li of Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, USA, and colleagues in the British Medical Journal.
They write: "The need for better lifestyle guidelines for survivors of myocardial infarction is profound, especially because a substantial drop in the fatality rate has increased the number of survivors."
For their research, the team used figures from long-term studies of 2,258 women and 1,840 men. All participants were free of cardiovascular disease at the start of the studies and survived a first heart attack during follow-up, after which they completed at least one food frequency questionnaire.
Higher fibre intake after heart attack was significantly linked with lower death from all causes combined. The risk of death was 25% lower for those in the top fifth for fibre intake versus those in the bottom fifth.
"Greater intake of breakfast cereal fibre was more strongly associated with all cause mortality than were other sources of dietary fibre," the team adds. Surprisingly, intake of fruit fibre, and vegetable fibre were not linked to mortality in this study.
They conclude that those who increased their average dietary fibre intake after a heart attack lowered their risk of subsequent all cause mortality. Equally, this group could represent those motivated to change their lifestyle in other ways that benefit their health.
Li, S. et al. Dietary fiber intake and mortality among survivors of myocardial infarction: prospective cohort study. BMJ 30 April 2014 doi: 10.1136/bmj.g2659 [abstract]
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