Nutrition Talk 2 - A Survivor's Take: Amazing Oat Bran

My journey to creating Smarter Cookies began in mid 2006 with a high cholesterol diagnosis. My overall number was 244. I had been on chemotherapy for a year, following radiation therapy and steroids. My doctor wanted to set me up on Zocor. I didn’t want to do that because I was concerned about my liver. I figured with all of the medications I had been on, I didn’t want to add another pill from a family of drugs that is known for liver-related disclaimers - and a litany of others as well. Since nothing in my spirit and what I had physically experienced lead me to feel I would be dying any time soon, I decided to avoid unnecessary threats to my body.

I don’t remember the first time I learned about Oat Bran’s cholesterol reducing properties. My mother had elevated cholesterol, so maybe that was why I paid attention. It was over 20 years ago when reports began coming out about how oats and oat bran can help to reduce cholesterol. Then in the mid 90’s a clinical trial with faulty parameters sullied oat bran and whole oat’s justly earned cholesterol reducing reputation. The subjects of this study were all in peak physical condition and none of them had particularly elevated cholesterol to begin with. So, based on this JAMA published study, the pendulum took it’s swing and oat bran fell out of favor. The fact that this happened historically after and during a fairly long and expensive campaign by Merck promoting it’s new line of Statin drugs is rather intriguing.

So, here are the facts I found in an abstract of a study published in 1991 in JAMA, The Journal Of The American Medical Association. In, brief, because a link to the abstract is provided below, the 6 week study provided subjects with six different daily quantities of oat products and a control group that was given farina. The most effective level of consumption for reduction in LDL Cholesterol was 56 gm (2 oz) of oat bran, with an overall 15.9% reduction of LDLs. Oat Bran Study Abstract link


That’s a huge drop in 6 weeks! Considering this is the equivalent of a half a serving size of oatmeal, it seemed worth trying to me.

So, I began adding oat bran to my diet. Down on the right side of Smarter Cookies website you can see a table of results of me adding oat bran and grape seed oil (Another day’s blog) to my diet. During my second year of chemo, my overall cholesterol dropped over 12 %. Cholesterol Drop Table - scroll down look right.

Since I am not the type of person who eats oatmeal for breakfast every day, I began looking for other places I could add oat bran to my diet. Here are some of my favorite things to add Oat Bran to: Smarter Cookies, Oatmeal (½ & ½ works well), Fruit Crisp Topping, Pancakes, Granola, Baklava, Anything made with Ground Meat or Textured vegetable protein, Soups, Stews, Breads and Muffins.
My philosophy has been to find good places to use it as filler. Doing this makes it pretty easy to consume therapeutic levels of Oat Bran.

Oat bran is very nutritious. It is a great source of soluble fiber, trace minerals, protein, and B Vitamins. Here is a synopsis from EHow.com that among other things references results from as different study that show a 3% drop in 4-6 weeks.

http://www.ehow.com/about_5147122_oat-bran-nutrition-information.html

If you are the person who likes to research things yourself, there are probably thousands of articles like these available through google.

About Smarter Cookies and Oat Bran:

http://www.lemons-to-lemonade.com/smartercookies.html

Every Moist delicious Smarter Cookie contains over 8gm of Oat Bran. This is just one of the cholesterol reducing and nutritionally savvy ingredients in our delicious low Glycemic Index cookies. Other studies I have read note, for instance, that whole grain flours, like the one we use in Smarter Cookies have cholesterol-reducing properties that work most effectively when combined with Oat Bran.

Cancer Survivors and Warriors, this discussion of Oat Bran is relevant to you because Oat Bran is rich in fiber. Fiber, when combined with carbohydrates in baked goods like Smarter Cookies is what keeps Glycemic Index down. Here is a link to a previous blog on how Glycemic Index is determined. The idea is to keep your blood sugar from spiking because sugar feeds cancer. Yet another good reason to enjoy whole grains and foods that are rich in fiber.

I hope you enjoyed this Nutrition Talk Blog about Oat Bran. Please share it with anyone you think will benefit from it.