art (03/23/83)
Reprint from Dallas Morning News: Dr. Roger Shewmake says you should do what your mama told you: Eat your oatmeal. Shewmake, as a result of studies at NTSU, is convinced that a bowl of oatmeal a day keeps cholesterol away, along with nasty fats that contribute to heart disease. Shewmake rounded up 10 volunteers willing to eat anything. But the only change he made in their typically American daily diets was to add about about 3 ounces of oatmeal. He said that, while some so-called "fiber" cereals list crude fiber as an ingredient, crude fiber mainly provide bulk. The kind of fiber he wants you to eat is called dietary fiber, and oatmeal's got it. Her's why Shewmake says you should eat oatmeal: Bile is stored in the gallbladder and, after a meal, it is released into the intestinal tract. After the bile has done its work of breaking down fats, about 90 percent is reabsorbed by the body - unless you eat dietary fiber, whick carries bile out of your system. That forces the liver to use fats and cholesterol to make more bile, thus reducing the amounts present in the bloodstream. And that's good news for the heart. He said "We had people who dropped from a count of 220 mean serum cholesterol to as low as 190, and triglyceride levels dropped by as much as half. Since the fiber also decreases you ability to absorb fats - which constitute 45 percent of the calories consumed in an American diet - it's very helpful to dieters, too.