“Well, they won’t make you immortal, but short of that, oats are one of the best foods you can eat, particularly if your goal is to lower your cholesterol. David Jacobs, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, said he believes oats really do deserve a ‘thumbs up.’ Because they are hard to refine (they get so sticky that they gum up the machinery) most of the oat products available are whole grains, precisely the type of carbohydrate that nutritionists say we should eat more of. Jacobs and his team, in a 2007 study of more than 27,000 post-menopausal women followed for 17 years, concluded that eating whole grains such as oats was linked to a lower risk of death from diseases that are triggered by inflammation, including heart disease and diabetes. One of the reasons oats are so good for you is that they contain an ingredient called beta-glucan, a natural anti-inflammatory agent that suppresses the body’s production of certain cytokines.” (02/25/08)