Science says: eating oatmeal makes you live longer

Breakfast is the absolute highlight of my day. That research shows that eating breakfast improves your mood surprises me not at all. ’In the evening in bed, I can already look forward to my morning meal, and I eat almost the same thing every day: pancakes. I make these with banana, oatmeal, eggs, and blueberries. Very simple but so delicious. Already looking forward to tomorrow.

Well, besides the fact that I become incredibly happy from this breakfast, it also seems to contribute to a long and healthy life. Scientists from Harvard have discovered that eating oatmeal has beneficial effects on our health in the long term. Well, that's of course great news. Sometimes I can already feel old, but that's really not necessary at all. 

How did they find this out? For this research, they followed more than 100,000 people for fourteen years, tracking their eating patterns and health status. Wow, to be followed for such a long time seems really awful to me. And then your health is also monitored; how do you mean suffocating? Well, at the beginning of the study (in 1984), everyone was healthy, but by the end (in 2010), 26,000 participants had passed away.

What turned out? The participants who ate the most oatmeal seemed better protected against heart and vascular diseases. The researchers concluded that eating 28 grams of oatmeal daily is enough to reduce the risk of heart failure by 9 percent and lower it by 5 percent. Well, I'm doing really well. Should I hit that hundred if I keep going steadily with this breakfast? I assume so.

Only that number of grams doesn't sit well with me: 28 grams is not even two tablespoons, I easily exceed that daily with my pancakes. Would that matter? The more, the better you would say, right?

sources: jamanetwork, gezondheidsnet