Cereal consumption and indicators of cardiovascular risk in adolescent girls.

OBJECTIVE

To examine the association between cereal consumption and cardiovascular risk factors including waist, height, total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol and HDL cholesterol in a sample of adolescent girls.

DESIGN

Longitudinal study.

SETTING

The study was conducted from 1987 to 1997 and data were collected at three study sites (University of California at Berkeley, University of Cincinnati and Westat Inc., Rockville, MD, USA). Mixed models were used to estimate the association between the number of days of eating cereal and these four outcome variables.

SUBJECTS: Girls (n 2371) who participated in the 10-year National Heart, Lung, and Blood Growth and Health Study (NGHS) and completed a 3 d food diary in years 1-5 and 7, 8 and 10.

RESULTS

Adolescent girls who ate cereal more often had lower waist-to-height ratio (P<0.005), lower total cholesterol (P<0.05) and lower LDL cholesterol (P<0.05), taking into account sociodemographic variables, physical activity levels and total energy intake.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings suggest that cereal consumption is associated with markers of cardiovascular risk and that childhood patterns of consumption may influence the development of risk factors later in adolescence.