alt Hacker NewsIt's well known that an oatmeal diet lowers cholesterol (the article itself cites a 1907 'oat cure' in its intro). The new finding here is insight into the exact mechanism- a short-term, high-dose oatmeal diet (300g/day for two days) had significantly greater LDL-lowering effect than a medium-term, moderate-dose oatmeal diet (80g/day for six weeks), and they associated the difference with increases in several plasma phenolic compounds triggered by specific changes in the gut microbiome.
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300g is a lot of oatmeal.
I eat Bob's Red Mill steel cut oats for breakfast every day; 1/2c dry is about 88g. That's a pretty decent meal. 3.5x that is probably most of what you eat that day.
Part of the effect is caused by the heavy calorie restriction as the control group also saw LDL lowering but less.
Indeed they suggest that the difference may be due to changes in gut microbiome caused by oatmeal.
What does the practical implementation of this look like? One 'oatmeal-day' a week ? Two?