Cheerios...not just for kids!

A study presented April 12 at the Experimental Biology Conference in San Diego, Calif., concludes that Cheerios breakfast cereal "can be useful in helping women manage their total and LDL cholesterol levels and is consistent with currently accepted recommendations for cholesterol management."

The clinical study was conducted by the University of Minnesota Heart Disease Prevention Clinic and shows that whole-grain oat Cheerios can help women fight heart disease by significantly lowering cholesterol.

"Women are underserved when it comes to heart disease research," said Helenbeth Reiss Reynolds, study co-author. "This study gives women an easily adopted daily regimen to help them lower cholesterol simply by incorporating Cheerios into their low-fat diet. I have several of my patients eating Cheerios daily, and their cholesterol levels have gone down."

Cheerios is unique in the grocery store since it is the only leading ready-to-eat breakfast cereal clinically proven to lower cholesterol, said study co-author Dr. Eric Gugger of the Bell Institute of Health and Nutrition, a research arm of General Mills.

"This is a clinical study-the gold standard for research-and it's nice to know that an American favorite such as Cheerios can be effective in helping women fight heart disease," Dr. Gugger said.

According to the American Heart Association, fewer than one in 10 women perceive heart disease as their greatest threat even though more than 500,000 women die from cardiovascular disease each year while approximately 260,000 women die from all cancers combined.

The study shows that women who ate 45 grams of Cheerios (approximately two bowls) a day significantly reduced total cholesterol levels by an average of 4.1 percent and LDL levels by 5.2 percent.

In theory, if everybody in America ate Cheerios as recommended in the study, then this significant statistical reduction even in the short term could lead to an estimated 24,000 lives saved per year.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota studied 54 women ages 40 to 70 years for a 12-week period. About half of the participants were given an unidentified whole-grain oat cereal (Cheerios) to eat daily, and the other half were given an unidentified corn flake cereal. On average, those who ate Cheerios achieved a significant reduction in blood cholesterol while those who ate the corn flakes did not.

"After I began eating Cheerios for the study, my cholesterol dropped by 40 points," said study participant D. White of Minneapolis, Minn. On average, participants in the study experienced more than a 10 point drop in total cholesterol.

The study boasted a high rate of compliance from those who participated, which is an indication that people had an easy time following the daily eating requirements. During the first six weeks of the study, participants were placed on a low-fat low-cholesterol diet, which is a routine part of this type of nutrition research, so that a baseline level of blood cholesterol could be determined for each individual. Once the baseline levels were recorded, Cheerios were provided to one group and corn flakes were provided to the other group. Even while on a low-fat, low cholesterol diet, those who ate the Cheerios had additional reductions in total blood cholesterol.

Cheerios and oatmeal are among the select foods that qualify for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration health claim that "as part of a heart-healthy diet, soluble fiber from whole-grain oats may reduce the risk of heart disease."

Stephanie Oakes is a fitness correspondent for Discovery Health Channel, a contributing editor for USA Weekend Magazine and the LA Times, and appears on NBC's 'Today in New York'. She can be reached at soakes@beststuff.com.