SCOTWISE: A Spoonful Of Porridge Keeps The Cholesterol Under Control!

Porridge is in the news again, and it’s a timely wee reminder of how good it is! Trust the Scot’s to keep you healthy…

Doctor Johnson proposed to define the word ‘oats’ thus: ‘A grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.’ And I replied: ‘Aye, and that’s why England has such fine horses, and Scotland such fine people.’ – James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., ch. 14 (1791)

FOR hundreds of years it has been a staple of the Scots diet with generations reared on its health-giving properties. But the humble bowl of porridge was endorsed as a health food from an unusual source yesterday - the UK's advertising standards watchdog.

The ASA, the body which deals with complaints about advertising, has endorsed a claim by porridge maker Quaker Oats that the hot breakfast cereal can help the body remove harmful cholesterol, which can lead to blocked arteries and heart attacks.

The ruling came after a TV viewer challenged a claim in a commercial for Quaker Oats that it contained a "soluble fibre called beta glucan which naturally helps to remove cholesterol from the body". Quaker claimed the blood cholesterol lowering properties of oats were well documented and pointed out that health claims for oats lowering blood cholesterol had been approved in the UK, US and Sweden.

Quaker explained that one of the major uses of cholesterol in the body was in the synthesis of acids in the liver, which were secreted as bile into the intestine where they were used to help digest fat. The bile acids are mostly re-absorbed from the lower intestine and then recycled to the liver.

Quaker said oats contained a soluble fibre called beta glucan which attaches to bile acids in the intestine and resulted in a greater than normal excretion from the body. Cholesterol in the body was then used to make new bile acids in the liver, so helping to lower cholesterol levels in