White bread piles on pounds

White baguettes: bad news for the waistline

Eating white bread is the route to an expanding waistline, say scientists.

Researchers have found that the body breaks it down more rapidly than wholemeal bread, meaning it is more likely to end up as extra fat around the waist.

The calories from wholemeal bread, on the other hand, are less likely to appear around the midriff, a three-year study at the Tufts University, in Boston has found.

In the study of 459 healthy, middle-aged people, those who consumed the most white bread saw the biggest increases in their waist measurements.

The girth of white bread eaters increased by an average of half an inch a year - three times more than people who ate the most wholemeal.

Tufts Professor Katherine Tucker said: 'Waist circumference was very much associated with a high refined grains pattern.'

White bread, which accounts for 70 per cent of UK consumption, is defined as a 'refined grain' food because of the milling process.

Refining removes the fibre-rich bran and oil-rich germ, leaving the sweeter 'endosperm' - the white-coloured meat of the kernel.

Wholegrain bread is made from flour ground from the wholegrain and includes the outer husk, which is rich in fibre and the wheatgerm, which is rich in B vitamins.

Prof Tucker explained that eating white bread leads to more weight gain because of how easily the body can break down already-refined grains into simple sugars.

As sugars flood the body, insulin levels rise to help pull the sugars out of the bloodstream and deposit them in cells, often as fat. And the prime targets are fat cells in the abdomen, scientists believe.

Dr Kristen Newby, who led the study, said: 'I think abdominal fat cells may be more sensitive to the effects of insulin than other fat cells in the body.'

With wholemeal bread, the carbohydrates are broken down more slowly, over several hours, so there is no sudden flood of sugars into the bloodstream.

The more gradual process also makes people feel full for longer, effectively suppressing hunger pangs and reducing calorie intake from other foods.

Waist size is important for health, as well as for looks, with weight adding to the risk of heart disease.

Slice for slice, wholemeal bread contains almost four times as much fibre, more than three times as much zinc, and almost twice as much iron as white bread.

Dr Frankie Phillips, a nutrition scientist at the British Nutrition Foundation, said: 'Studies have linked a high intake of these foods to a lower incidence of some cancers and heart disease.'

The British Nutrition Foundation recommends four to five slices of bread a day, preferably wholemeal.

t.utton@dailymail.co.uk

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