Eat Cereal for Blood Pressure?? What's next?

Hey, it's Marco! Here's a study only Cap'n Crunch could love: Researchers claim gobbling down bowl after bowl of cereal can help keep hypertension away. Sounds more like a cereal commercial than a study -- but researchers say their analysis of data on 13,368 male doctors who were tracked for more than 16 years found those who ate seven bowls of whole grain cereal a week had a 19 percent lower risk of hypertension than those who didn't. Docs who crunched and munched their way through between two and six bowls a week lowered their risk by 12 percent. But don't bother asking the real questions, like whether cereal eaters lived longer, had fewer chronic diseases, or better overall health -- because you won't find the answers in this study. Instead, you'll find researchers saying with a straight face that the benefits came from "whole grain" cereals rather than "refined" stuff. PUH-leaze... as if there's a difference.
Froot Loops, for example, now claims to be made with whole grains... and while this stuff is pure garbage no matter what grains they use, it actually has LESS sugar per cup than some of the whole grain organic granola cereals that are supposed to be so good for you. Forget the cereal, I'm more fascinated by something else in this study: There were 13,368 participants, and all of them were doctors. Over 16 years, 7,267 of them developed hypertension -- or 55 percent of them. These are seasoned medical professionals who probably give patients advice all day long about how to avoid high blood pressure... yet somehow, they couldn't avoid a hypertension diagnosis themselves? It's the surest sign yet that it's an overblown, overdiagnosed, and overtreated condition -- and no cereal in the world is going to change that. And a GREAT BIG THANK YOU to Dr. William Douglas!
http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/03/22/cereal.ward.off.hypertension/index.html