The Flax Council of Canada is weeks away from launching a new website to promote its recently attained health claim from Health Canada.
The healthyflax.org website will tell consumers and health-care professionals about the proven benefits of eating flax.
The council announced in January that Health Canada had accepted its claim that eating ground whole flax can lower cholesterol.
“There are only 11 health claims that have been issued in Canada,” council president Don Kerr told Agri-Trend’s 2014 Farm Forum Event.
One of those is that eating oat bran reduces cholesterol, which has done wonders for the oat industry.
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“General Mills took that health claim and got everybody in the world, almost, to eat Cheerios,” said Kerr.
“It was a big advantage and a big opportunity for the oat market.”
He hopes the flax claim will have a similar impact once word gets out that eating five tablespoons of ground flax a day lowers blood cholesterol.
However, five tablespoons is a lot of ground flax, so the council’s message to consumers will be that eating two tablespoons, or 16 grams, a day supplies 40 percent of the amount of flax required to help lower cholesterol.
“That’s a little bit more practical for most consumers,” said Kerr.
“What I do is I put it in my yogurt, and it actually improves the taste.”
The council is developing four prototype products that offer consumers 13 grams of flax per serving. They are bread, muffins, dry smoothie mix and nutrition bars.
Kerr is also excited about research conducted by Grant Pierce, executive director of research at St. Boniface General Hospital in Winnipeg.
In his study, heart disease patients were fed 30 grams of milled flax each day over six months.
“These people were in bad shape. They had heart problems. They had cholesterol problems. They had plaque in their arteries,” said Kerr.
Patients on the flax diet lowered their systolic blood pressure, which is the top number in a blood pressure reading, by 10 millimetres of mercury and their diastolic blood pressure by seven mm. That is a better result than any of the top three blood pressure medications on the market.
High blood pressure, or hypertension, kills four times as many people as high cholesterol. An estimated 30 percent of Americans have high blood pressure, and half of women older than 60 take anti-hypertensive medication.
It would be a huge coup if the flax industry could get a health claim about lowering blood pressure, but Kerr said 30 grams is a lot of flax. More research is needed on the impact that eating lower amounts would have, but the council doesn’t have funding for that.
sean.pratt@producer.com
