Do you start off your morning with a nice big bowl of a whole grain cereal? Then pat yourself on the back because you may be helping to prevent high blood pressure. Tests by the American Heart Association now says that eating cereal every morning can cut the risk of high blood pressure by up to 20 percent.

Cereal is a low cost and easy item to add to your diet that has fiber and no saturated fats added. If you add in some nuts, or fruit, it adds even more nutrients and fiber, as well as blood pressure lowering potassium. Plus, most whole grain cereals with some added low fat milk are less than 300 calories.

The study showed that people who had at least one bowl of cereal a week had a seven percent lower chance of getting high blood pressure. If you added another serving, it went up to 11 percent, and those who ate it every day the risk dropped to 19 percent. Whereas out of people in the study who didn’t ever eat cereal, more than half got high blood pressure over the course of the 17 year study. The study didn’t mention the brand name of the cereal, but the whole grain varieties were said to have better results.

The group plans to do more testing to see if women may benefit in the same way as the men in the study. Previous studies of whole grain products do show women get benefits of heart protection, but the studies with cereal can only be related to men at this point in time.