But in 2013, a group of researchers published the first double-blinded, randomized, placebo-controlled trial of oatmeal in overweight men and women.62 They found a significant reduction in liver inflammation in the real oatmeal group, but that may have been because they lost so much more weight than the controls (that is, the placebo-oatmeal eaters). Nearly 90 percent of the real-oatmeal-treated subjects had lost weight, compared with no weight loss, on average, among the control group.
