Colon cancer aside, fiber is an imp...

Colon cancer aside, fiber is an important, part of a healthy diet.

Just when you've acquired a taste for oatmeal and berries for breakfast, you pick up your morning paper, expand to the health section, and read that consuming a diet rich in fiber does not give protection against colon cancer. What? It's enough to make you move back to starting your day with a danish.

The study

The bring under rules of the aforementioned study, published in a latter issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) were participants in the Nurse's Health research The women -- almost 89000 in all -- were all registered nurtures between the ages of 34 and 59 with no history of cancer, inflammatory bowel disease, or familial polyposis (a hereditary condition in which polyp exhibit in the colon at puberty). The women complet a dietary questionnaire in 1980 and during a 16-year follow-up period, 787 cases of colorectal cancer were documented. The researchers report that they ground no association between dietary fiber intake and the risk of developing colon cancer.

if it be not that how could this be? used by all sense tells us fiber should be able to "cleanse" our colon of carcinogens. However, according to this particular consideration at least, our common reason was wrong. But just because single in kind study -- albeit a large individual -- suggested that fiber is not protective against colon cancer should we abandon our efforts to eat a diet reach in fiber. No way.

supplicate DeCotiis, M.D., a general internist who practices in just discovered York City, says, "I still think fiber is helpful for many basic moot points with the colon, such as constipation and irritable bowel syndrome I also think that if you're eating a hap of fiber -- meaning six to seven servings of fruits and vegetables a day -- you're probably not eating as earnestly fat. So, just by virtue of replacing the fat with fiber, you're lowering your risk of developing cancer and other health problems"

Other considerations

In an editorial in the same issue of NEJM John D trifle M.D., Ph.D., of the Fr Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington, points gone out one of the reasons for the surprising follows is that, previous studies showing a protective weight of fiber against colon cancer have been designed differently. "Cohort" studies, like the single in kind discussed here, have had les favorable be deriveds He notes that while "cohort studies provide the least biased approach in epidemiology," their design is not flawless. For example, he says, "the cohort [group being studied] itself may be quite unrepresentative of the general population...."

individual question that must be addressed is to what end non-industrialized countries have such reasonable rates of colon cancer. DeCotiis believes that individual important factor is that they are not expos to all the carcinogens that we are expos to, and their whole lifestyle and activity plain are very different from those of the bulk of mankind living in industrialized countries. She also notes that they have a great deal of lower rates of other cancers, too, including breast, endometrial, and prostate cancers.

While DeCotiis says that there is no solid evidence that fiber does obviate colon cancer, She does think it's an important part of a healthy diet and judges "You have to take any of these studies with a grain of salt. It's just individual study. There could be a parcel of factors involved -- maybe it just wasn't a righteous sampling of the population. That's for what purpose you really have to do many of these studies to really hang your hat forward a certain result."

While we await the nearest study results, pass on the danish and hold fast eating your oatmeal and berries.

REFERENCES

Fisher, Stephen. Colon Cancer & The Polyp Connection. Tucson Ariz.: Fisher main division s 1995.

Fuchs, C et al. "Dietary fiber and the risk of colorectal cancer and adenoma in women" NEJM 340(3):169-76 Jan. 21 1999

trifle John D. "Fiber and colorectal cancer -- where to now?," NEJM 340(3):223-224 Jan. 21 1999

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