Cereals and whole grains: eat up cancer risk

Three meals with whole grain products per day, and you can reduce the risk of colorectal cancer by almost a fifth. Legumes also appear to protect against colorectal cancer, other vegetables and fruit less so.

Healthy food is worth it. Seem favorable three meals with about 90 g whole grain per day.

LONDON. Whether a high-fiber diet protects against colon cancer, it will be hotly debated for several years.

Some studies showed a reduction in cancer risk of up to 40 percent with a high fiber content, but there have been meta-analysis, which came to no significant effects.

A team led by Dr. Dagfinn Aune from London, has now once again combed the existing literature for studies on colon cancer and dietary fiber and has come across 25 prospective studies involving a total of over 1.8 million people participated, of which over 3.5 inspected up to 17 years for colorectal cancer (BMJ 2011; 343: d6617, 10:11 Epub 2011.) were.

Three meals a day

Across all studies averaged a not too large, but at least it showed significant benefit for a high proportion of dietary fiber in the diet.

With most effective in cancer prevention diet it seemed to be at least three meals, which contained about 90g whole grain per day.

In people with such a diet was the colon cancer rate 17 percent lower on average than in those who largely dispensed with whole grains.

This reduction affected equally colon and rectal cancer, the analysis of seven studies.

Fiber from legumes

In four studies the influence of dietary fiber from legumes was investigated. For participants who ate a lot of them, the rate of colorectal cancer by 11 percent was lower than in those who are not liked legumes.

Finally, it was also seen in nine studies, which have influence of fiber from vegetables and other fruits. Here there was little difference in cancer rates between groups with high and low consumption.

From these data the authors attempted meta-analysis of dose-response relationship to calculate, namely, to what percentage of a dose of 10g per day of each dietary fiber reduces the risk of colorectal cancer.

10 grams for 10 percent less?

Under the assumption that there is indeed a causal relationship can therefore reduce each 10g of fiber of any kind the risk by 10 percent.

These fibers originate from pulses, it would reduce the calculations to 10g per the risk by 38 percent, fiber from cereals by 10 percent, up 7 percent from fruit and other vegetables from by only 2 percent.

For comparison: on average, every German eats about 23 grams of fiber per day.One slice of wholemeal bread contains about 4g, a banana and a carrot 3g 3g. 30g of dietary fiber have to eat about 200 g of whole grain bread or 100 grams of fruit and vegetables.

However, this analysis is to be treated with caution. In the studies examined the diet was often only at the beginning and not continuously recorded, most figures are based on subjective information also participants in the questionnaires, so that it can continue to be discussed, how much fiber contribute to colorectal cancer prevention.