Breast Cancer Risk Lowered by High Fiber Intake

A high intake of dietary fiber is imperative for women wanting to lower their risk of developing breast cancer. Compared to women who consumed less fiber, those who consumed more demonstrated an 11% lower risk of developing breast cancer, according to a study in The American Journal of Clinical Nutritions.

In view of their findings, the authors urged that a high dietary fiber intake is apparently linked to better overall health besides reducing breast cancer risk.

The authors explained that although previous studies suggested that fiber intake reduces breast cancer risk, their results were inconclusive.

All through January 2011, data on published studies from the Pubmed database were collected by Jia-Yi Dong and team from the Department of Nutrition and Food Hygiene, School of Radiation Medicine and Public Health, Soochow University, Suzhou, China. The researchers examined a total of 10 prior studies which focused on women’s diets and cancer risk from 7 to 18 years.

Nearly 16,848 (2.4%) of the total 712,195 women developed breast cancer. Researchers found that compared with women who consumed less fiber, the ones who ate the most fiber were 11% less likely to have breast cancer. Variables such as alcohol consumption, hormone replacement therapy (HRT), family history of breast cancer, and body weight that could affect results were already factored for.

Jia-Yi Dong wrote that various factors protected high fiber eaters from breast cancer and that they generally have healthier habits and better lifestyles.

In the USA, approximately 1 out of every 8 women develops breast cancer and nearly 20% -25% of them are consumed by the disease.

To conclude, the researchers said: “This meta-analysis provides evidence of a significant inverse dose-response association between dietary fiber intake and breast cancer risk.”