Fiber, dietary associations with disease processes

Fruit and vegetable fiber has been consistently associated with a lower risk of colon cancer, but the relationship with cereal fiber is less clear. However, whole grain cereals appear to be protective—a further anomaly in the relationships between plant foods and disease risk. These discrepancies may be in the process of resolution. First, it seems that the early observational data were confounded by the analytical technologies available, and the perception that native populations consuming unrefined diets had high fiber intakes is incorrect. It seems likely that they ate relatively little fiber but had high intakes of RS. Population studies have shown a protective effect of apparent RS intake and colorectal cancer risk. The word apparent is pivotal because there is currently no accepted method for RS determination and thus, there are no reliable data on dietary intakes. There are also issues regarding the intakes of dietary fiber and cancer risk. Part of the problem inherent in the study of colonic cancer is that, in contrast to CHD (in which there are easily measurable risk markers such as plasma cholesterol that can be modified by diet), the only indices for colon cancer are not easily measurable ... 

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