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Studies show conclusively that eating more fibre in your diet - especially grains, fruits and cereals - will signficantly lower your risk of developing colorectal cancer. Ever since a British surgeon in Africa noted that bulky bowel movements were associated with a low risk of colon cancer, fibre has been on the preventive menu. There's something quite anal - to abuse Freud - about fibre cleansing you out, isn't there? But in fact the evidence is mixed that fibre reduces bowel cancer risk. When it's been tested in a blinded trial, the benefit didn't seem to be there. By the way, no-one's questioning the good of fibre for your heart. Now a group has reported findings from the food habits of 34,000 people being screened for bowel cancer. People with the highest fibre intake - about 36 grams per day - had under three quarters the risk of the polyps from which cancers are thought to arise. The benefits seemed to come from grains, cereals and fruits rather than vegetables or beans and didn't seem to work for the rectum -the low bowel just before poo sees daylight. A companion study of over half a million people has made similar findings but observed that all kinds of fibre worked. They calculated if people on low fibre diets doubled their intake they'd nearly halve their bowel cancer risk. So keep grinding your teeth on that fibre.
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