What is the role of fibre in cancer prevention?

A recent study that followed a group of over 35-thousand women in the UK has shown that shown that premenopausal women who ate 30 grams of fibre per day had half the risk of breast cancer compared with women who ate only 20 grams. The fibre obtained from cereals, was particularly found to have more of a protective effect although, and the fibre from fruit was also potentially protective. In addition, high protein and low vitamin C intakes were also associated with increased breast cancer risk among premenopausal women.

The same benefit of fibre was not seen in postmenopausal women. The researchers suggest that it is possible that other factors such as body size or weight gain from early adult life to after the menopause may have an overriding impact and that this could explain why the protective effect was only menopausal hormone levels. Weight gain has been consistently shown to be related to increased risk of post-menopausal breast cancer. It is possible that because premenopausal women have higher estrogen levels, dietary fibre intake earlier in life may be more important for regulating female hormones and lowering breast cancer risk. The reasons behind the beneficial effect of fibre are thought involve the removal of excess hormones, carcinogens, and toxic compounds by fibre.