To suggest that a high fibre diet may lower risk of dying from most of the leading causes of death is quite a statement. However, that is exactly what the U.S. National Cancer Institute's (NCI) Dr Yikyung Park and colleagues from AARP and the NCI are saying. They don't pull any punches, either, but say that over a nine year period, a fibre-rich diet was linked with a reduction of the risk of death from all natural causes.
About the Study
The study, published in the online edition of the Archives of Internal Medicine, outlines a study that includes data collected from a total of 388,000 men and women. Of those, the 20% whose diets were richest in fibre were 22% less likely to die than the 20% whose diets contained the least amount of fibre. Diseases that a high fibre diet can help prevent include:
- Cancer: While the report stressed "some" cancers and did not specify which ones, the fact that a high fibre diet may reduce your risk of cancer in general should be enough to make the necessary dietary changes sooner rather than later.
- Fibre-rich diets reduce the risk of dying from respiratory, cardiovascular and infectious diseases by 34 to 59 percent in women and 24 to 56 percent in men.
- Park and his associates were confident in their conclusions and noted that: "The findings remained robust when we corrected for dietary intake measurement error using calibration study data; in fact, the association was even stronger with measurement error correction."
The researchers also noted in their background information that high fibre diets have been thought to lower the risk of diseases such as diabetes and obesity for decades. In addition, fibre helps regulate bowel movements, lowers cholesterol, improves blood glucose levels and promotes weight loss. In other words, a diet rich in fibre can improve your health and lengthen your life.
Park and his colleagues define fibre-rich diets as those that include fruits, vegetables and whole grains that resist digestion and recommend a diet that includes fourteen grams of fibre for every one thousand calories.
We have been encouraged to increase our intake of high fibre foods for years, but the temptations of fast and processed foods can be difficult to overcome. Studies like this, which offer such overwhelming evidence of the value of a high fibre diet can go a long way towards giving us the motivation to improve our diets for longer, healthier lives.
Originally published on Mar 07, 2011
