HHS HealthBeat (January 26, 2006)

Does fiber help?

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I'm Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Eat lots of fiber, and you could lower your risk of colorectal cancer. Some studies have indicated that, anyway. Trouble is, other studies, some of which had tighter designs, showed no benefit. Which leaves folks in a quandary – do fruit, vegetables and oat bran really help?

To try to separate the whole wheat from the chaff, researchers combined data from 13 studies covering more than 725,000 people. Their work, which was supported by the National Institutes of Health, was in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Stephanie Smith-Warner of the Harvard School of Public Health:

"We found that eating a high-fiber diet was not associated with a lower risk of colorectal cancer." (five seconds)

But the researchers say lots of fiber is still good for you – among other things, it reduces the risk of heart disease and diabetes.

Learn more at www.hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: August, 15 2006