(HealthDay News) — There is a significant inverse relationship between total dietary fiber intake and risk of colorectal adenoma (CRA), according to research published in the March issue of Gastroenterology.
Qiwen Ben, MD, of the Shanghai Jiaotong University in China, and colleagues conducted a meta-analysis of 20 case-control and cohort studies, involving 10,948 subjects with CRA. The researchers sought to assess the association between dietary fiber intake and risk of CRA.
“Reports on the association between dietary fiber intake and risk of CRA, the precursor of colorectal cancer, have been inconsistent. We conducted a meta-analysis of case-control and cohort studies to analyze this association,” they wrote.
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The researchers observed associations between high total dietary fiber intake and reduced risk of CRA in a high-intake versus low-intake analysis (summary relative risk [SRR], 0.72; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.63 to 0.83) and in a per 10 g/day-increase in fiber intake in a dose-response model (SRR, 0.91; 95% CI, 0.87 to 0.95).
For high intake versus low intake of fiber, subgroup analyses showed SRRs of 0.84 for fruit fiber (95% CI, 0.76 to 0.94), 0.93 for vegetable fiber (95% CI, 0.84 to 1.04), and 0.76 for cereal fiber (95% CI, 0.62 to 0.92).
“The results of this meta-analysis support the hypothesis that dietary fiber intake is associated inversely with the risk of CRA,” the researchers wrote.
