Fiber May Reduce Endometrial Cancer Risk

Increasing your intake of plant foods and fiber products could help protect you from the most common gynecologic cancer.

Endometrial cancer is the most common female gynecologic cancer in the United States, and it usually affects postmenopausal women.

(The endometrium is the inner layer of the uterine wall.) Several risk factors have been established for this cancer, including obesity and the amount of lifetime exposure to estrogen. Now researchers at the Cancer Institute of New Jersey have looked at the effect of fiber intake on the risk of developing endometrial cancer. “Although dietary fiber has been shown to beneficially reduce estrogen concentrations and prevent obesity, its role in endometrial cancer has received relatively little attention,” the researchers noted.

After looking at previous studies on fiber and endometrial cancer risk, the scientists estimated a reduction in risk of endometrial cancer of about 30% for women with the highest fiber consumption compared with the lowest consumption. Dietary fiber can be obtained from plant foods (not animal foods), as well as from OTC fiber products.