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Meta-analysis shows dietary fiber intake lowers risk for gastric cancer
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Intake of dietary fiber is inversely associated with the risk for gastric cancer, according to a recent meta-analysis of case control and cohort studies.
Researchers also concluded that the effect “probably is independent of conventional risk factors,” although the absolute magnitude of the protective association was less definite due to heterogeneity in the research analyzed.
“Dietary fiber intake in the United States is around 15 g per day, which is only half the recommended amount,” the investigators wrote.
The analysis included 21 PubMed and Embase studies covering 580,064 participants through October 2012. Researchers performed dose-response, subgroup, sensitivity, meta-regression, and publication bias analyses, using random-effects models to estimate summary relative risks.
Overall, the highest compared with the lowest dietary fiber intake pooled OR was 0.58 (95% CI, 0.49-0.67), with heterogeneity among studies (I²=62.2%; P<.001). Using dose-response meta-analysis, researchers equated a daily increase of 10 grams fiber intake with a statistically significant 44% reduction in gastric cancer risk (OR=.56; 95% CI, 0.45-0.71).
“Because of potential bias and confounding, these results should be considered with caution,” the researchers concluded. “Future studies should use standardized fiber intake collection strategy.”
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