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Dietary Fiber and its Effect on Cancer Incidence

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Chemical Induction of Cancer

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Abstract

Dietary fiber has been defined as plant cell wall material which is not degraded by human endogenous intestinal secretions. Hipsley (1) coined the term dietary fiber to describe the unavailable carbohydrate present in plant foods. However, the number of substances which are described as fiber keeps increasing. The cell wall components of plants are cellulose, hemicellulose, pectin, and lignin. The last of these is the only one which is not a carbohydrate. We now regard nonstructural cell wall contents such as carrageenans as fiber, and this designation has been extended to include other nonstructural components such as mucilages (guar gum, locust bean gum) and exudates (gum arabic, gum ghatti, gum karaya). Other materials which could come under the designation of fiber are naturally occurring substances such as resistant starch, Maillard products, cutins, waxes, and tannins and manufactured materials like lactulose or polydextrose. Fiber is also loosely classified as insoluble (cellulose, lignin, some hemicelluloses) and soluble (pectins, gums, mucilages, algae polysaccharides, some hemicelluloses). Insoluble fibers are poorly fermented by the gut microflora, whereas soluble fibers are highly fermented. Fermentation of fiber yields water, carbon dioxide, methane, hydrogen, and short-chain fatty acids (SCFA), principally acetic, propionic, and butyric acids. The SCFA may be reabsorbed and are of physiologic import. In 1982 the definitions and terminology of dietary fibers were summarized by Southgate (2a).

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Authors
  1. David Kritchevsky
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., 20460, USA

    Joseph C. Arcos , Mary F. Argus  & Yin-tak Woo ,  & 

  2. Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, LA, 70112, USA

    Joseph C. Arcos  & Mary F. Argus  & 

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© 1995 Birkhäuser Boston

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Kritchevsky, D. (1995). Dietary Fiber and its Effect on Cancer Incidence. In: Arcos, J.C., Argus, M.F., Woo, Yt. (eds) Chemical Induction of Cancer. Birkhäuser Boston. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-4076-1_17

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-4076-1_17

  • Publisher Name: Birkhäuser Boston

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-8640-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4612-4076-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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