EATING more corn, lentils, peas, beans and other legumes can
reduce the risk of developing bowel cancer, research shows.
These foods are high in resistant starch, a type of fibre that
cannot be digested and instead passes through to the bowel where
it is fermented - which tends to be lacking in the Australian
diet. CSIRO Food Futures Flagship Dr David Topping said even
though Australians eat more dietary fibre than many other
western countries, bowel cancer was still the second most
commonly reported cancer - what he called the "Australian
paradox". "We have been trying to find out why Australians
aren't showing a reduction in bowel cancer rates and we think
the answer is that we don't eat enough resistant starch, which
is one of the major components of dietary fibre," Dr Topping
said of the findings published in the latest issue of The
Journal of Nutrition. "We studied various sources of resistant
starch, including corn and wheat, and the results suggest they
could all protect against DNA damage in the colon