The #1 Food To Lower Your Colon Cancer Risk — Transcript

So, colon cancer is one of the most common cancers in the world, and really concerningly, it's now rising really fast in younger people as well. But it's also one of the few cancers where what you put on your plate has a real and powerful say in whether you actually develop it. In fact, the evidence suggests that close to half of all bowel cancers could be prevented through diet, a healthy weight, and staying active.

And when you dig into which single food choice protects your colon the most, it comes down to one thing above all others, and that is fiber. Fiber is about the closest thing that we have to a natural shield for your gut, and most of us are eating nowhere near enough of it. So, in this video, I'll explain exactly how fiber protects your colon, your large bowel, what the research actually shows, and the best foods that you can eat to get plenty of this fiber onto your plate. For anybody who hasn't come across me before, my name is Dr. Alex. I'm an emergency medicine doctor in the UK, and I've spent the last 10 years seeing the problems that the right habits could have prevented, which is why I make these videos. And if you learned something today, then the best thing that you can do is to like, subscribe, and also hype the video as well. All of those are completely free, and it helps me out so, so much. So,

let's carry on with the rest of the video. So, why is fiber so powerful for your gut health? Well, fiber is the part of plant foods that your body cannot break down and absorb. So, rather than being digested, it passes all the way down into your large bowel, and that is where the good work happens. So, as it works through your large bowel, all the way through your digestive system, it bulks up your stool, and it helps everything move through more quickly, which means anything harmful in your food spends far less time pressed against the delicate lining of your colon. It also soaks up water and dilutes any cancer-causing substances inside your bowel, you know, anything that you eat. So, they're less concentrated against those vulnerable cells. But the most remarkable thing fiber does actually goes far well beyond just your own body; it feeds the trillions and trillions of bacteria living inside your gut. And fiber is their favorite food of all. So, when you

eat something that contains a lot of fiber, and it reaches your gut bacteria, what happens is that those bacteria ferment that fiber. And in the process, they produce a family of remarkable tiny little molecules called short-chain fatty acids. The most important one of

which is called butyrate. And butyrate is the preferred fuel for the cells lining your colon. So, it quite literally feeds and nourishes the very tissue where colon cancer would otherwise begin. On top of that, it helps to calm the levels of inflammation

in your gut wall, and it keeps your gut barrier really strong and well sealed.

And there is actually growing evidence, and I'll put some links in the description below for you. There's some really good evidence that these short-chain fatty acids travel out into the body and then help to train your immune system, including the immune

cells whose whole job is to literally find and destroy abnormal, potentially cancerous cells. And so, you know, it's not just working inside your gut. They can travel to every part of your body.

Now, a lot of this mechanism is still being figured out. So, I don't want to overstate it too much, but the broad picture is remarkably clear because a well-fed gut microbiome produces compounds that keep your colon healthier and far better defended against these

sort of cancer-causing things that eventually lead to colon cancer. And the evidence behind all of this is quite literally some of the strongest that we have in all of nutrition. So, one of the largest analyses ever ever done, pulling

together almost 2 million people. Yes, you heard that correctly, 2 million people. They found that for every 10 g of fiber somebody added to their daily diet, their risk of bowel cancer fell by roughly 10%. And that protection was

strongest in the fiber that came from whole grains. And the World Cancer Research Fund now considers whole grains really, really protective against bowel cancer, suggesting around three good portions a day as a sensible amount to be aiming for. So,

when a finding turns up this reliably across millions of people and decades and decades of research, and it sits on top of a clear biological mechanism, it is about as trustworthy as nutrition science ever gets. So, in our foods,

we've got two main types of fiber. And the simple message is that you want plenty of both of those. The first one is the very coarse, roughage type of fiber that we find in the skins of fruit and in veg and in whole grains and in

nuts and seeds. And it's mainly what bulks out your stool, and it keeps everything moving fairly regularly. The second type of fiber is the fermentable type that your bacteria feasts on. And you'll find it in things like beans and

lentils and onions and garlic and, you know, slightly under-ripe green bananas and mushrooms and the skins of berries.

Helpfully though, real whole plant foods tend to give you a generous mix of both of these at the same time. So, you don't need to be overthinking, you know, how much of each type am I getting. If you

eat plenty of plants, then you're probably getting good amounts of both of them. But, if I had a crown to hand out on behalf of your colon, I would give it to foods like lentils and beans and chickpeas, but also whole grains like

barley and quinoa. All of those foods are tremendously good for you. And something that I mentioned in a video a couple of days ago, a really clever trick here, bit of a bonus, is to try and get more resistant starch into your

diet as well. So, if you eat potatoes and rice and pasta, then cooking them before and then cooling them down and then either reheating them or just eating them cold, it turns some of the starch into those foods into a form that

your gut bacteria really, really love, which is resistant starch. And remember, the more variety of different plants that you eat across the week, the wider the range of helpful bacteria that you feed. So, you want to try and aim to get

as many different plants onto your plate every time you eat. Now, as for how much fiber you actually need per day, a sensible daily target is somewhere around 25 to 35 or 40 g of fiber a day.

Or to put it another way, roughly 14 g for every 1,000 calories that you eat as a minimum. But, again, I want to be clear, this is a minimum. This is not the target. So, you know, if you can

comfortably eat more than that, then all the better. Just go for it. You know, I probably around I would say these days 50 or 60 g of fiber if I had to calculate it. And the reason I do this

is because the protection, according to the research, seems to keep climbing the more fiber you eat. The problem though is that in the UK and America, people are getting barely half of even that minimum, which leaves an awful lot of

colons and large bowels really unprotected. So, if you can, try and add an extra portion of beans or lentils or chickpeas here and there. Swap your white bread for, you know, whole grain or seeded proper fermented sourdough if you can. Now, to

put all of this into perspective, if you have porridge in the morning, then scattering some berries and some seeds on top of that, and then a portion of lentils with your lunch, and then some beans or veg with dinner, and a few nuts

as a snack dotted throughout the day will get most people to that target without much effort at all. And you really, really, honestly do not need any sort of fancy fiber powder or supplements to manage this, because real

food does the job far, far better. And it does that alongside all of the vitamins and the minerals and the plant compounds that nature has packaged up alongside the fiber. And that is something that these supplements will never

Or to put it another way, roughly 14 g for every 1,000 calories that you eat as a minimum. But, again, I want to be clear, this is a minimum. This is not the target. So, you know, if you can

comfortably eat more than that, then all the better. Just go for it. You know, I probably around I would say these days 50 or 60 g of fiber if I had to calculate it. And the reason I do this

is because the protection, according to the research, seems to keep climbing the more fiber you eat. The problem though is that in the UK and America, people are getting barely half of even that minimum, which leaves an awful lot of

colons and large bowels really unprotected. So, if you can, try and add an extra portion of beans or lentils or chickpeas here and there. Swap your white bread for, you know, whole grain or seeded proper fermented sourdough if you can. Now, to

put all of this into perspective, if you have porridge in the morning, then scattering some berries and some seeds on top of that, and then a portion of lentils with your lunch, and then some beans or veg with dinner, and a few nuts

as a snack dotted throughout the day will get most people to that target without much effort at all. And you really, really, honestly do not need any sort of fancy fiber powder or supplements to manage this, because real

food does the job far, far better. And it does that alongside all of the vitamins and the minerals and the plant compounds that nature has packaged up alongside the fiber. And that is something that these supplements will never, ever give you. So, if there's one

change to take away from this video, it is obviously to get more fiber from more real whole plant foods as often as you can, because it might be the simplest and most powerful thing that you can do to protect your large bowel for the rest

of your life. And part of the reason bowel cancer is turning up in younger people every time we do this research, is that modern diets have stripped out so much of this fiber and replaced it with refined, ultra-processed rubbish. And

your gut bacteria pay the price here. Remember, the power is literally in your hands here. You have the ability to choose what goes onto your plate three times a day. So, start by adding just a little more fiber as soon as you next

eat something, whether that's a handful of nuts or making a bean salad, which I love. I eat every single week. Or just something that contains a lot of crunch, and that comes from whole plant foods because it's one of the cheapest and

simplest and most reliable defenses that we have against bowel cancer. Remember, preventing bowel cancer is infinitely better than treating it once it develops. So, I hope that video was useful. It is clearly a really simple change that most people can make. But

according to the research, and please do take a read after this video if you want to learn a bit more. According to the research, it's one of the most powerful things that we can do.