Abstract
If the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, should women be advised to feed their men heaps of wheat bran, beans, lightly milled cereals, and other fiber-rich foods? Such foods, some authorities suggest, reduce the risk of atherosclerotic heart disease. 1 Dietary fiber, it is claimed, also reduces the risk of colonic cancer 2 by accelerating elimination of carcinogens, which are produced by bacterial action on bile acids. The protective action of fiber may even extend to other diseases—diverticulitis, 3 appendicitis, varicose veins, phlebitis, diabetes 4 —that afflict Western man. If only on the principle that man is what he eats, it could also stiffen his moral fiber! Claims for the salubrious effects of dietary fiber are not an outgrowth of knowledge about its laxative properties. They stem from epidemiologic observations bolstered by historical perspective and recent experimental studies. Epidemiologic observations have been confined largely to regions
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