Dried plums can cut colon cancer risk

These compounds have antioxidant properties that neutralize the impact of free radicals including cellular damage as well as maintain healthy gut bacteria.

Dr. Nancy Turner, a Texas A&M AgriLife Research professor said that they could to show how dried plums promoted the retention of beneficial bacteria in our colon and thus reduced colon cancer risk.

Colon cancer is one of the biggest killers in the USA and is expected to cause the death of 49.700 people across the country during 2015.

Our diet has the capability to alter the composition and metabolism of microbiota, otherwise known as gut bacteria, in our colon. She gave a statement informing that people have trillions of bacteria living in their intestinal tract, but so far researchers have only identified a little over 400 species of them.

The research was funded by the California Dried Plum Board and presented at the 2015 Experimental Biology conference in Boston. The effect of phenolic compounds was tested on a rat model of colon cancer.

Including dried plums as part of one’s daily diet was found to potentially diminish the risk of colon cancer. Based on previous research, disruptions to the microbiota may be a factor in the initiation of intestinal inflammation and recurrence of inflammatory bouts that can promote development of colon cancer.

“The microbiota are involved in the health of the host organism through physical interactions and, indirectly, through their metabolism”, said Derek Seidel, a doctoral graduate student and research assistant for Turner who assisted in the study. The diets were inn par with total calories and macronutrient composition to make sure that any change would be due to the dried plums. While additional research is needed particularly in human studies, she says the results from this study may lead to a viable dietary strategy which can help individuals reduce the risk of colon cancer.

The intestinal contents and tissues from different segments of the colon were examined.

The rodents were split in two (2) groups, one which was put on a diet that incorporated dried plums, and one which deliberately eliminated the fruit.

They found dried plum diet to increase Bacteroidetes & reduced Firmicutes in distal colon without changing proportions in proximal colon. Furthermore, those rats given dried plums had a reduction in aberrant crypts – lesions that often mark cancer development.

The results seem to suggest a positive role for dried plums in protecting against colon cancer through establishing microbiota compositions in the distal colon.