For the research team, the reduction in aberrant crypts associated with an inverse ratio of Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes support the hypothesis that dried plums appear to reduce the risk of colon cancer. The researchers were careful to make sure that both diets contained the same amount of calories per day and the same macronutrient composition.
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A recent study, funded by the California Dried Plum Board, and carried out by Dr. Nancy Turner, a research professor at the Texas A&M AgriLife in the nutrition and food science department of Texas A&M University, and her associates shows that dried plums promotes the preservation of beneficial microbiota, and such patterns of microbial metabolism in the colon that can abate the risk of colon cancer.
Colon cancer is one of the main causes of death in the United States.
In the experiment, the team tested the hypothesis that consumption of dried plums would promote retention of beneficial gut bacteria or microbiota and its association with a reduced incidence of precancerous lesions.
There is already evidence that diet can change the metabolism and composition of colon microbiota. Colon cancer is the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the USA when men and women are considered separately, and the second-leading cause when the figures are combined.
Dried plums also happen to contain phenolic compounds.
She added that while additional research is needed, particularly in human studies, the results from this study are exciting because they suggest that regularly eating dried plums may be a viable dietary strategy to help reduce the risk of colon cancer. The standard understanding is that if those bacteria get disrupted, they suffer initial and then possibly recurrent intestinal inflammation, and encourage the growth of abnormal crypts that can lead to cancer. These compounds have various health benefits such as serving as antioxidants that neutralize the oxidant effects of free radicals, which can damage DNA. On the other hand, proportions were not affected in the proximal colon.
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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 say the plums promote retention of beneficial gut bacteria in our body. Moreover, dried plums lowered the levels of aberrant crypt foci, or unusual clusters of glands that signal colon cancer is about to occur.
