Dietary Fiber: Basic and Clinical Aspects

Only 15 years ago a conference on dietary fiber, let alone an international conference, would have been considered an extremely unlikely, and in fact an unthinkable, event. Yet in recent years a number of such conferences have taken place at the international level and in different parts of the world; the conference of which the present volume is an outgrowth is the second to have been held in Washington, D. C. This extraordinary development of interest in a hitherto largely neglected component of diet has been reflected by a veritable explosion of scientific literature, with published articles increasing 40-fold, from around ten to over 400 per year, within the decade 1968-1978. Not only has the growth of interest in and knowledge of fiber made it perhaps the most rapidly developing aspect of nutritional science in recent history if not in all time, but epidemiologic studies relating fiber intake to disease patterns, subsequently broadened to include other food components, have been largely responsible for the current concept of diseases characteristic of modern Western culture and lifestyle. The potential importance of this realization is forcefully underlined by the considered judgment of Thomas MacKeown, epidemiologist and medical historian of Birmingham University, England.

Table of Contents:
1. Analysis of Total Dietary Fiber: The Collaborative Study.- 2. Measurement of Dietary Fiber as Nonstarch Polysaccharides.- 3. The Relation between Composition and Properties of Dietary Fiber and Physiological Effects.- 4. Federal Regulations.- 5. Socioeconomic Aspects of a Fiber-Deficient Public Diet.- 6. Dietary Fiber, Gastrointestinal, Endocrine, and Metabolic Effects: Lente Carbohydrate.- 7. Dietary Fiber and Bowel Transit.- 8. The Ecology of the Colon.- 9. Diet and the Colonic Environment: Measuring the Response of Human Colonic Bacteria to Changes in the Host’s Diet.- 10. Fermentation and the Production of Short-Chain Fatty Acids in the Human Large Intestine.- 11. Methane Production and Excretion: A Marker of Cecal Fermentation.- 12. The Glycemic Index: Blood Glucose Response to Foods.- 13. Dietary Fiber and Intestinal Adaptation.- 14. Dietary Fiber and Gastrointestinal Epithelial Cell Proliferation.- 15. The Effect of Fiber in the Postweaning Diet on Nutritional and Intestinal Morphological Indices in the Rat.- 16. Modification of Steroid Excretion in Response to Dietary Fiber.- 17. Dietary Fiber and Atherosclerosis.- 18. Hypocholesterolemic Effects of Soluble Fibers.- 19. Dietary Fiber and Intestinal Lipoprotein Secretion.- 20. Effects of Fiber on Plasma Lipoprotein Composition.- 21. Dietary Fiber, Sucrose, and Serum Lipids.- 22. Dietary Fiber and Weight Management.- 23. Dietary Fiber in Nutrition Management of Diabetes.- 24. Update on Fiber and Mineral Availability.- 25. Role of Dietary Fiber in Geriatric Nutrition: A Review.- 26. Constipation in Pregnancy Treated with Dumovital Fiber Tablets.- 27. Fiber and Duodenal Ulcer.- 28. Gallstones.- 29. Fiber and Cancer.- 30. Diet and Mammary Carcinogenesis.- 31. Calories and Chemical Carcinogenesis.- 32.Enhancement of 7,12-Dimethylbenz(a)anthracene Mammary Carcinogenesis by a High-Lard Diet.- 33. The Assessment of Individual Risk from Diet in Large Bowel Cancer Epidemiology.- 34. Dietary Studies of Cancer of the Large Bowel in the Animal Model.- 35. Animal Experimentation and Prevention of Colorectal Cancer.- 36. The Role of Bile Acids in Colon Cancer.- 37. Bile Acids and Colorectal Cancer in Humans.- 38. Cancer Patterns in Different Ethnic Groups in South Africa.- 39. Epidemiology of Dietary Fiber and Colorectal Cancer: Current Status of the Hypothesis.- 40. Colon Cancer: Future Directions.- 41. Bile Acids and Colon Cancer: Future Prospectives.- 42. Dietary Fiber and Cancer: Future Research Directions.