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Discussions of the benefits of dietary fiber seem to be everywhere this week.

From Forbes: Eat Whole Grains For A Long Life, New Study Says

Eating lots of whole grains – especially those high in cereal fiber – may help people live longer, according to new research. The study out in BMC Medicine this week suggests that eating hefty amounts of cereal fibers can help reduce the risk of death from a number of causes, including cancer and diabetes, by almost 20%. Previous research has certainly linked whole grains to the reduction of certain chronic diseases and to reduced mortality, but this one is the largest of its kind to show a reduction in death from a number of different causes. So if you want to live longer, grab a bowl of cereal. The less refined, the better.

Whole grains are grains in their most unadulterated form, still containing the endosperm, bran, and germ – most of the plant’s nutritional value lies in the bran and germ. When grains go through milling to become processed or refined, they’re typically stripped of the bran and germ parts, along with a number of B vitamins, fiber, and iron.

In the new study, the Harvard Medical School team tracked over 367,000 healthy people who were taking part in the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study, for an average of 14 years. ..It turned out that people who ate more whole grains – 1.2 ounces of per day, on average – had a 17% reduced risk of death, compared to those who ate much less, around 0.13 ounces per day. And when it came to the cereal fiber itself, people who ate the most had a 19% reduced risk of death from any cause, compared to those who ate the least.

The researchers even broke it down by disease: People who ate the highest amounts of whole grains had a 48% reduced risk of death from diabetes, and an 11% reduced risk of dying from respiratory diseases. And people who ate the most cereal fiber had 15% and 34% reduced risk of death from cancer and diabetes, respectively. 

The study cannot of course determine causation, since it’s just observational...Still, a number of studies have pointed to a strong connection between whole grains and improved health and longevity in recent years. It may be the anti-inflammatory properties of fiber per se – and its effect of reducing c-reactive protein (CRP) and tumor necrosis factor – that are responsible for their health benefits. If you’re going to up your grain intake, make sure to choose whole ones, like steel cut oats, quinoa, or even whole grain bread, over refined ones like cereal flakes or white bread. 

From Scientific American: Fiber-Famished Gut Microbes Linked to Poor Health

Your gut is the site of constant turf wars. Hundreds of bacterial species—along with fungi, archaea and viruses—do battle daily, competing for resources. Some companies advocate for consuming more probiotics, live beneficial bacteria, to improve microbial communities in our gut, but more and more research supports the idea that the most powerful approach might be to better feed the good bacteria we already harbor. Their meal of choice? Fiber.  

Fiber has long been linked to better health, but new research shows how the gut microbiota might play a role in this pattern. One investigation discovered that adding more fiber to the diet can trigger a shift from a microbial profile linked to obesity to one correlated with a leaner physique. Another recent study shows that when microbes are starved of fiber, they can start to feed on the protective mucus lining of the gut, possibly triggering inflammation and disease.

"Diet is one of the most powerful tools we have for changing the microbiota," Justin Sonnenburg, a biologist at Stanford University, said earlier this month at a Keystone Symposia conference on the gut microbiome. "Dietary fiber and diversity of the microbiota complement each other for better health outcomes." In particular, beneficial microbes feast on fermentable fibers—which can come from various vegetables, whole grains and other foods—that resist digestion by human-made enzymes as they travel down the digestive tract. These fibers arrive in the large intestine relatively intact, ready to be devoured by our microbial multitudes. Microbes can extract the fiber's extra energy, nutrients, vitamins and other compounds for us. Short-chain fatty acids obtained from fiber are of particular interest, as they have been linked to improved immune function, decreased inflammation and protection against obesity.

Today's Western diet, however, is exceedingly fiber-poor by historical standards. It contains roughly 15 grams of fiber daily, Sonnenburg noted. For most of our early history as hunter-gatherers, we were likely eating close to 10 times that amount of fiber each day. "Imagine the effect that has on our microbiota over the course of our evolution," he said.

Not all helpful fiber, however, needs to come from the roots and roughage for which our ancestors foraged, new research suggests. Kelly Swanson, a professor of comparative nutrition at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and his team found that simply adding a fiber-enriched snack bar to subjects' daily diets could swing microbial profiles in a matter of weeks... The findings were published in the January issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

As gut microbes are starved of fermentable fiber, some do die off. Others, however, are able to switch to another food source in the gut: the mucus lining that helps keep the gut wall intact and free from infection. In a recent study presented at the Keystone meeting, Eric Martens of the University of Michigan Medical School, postdoctoral researcher Mahesh Desai and their colleagues found that this fuel switch had striking consequences in rodents. A group of mice fed a high-fiber diet had healthy gut lining, but for mice on a fiber-free diet, "the mucus layer becomes dramatically diminished," he explained at the meeting. This shift might sometimes have severe health consequences. Research by a Swedish team, published last year in the journal Gut, showed a link between bacteria penetrating the mucus layer and ulcerative colitis, a painful chronic bowel disease.

A third group of mice received high-fiber chow and fiber-free chow on alternating days—"like what we would do if we were being bad and eating McDonald's one day and eating our whole grains the next," Martens joked. Even the part-time high-fiber diet was not enough to keep guts healthy: these mice had a mucus layer about half the thickness of mice on the consistently high-fiber diet. If we can extend these results to humans, he said, it "tells us that even eating your whole fiber foods every other day is still not enough to protect you. You need to eat a high-fiber diet every day to keep a healthy gut." Along the same lines, Swanson's group found that the gut microbiomes of his adult subjects reverted back to initial profiles as soon as the high-fiber bars were discontinued.

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In the past year I keep coming across one special gut microbe: Faecalibacterium prausnitzii. This bacteria is considered beneficial and is one of the most prevalent intestinal bacterial species in healthy adults. The reduction of this bacteria in the gut (as measured by analyzing bacteria in fecal samples) is seen in several diseases, including Intestinal Bowel Disease (IBD). This bacteria has also been found to be anti-inflammatory. In other words, you really, really want a healthy population in your gut.

But now the question is: how does the bacteria get there? And how can you increase it if you have a low population in your gut? It certainly isn't found in any probiotic supplement that I know of.  Part of the answer seems to be eating foods with fiber, lots of it, to feed the good microbes. Eat fruits, vegetables, whole grains, seeds, legumes, and nuts.

The following lengthy article discusses the importance of keystone species (F. prausnitzii is one). From Scientific American:

Among Trillions of Microbes in the Gut, a Few Are Special

In the mid-2000s Harry Sokol, a gastroenterologist at Saint Antoine Hospital in Paris, was surprised by what he found when he ran some laboratory tests on tissue samples from his patients with Crohn's disease, a chronic inflammatory disorder of the gut.. But when Sokol did a comparative DNA analysis of diseased sections of intestine surgically removed from the patients, he observed a relative depletion of just one common bacterium, Faecalibacterium prausnitzii. Rather than “bad” microbes prompting disease, he wondered, could a single “good” microbe prevent disease?

Sokol transferred the bacterium to mice and found it protected them against experimentally induced intestinal inflammation. And when he subsequently mixed F. prausnitzii with human immune cells in a test tube, he noted a strong anti-inflammatory response. Sokol seemed to have identified a powerfully anti-inflammatory member of the human microbiota.

Each of us harbors a teeming ecosystem of microbes that outnumbers the total number of cells in the human body by a factor of 10 to one and whose collective genome is at least 150 times larger than our own... The microbiome varies dramatically from one individual to the next and can change quickly over time in a single individual. The great majority of the microbes live in the gut, particularly the large intestine, which serves as an anaerobic digestion chamber. 

Independent researchers around the world have identified a select group of microbes that seem important for gut health and a balanced immune system. They belong to several clustered branches of the clostridial group. Dubbed “clostridial clusters,” these microbes are distantly related to Clostridium difficile, a scourge of hospitals and an all too frequent cause of death by diarrhea. But where C. difficile prompts endless inflammation, bleeding and potentially catastrophic loss of fluids, the clostridial clusters do just the opposite—they keep the gut barrier tight and healthy, and they soothe the immune system. Scientists are now exploring whether these microbes can be used to treat a bevy of the autoimmune, allergic and inflammatory disorders that have increased in recent decades, including Crohn's and maybe even obesity.

F. prausnitzii was one of the first clostridial microbes to be identified. In Sokol's patients those with higher counts of F. prausnitzii consistently fared best six months after surgery. After he published his initial findings in 2008, scientists in India and Japan also found F. prausnitzii to be depleted in patients with inflammatory bowel disease... This suggested that whereas different genetic vulnerabilities might underlie the disorder, the path to disease was similar: a loss of anti-inflammatory microbes from the gut. And although Sokol suspects that other good bacteria besides F. prausnitzii exist, this similarity hinted at a potential one-size-fits-all remedy for Crohn's and possibly other inflammatory disorders: restoration of peacekeeping microbes.

One of the questions central to microbiome research is why people in modern society, who are relatively free of infectious diseases, a major cause of inflammation, are so prone to inflammatory, autoimmune and allergic diseases. Many now suspect that society-wide shifts in our microbial communities have contributed to our seemingly hyperreactive immune systems. Drivers of these changes might include antibiotics; sanitary practices that are aimed at limiting infectious disease but that also hinder the transmission of symbiotic microbes; and, of course, our high-sugar, high-fat modern diet. Our microbes eat what we eat, after all. Moreover, our particular surroundings may seed us with unique microbes, “localizing” our microbiota.

A number of studies have found a small but significant correlation between the early-life use of antibiotics and the later development of inflammatory disorders, including asthma, inflammatory bowel disease and, more recently, colorectal cancer and childhood obesity. One explanation for this association might be that sickly people take more antibiotics. Antibiotics are not the cause, in other words, but the result of preexisting ill health. Honda's studies suggest another explanation: antibiotics may deplete the very bacteria that favorably calibrate the immune system, leaving it prone to overreaction. 

A number of studies over the years have linked having fewer sanitary amenities in childhood with a lower risk of inflammatory bowel disease in adulthood. And a 2014 study from Aarhus University in Denmark found that among northern Europeans, growing up on a farm with livestock—another microbially enriched environment—halved the risk of being stricken with inflammatory bowel disease in adulthood.

These patterns suggest that perhaps by seeding the gut microbiota early in life or by direct modification of the immune system the environment can affect our risk of inflammatory bowel disease despite the genes we carry. And they raise the question of what proactive steps those of us who do not live on farms can take to increase our chances of harboring a healthy mix of microbes.

One of the more surprising discoveries in recent years is how much the gut microbiota of people living in North America differs from those of people living in rural conditions in Africa and South America. The microbial mix in North America is geared to digesting protein, simple sugars and fats, whereas the mix in rural African and Amazonian environments is far more diverse and geared to fermenting plant fiber. Some think that our hunter-gatherer ancestors harbored even greater microbial diversity in their guts.

What troubles Sonnenburg about this shift is that the bacteria that seem most anti-inflammatory—including the clostridial clusters—often specialize in fermenting soluble fiber...Some hunter-gatherers consumed up to 10 times as much soluble fiber as modern populations, and their bodies likely were flooded with far more fermentation by-products. Our fiber-poor modern diet may have weakened that signal, producing a state of “simmering hyperreactivity,” Sonnenburg says, and predisposing us to the “plagues” of civilization. He calls this problem “starving our microbial self.” We may not be adequately feeding some of the most important members of our microbiota.

Mouse experiments support the idea. Diets high in certain fats and sugars deplete anti-inflammatory bacteria, thin the mucous layer and foster systemic inflammation. ...In rodents, adding fermentable fiber to a diet otherwise high in fat keeps the “good” microbes happy, the mucous layer healthy and the gut barrier intact, and it prevents systemic inflammation. Taken together, these studies suggest that it is not only what is in your food that matters for your health but also what is missing.

The human studies are even more intriguing... Scientists at Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium recently showed that adding inulin, a fermentable fiber, to the diet of obese women increased counts of F. prausnitzii and other clostridial bacteria and reduced that dangerous systemic inflammation...Those without the bacteria did not benefit, which suggests that once species disappear from the “microbial organ,” the associated functions might also vanish. These individuals might not require ecosystem engineering so much as an ecosystem restoration.

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There are a number of very good health reasons to cut back or totally eliminate soda from your diet. The following articles and earlier posts discuss some of the ways both diet and regular soda are linked to health problems. Note in the second article that there's currently no federal limit for a byproduct of some types of caramel color called 4-MEI (a carcinogen) in food or beverages. California's Proposition 65 Law (aimed at reducing consumers' exposure to toxic chemicals) requires a  health-warning label on sodas with too high levels of 4-MEI resulted in manufacturers producing soda with lower levels of that chemical in the state. But sodas out of California may have higher levels! From Science Daily:

Diet soda linked to increases in belly fat in older adults

Increasing diet soda intake is directly linked to greater abdominal obesity in adults 65 years of age and older. Findings raise concerns about the safety of chronic diet soda consumption, which may increase belly fat and contribute to greater risk of metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular diseases. Metabolic syndrome--a combination of risk factors that may lead to high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, and stroke--is one of the results of the obesity epidemic.

The San Antonio Longitudinal Study of Aging (SALSA) enrolled 749 Mexican- and European-Americans who were aged 65 and older at the start of the study (1992-96). Diet soda intake, waist circumference, height, and weight were measured at study onset, and at three follow-ups in 2000-01, 2001-03, and 2003-04, for a total of 9.4 follow-up years. At the first follow-up there were 474 (79.1%) surviving participants; there were 413 (73.4%) at the second follow-up and 375 (71.0%) at the third follow-up.

Findings indicate that the increase in waist circumference among diet soda drinkers, per follow-up interval, was almost triple that among non-users: 2.11 cm versus 0.77 cm, respectively. After adjustment for multiple potential confounders, interval waist circumference increases were 0.77 cm for non-users, 1.76 cm for occasional users, and 3.04 cm for daily users. This translates to waist circumference increases of 0.80 inches for non-users, 1.83 inches for occasional users, and 3.16 inches for daily users over the total 9.4-year SALSA follow-up period.

From Medical Xpress:

Popular soda ingredient poses cancer risk to consumers, new study suggests

Public health researchers have analyzed soda consumption data in order to characterize people's exposure to a potentially carcinogenic byproduct of some types of caramel color. Caramel color is a common ingredient in colas and other dark soft drinks. The results show that between 44 and 58 percent of people over the age of six typically have at least one can of soda per day, possibly more, potentially exposing them to 4-methylimidazole (4-MEI), a possible human carcinogen formed during the manufacture of some kinds of caramel color.

"Soft drink consumers are being exposed to an avoidable and unnecessary cancer risk from an ingredient that is being added to these beverages simply for aesthetic purposes," says Keeve Nachman, PhD, senior author of the study and director of the Food Production and Public Health Program at the CLF and an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. ."

In 2013 and early 2014, Consumer Reports partnered with the CLF to analyze 4-MEI concentrations of 110 soft drink samples purchased from retail stores in California and the New York metropolitan area...While the 2014 study of the 110 samples of soda brands was not large enough to recommend one brand over another or draw conclusions about specific brands, results indicated that levels of 4-MEI could vary substantially across samples, even for the same type of beverage. 

Researchers also found sharply contrasting levels of 4-MEI in some soft drinks purchased in the New York metropolitan area, versus California. "Our study also found that some of the soft drink products sold in California that we sampled had lower levels of 4-MEI than the samples we looked at of the same beverages sold outside the state, particularly in our earlier rounds of testing. It appears that regulations such as California's Proposition 65 may be effective at reducing exposure to 4-MEI from soft drinks, and that beverages can be manufactured in ways that produce less 4-MEI," suggests Nachman. ."

From Medical Daily: Bye-Bye Sugary Drinks: This Is What Happens To Your Body When You Stop Drinking Soda

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For years there has been discussion about curcumin's anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, and anti-cancer effects, but more research is needed (some trials are going on now). Curcumin is a chemical compound found in turmeric. Turmeric is a member of the ginger family. It is used as a spice and is a common ingredient in Indian cooking, but also used in Middle Eastern and South Asian recipes.From Medical Xpress;

Curcumin proved effective at combating cancer

WA scientists have helped re-affirm that curcumin, a chemical compound found in turmeric, is a safe and promising treatment for most cancers and other inflammation-driven diseases.The international review considered past clinical trials using curcumin to treat cancer patients and concluded curcumin was a safe and effective molecule to treat cancer.

A/Prof Sethi says curcumin is exceptionally effective for multiple myeloma patients and those suffering from the particularly lethal pancreatic cancer, for which there are no drugs. However, curcumin was not found to be as effective in breast cancer patients being treated with the chemotherapeutic agent cyclophosphamide. According to the research, curcumin can counteract the effect of cyclophosphamide.

A/Prof Sethi says curcumin is possibly the only drug that can be given at high doses—up to 12g—without any toxicity.... A/Prof Sethi says the only known side effect of the agent is blood thinning, and therefore advises against taking curcumin if undergoing surgery.

He recommends people use turmeric more often in everyday cooking. A/Prof Sethi says it would be ideal to combine curcumin with other drugs or natural compounds, like piperine, an alkaloid found in pepper to increase its bioavailabilty..

A/Prof Sethi says there is a lack of data to explain the underlying mechanism of its effect, however, it is known for its anti-inflammatory effects. "It has been shown that most chronic diseases, including cancer, are caused by inflammation and can be treated by anti-inflammatory agents."He says more work needs to be done to improve curcumin's viability, as body tissues quickly absorb it. 

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What was really interesting in the recent study findings was not just that vegetarian diets are associated with an overall lower incidence of colorectal cancers, but that pescovegetarians (eat fish) had the lowest risk of all compared to nonvegetarians. That is really strong support for eating fish. From Science Daily:

Vegetarian diet linked to lower risk of colorectal cancers

Eating a vegetarian diet was associated with a lower risk of colorectal cancers compared with nonvegetarians in a study of Seventh-Day Adventist men and women, according to an article published online by JAMA Internal Medicine.

Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States. Although great attention has been paid to screening, primary prevention through lowering risk factors remains an important objective. Dietary factors have been identified as a modifiable risk factor for colorectal cancer, including red meat which is linked to increased risk and food rich in dietary fiber which is linked to reduced risk, according to the study background.

Among 77,659 study participants, Michael J. Orlich, M.D., Ph.D., of Loma Linda University, California, and coauthors identified 380 cases of colon cancer and 110 cases of rectal cancer. Compared with nonvegetarians, vegetarians had a 22 percent lower risk for all colorectal cancers, 19 percent lower risk for colon cancer and 29 percent lower risk for rectal cancer. Compared with nonvegetarians, vegans had a 16 percent lower risk of colorectal cancer, 18 percent less for lacto-ovo (eat milk and eggs) vegetarians, 43 percent less in pescovegetarians (eat fish) and 8 percent less in semivegetarians, according to study results.

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Chronic inflammation can have a variety of negative health effects. From Time:

13 Ways Inflammation Can Affect Your Health

You can't live without inflammation, but it can also be hazardous to your health. You’ve heard of anti-inflammatory medications and anti-inflammatory diets, but do you really know what inflamation is? In short, it’s the body’s response to outside threats like stress, infection, or toxic chemicals. When the immune system senses one of these dangers, it responds by activating proteins meant to protect cells and tissues. “In a healthy situation, inflammation serves as a good friend to our body,” says Mansour Mohamadzadeh, PhD, director of the Center for Inflammation and Mucosal Immunology at the University of Florida.” “But if immune cells start to overreact, that inflammation can be totally directed against us.” This type of harmful, chronic inflammation can have a number of causes, including a virus or bacteria, an autoimmune disorder, sugary and fatty foods, or the way you handle stress. Here are a few ways it can affect your health, both short-term and long.

It fights infection.Inflammation is most visible (and most beneficial) when it’s helping to repair a wound or fight off an illness...It prepares you for battles Another type of inflammation occurs in response to emotional stress. Instead of blood cells rushing to one part of the body, however, inflammatory markers called C-reactive proteins are released into the blood stream and travel throughout the body.

It can harm your gut Many of the body’s immune cells cluster around the intestines, says Denning. Most of the time, those immune cells ignore the trillions of healthy bacteria that live in the gut. “But for some people, that tolerance seems to be broken,” says Denning, “and their immune cells begin to react to the bacteria, creating chronic inflammation.” The immune cells can attack the digestive tract itself, an autoimmune condition known as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which includes ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease. 

It can harm your joints When inflammation occurs in the joints, it’s can cause serious damage. One joint-damaging condition is rheumatoid arthritis(RA)—another example of an autoimmune disorder that appears to have a genetic component, but is also linked to smoking, a lack of vitamin D, and other risk factors.

It’s linked to heart disease Any part of your body that’s been injured or damaged can trigger inflammation, even the insides of blood vessels. The formation of fatty plaque in the arteries can trigger chronic inflammation. The fatty plaques attract white blood cells, grow larger, and can form blood clots, which can cause a heart attack.Obesity and unhealthy eating increases inflammation in the body.

It’s linked to a higher risk of cancer Chronic inflammation has been linked to cancers of the lung, esophagus, cervix, and digestive tract, among others..The inflammation may be due to obesity, a chronic infection, a chemical irritant, or chronic condition; all have been linked to a higher cancer risk....It may sabotage your sleep In a 2009 study from Case Western Reserve University, people who reported sleeping more or less than average had higher levels of inflammation-related proteins in their blood than those who said they slept about 7.6 hours a night.

It’s bad for your lungs When inflammation occurs in the lungs, it can cause fluid accumulation and narrowing of the airways, making it difficult to breathe...Smoking, exposure to air pollution or household chemicals, being overweight, and even consumption of cured meats have been linked to lung inflammation... It damages gums Inflammation can also wreak havoc on your mouth in the form of periodontitis, a chronic inflammation of the gums caused by bacteria accumulation. 

It makes weight loss more difficult Obesity is a major cause of inflammation in the body, and losing weight is one of the most effective ways to fight it. But that’s sometimes easier said than done, because elevated levels of inflammation-related proteins can also make weight loss more difficult than it should be.... Inflammation can also increase insulin resistance (which raises your risk for diabetes) and has been linked with future weight gain.

It damages bones Inflammation throughout the body can interfere with bone growth and even promote increased bone loss, according to a 2009 review study published in the Journal of Endocrinology.  It affects your skin The effects of inflammation aren’t just internal: They can also be reflected on your skin. Psoriasis, for example, is an inflammatory condition that occurs when the immune system causes skin cells to grow too quickly. .... It’s linked with depression 

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Nice summary of cancer prevention advice. What it boils down to is that there is no magic bullet for cancer prevention (maybe the closest thing is to NOT smoke), but it's a lot of little things adding up (your lifestyle) that lowers the risk of cancer. From The Washington Post:

Looking for that fruit or vegetable that might prevent cancer?

Blueberries. Green tea. Tomatoes. And, oh, that cruciferous cauliflower. All make the lists of super foods that might help prevent cancer. Then there are the foods such as smoked meat and fried foods that supposedly might cause cancer. Such information is standard fare for TV doctors and Web sites, but most of us don’t know how to judge such claims. What sounds authoritative may not be. Only about half of the recommendations on two internationally syndicated TV medical talk shows were supported by scientific evidence, according to a recent study in the journal BMJ.

Of course, the blueberries we eat today are good for us. But nutrition’s role in cancer prevention is much more complex than a single dietary component: Evidence has mounted, for example, that lifestyle — diet, weight control and exercise — is vital in helping reduce risk. For now, experts endorse general dietary advice that is healthful for a variety of chronic diseases and conditions, rather than reductionist thinking that focuses on single foods or nutrients.

When you hear that a certain food helps prevent cancer, ask: Which cancer? “Cancer is multiple diseases,” said Marian Neuhouser, a nutritional epidemiologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. Whereas cardiovascular disease might be broken down into several types, including myocardial infarction, stroke and peripheral vascular disease, she said, “for cancer, it’s really over 100 different diseases.” “Cancer is a very complex, very challenging disease to study whether you’re looking at it on the cell level or the clinical level or the epidemiologic and preventive level,” Willett said.

Researchers caution about overreacting to a single study. New findings come out every week, but “we never take any one study to be the answer to anything,” said Nancy Potischman, a nutritional epidemiologist at the National Cancer Institute. Only if the same results come up in multiple studies across multiple populations, “then you might think that, yes, this food might be important,” she said.

Tobacco use remains the leading preventable cause of cancer incidence and death worldwide. After tobacco, the lifestyle trio of diet, weight control and exercise may be linked to one-third to two-thirds of cancers. “They’re inseparable,” Neuhouser said. “You can have a great diet and you can have a healthy weight, but if you’re extremely sedentary then there’s a risk.”And there’s a strong link between excess weight and several kinds of cancer, including the esophagus, breast (after menopause), endometrium, colon and rectum, kidney, pancreas, thyroid, gallbladder, according to the NCI. 

Evidence mounts about how lifestyle may affect risk of cancer. In the largest study of its kind, nearly half a million Americans were evaluated for adherence to American Cancer Society cancer prevention guidelines that include smoking avoidance; a healthful, consistent weight; physical activity; limiting alcohol; and a diet emphasizing plants.

Those who followed the guidelines most closely had lowered risk of developing cancer (10 percent for men, 19 percent for women) and dying from cancer (25 percent for men, 24 percent for women) compared with those whose habits were least in line with the guidelines. Most striking was the reduction of overall risk of dying: 26 percent for men, 33 percent for women during the 14-year study period.

Fourteen types of cancer seemed affected by lifestyle behavior, most particularly gallbladder, endometrial, liver and colorectal. For men and women, a healthful weight and physical activity were the top factors in reduced deaths overall. Albert Einstein College of Medicine Researchers published this analysis online in January in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, based on data from a National Institutes of Health/AARP study.

Another approach to cancer and nutrition considers dietary patterns. “What we eat on any one day is not going to change our cancer risk, but it’s the pattern over the long term.” Neuhouser said. Several diets that emphasized fruit, vegetables, whole grains and plants or plant-based proteins were analyzed against information collected over more than 12 years from nearly 64,000 post-menopausal women in the Women’s Health Initiative Observational Study. Consuming a high-quality diet was associated with lower death rates from chronic diseases including cancer, as reported last year in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

The bacteria, viruses and other organisms that live in and on humans seem to play a bigger role in health and disease than was previously understood, Freudenheim said. How the countless microbes in such areas as the gut and the mouth might contribute to or prevent cancers is one of the open questions in the new area of study of the microbiome, which refers to the many organisms in the body, 10 percent of which are human and 90 percent nonhuman.

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Even though the researchers said this was a "preliminary study"(looking only at non-Hispanic whites), what was good was that results are based on a very large sample size. Coffee drinkers can definitely feel that they are doing something beneficial for their health. From Medical Xpress:

Coffee may be associated with a lower risk of malignant melanoma

Both epidemiological and pre-clinical studies have suggested that coffee consumption has a protective effect against non-melanoma skin cancers. However the protective effect for cutaneous melanoma (malignant and in situ) is less clear, according to a study published January 20 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

To determine if there is an association between coffee consumption and risk of cutaneous melanoma, Erikka Loftfield, M.P.H., of the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, and colleagues used data from the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study. Information on coffee consumption was obtained from 447,357 non-Hispanic white subjects with a self-administered food-frequency questionnaire in 1995/1996, with a median follow-up of 10 years. 

Overall, the highest coffee intake was inversely associated with a risk of malignant melanoma, with a 20% lower risk for those who consumed 4 cups per day or more. There was also a trend toward more protection with higher intake, with the protective effect increasing from 1 or fewer cups to 4 or more. However, the effect was statistically significant for caffeinated but not decaffeinated coffee and only for protection against malignant melanoma but not melanoma in-situ, which may have a different etiology.

The researchers point out that the results are preliminary and may not be applicable to other populations, and therefore additional investigations of coffee intake are needed. 

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Think of incense burning as indoor air pollution, with some of the same chemicals and particulates as cigarettes. From Environmental Health Perspectives:

Ritual Risk: Incense Use and Cardiovascular Mortality

Numerous studies have examined exposures to indoor combustion products such as secondhand smoke and emissions from burning of solid fuels. However, only a few have examined incense burning as a potential health threat, even though incense is commonly used for religious and ritual purposes in China, Taiwan, Singapore, India, and Middle Eastern nations.1,2In this issue of EHP, investigators report an association between long-term incense use and increased cardiovascular mortality.1

The study used data from the Singapore Chinese Health Study, which enrolled a cohort of 63,257 Chinese adults aged 45–74 years between 1993 and 1998. The authors identified cardiovascular deaths of cohort members via a nationwide death registry, checking the registry yearly through 31 December 2011.

More than three-quarters of the participants reported currently using incense, and another 13% were former users. Most had used incense daily for at least 20 years, typically keeping it burning intermittently throughout the day. The authors estimated that current long-term incense users had a 12% increased risk of cardiovascular mortality compared with former and never users, including a 19% increased risk for stroke and a 10% increased risk for coronary heart disease.1

Previous studies reported concentrations of volatile organic compounds and particulate matter in incense emissions similar to those in cigarette smoke.3,4 Others showed that long-term exposure to incense smoke increased blood vessel inflammation and affected blood flow in rats.5 In vitro studies have indicated adverse impact to human coronary6 and lung cells.4 

 In contrast with outdoor air pollution, incense exposure may be easier for an individual to avoid, but Yeatts says education will be needed to help people understand the risks of these exposures, similar to educational campaigns about cigarette smoking.Koh published an earlier prospective study that found an association between incense use and upper respiratory cancer.7

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This would be a major shift in advice. Take note: they found the benefits outweighed the cons only in women starting from the age of 65 and above. From Science Daily:

Cons of regular low-dose aspirin to stave off serious illness in women outweigh pros

The pros of giving healthy women regular low-dose aspirin to stave off serious illness, such as cancer and heart disease, are outweighed by the cons, suggests a large study.

But the balance begins to shift with increasing age, and limiting this form of primary prevention to women aged 65 and above, was better than not taking aspirin at all, or treating women from the age of 45 onwards, say the researchers.

They base their findings on almost 30,000 healthy women, who were at least 45 years old and taking part in the Women's Health Study.Participants were randomly assigned to take either 100 mg of aspirin or a dummy tablet (placebo) every other day, to see whether aspirin curbed their risk of heart disease, stroke, and cancer.

Compared with placebo, regular aspirin was linked to a lower risk of heart disease, stroke, bowel cancer, and in some women, other cancers, but only marginally so.And this slight health gain was trumped by the prevalence of internal gastrointestinal bleeding, which affected two thirds of the women  taking the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug.

The risk of gastrointestinal bleeding rose with age, but so too did the drug's impact on lowering the risk of bowel cancer and cardiovascular disease, with the balance appearing to tip in favour of the drug for women aged 65 and above..The researchers calculated that over 15 years, 29 over-65s would need to be treated with aspirin to prevent one case of cancer or heart disease/stroke...But they conclude that blanket treatment "is ineffective or harmful in the majority of women with regard to the combined risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer and major gastrointestinal bleeding."