Cold porridge, cold mashed potatoes and cold baked beans may have an important new role in human health. All break down during digestion to produce a substance that may protect against bowel cancer, the British Association science festival heard in Leicester yesterday.
Aspirin is another substance that may help block bowel and breast cancers in patients with a high risk of these diseases, according to Prof John Burn, director of clinical research at Cancer Research UK and the University of Newcastle.
During a British Association session on "Cancer and the quality of life", Prof Burn described a new UK and international cancer trial to test these new preventative approaches. "All cancer is genetic," Prof Burn stated yesterday. Something goes wrong with the machinery inside a cell, a change that leads to cancer. Some people had a genetic predisposition that made them particularly susceptible to cancer, he said, and it was this group that he and his research group hoped to help.
The trial currently includes 500 people from 33 countries around the world, all of whom have a genetic tendency to contract bowel cancer. He hopes to bring this number up to 1,000 if suitable candidates can be found and expects to have proof about whether the approach works in about two years.
Without any medical intervention, 80 per cent of people with a high genetic risk of these cancers would go on to develop the disease, Prof Burn said.
Two earlier studies had suggested that low doses of aspirin had a protective action inside the bowel, he said. It was also known that patients taking anti-inflammatory drugs such as aspirin seemed to have a lower incidence of bowel cancer. Patients in the trial will be given two aspirin tablets as a preventative measure and its value will be assessed.
The second approach involves "indigestible starch", which is readily available in cooked starchy foods that are allowed to go cold including potatoes, porridge and beans. A breakdown product of these complex starches appeared to have a protective effect in the gut, he said, and those in the trial would be given doses of indigestible starch.
"The more starches you eat, the less \ cancer you get," he said. Low bowel cancer incidence in African populations was originally attributed to high fibre content in the diet but it was later found to be high complex starch content from foods such as crushed millet seed.