According to new research funded by Cancer Research UK, consuming an additional 300mg of calcium (about the amount in a large glass of milk) a day could be linked to decreasing the risk of bowel cancer by 17%.
Researchers from the University of Oxford have published the largest single study of diet and bowel cancer to date in Nature Communications. They used data from more than 500,000 women to investigate the link between 97 dietary products and nutrients and bowel cancer risk over an average time of 16 years.
“This is the most comprehensive single study ever conducted into the relationship between diet and bowel cancer, and it highlights the potential protective role of calcium in the development of this disease,” said Dr Keren Papier, lead researcher of the study.
The research found that consuming foods rich in calcium, like milk and yoghurt, was linked to a lower risk of developing bowel cancer, and this was also true for non-dairy calcium sources, like dark green leafy vegetables. Therefore, it is likely that calcium is an important factor in helping reduce the risk of bowel cancer.
“We have some idea on why calcium has this effect,” said Papier. “It’s suggested that calcium might protect against bowel cancer by binding to bile acids and free fatty acids to form a type of a harmless ‘soap’, which stops them from damaging the lining of our gut.”
This ‘soap’ effect helps these bile and fatty acids to be swept out of the gut like a ‘spring clean’ so they can’t build up and so are less likely to cause damage.
View the full paper here.
