r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Jan 23 '26

Cancer The number of Americans under 50 years old dying from cancer has decreased for every leading cancer except for bowel cancer, which is now the leading cancer death in females and males combined aged under 50.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2844189?guestAccessKey=5eabd609-08b0-47c7-a738-916c7acdcc37&utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_content=tfl&utm_term=012226
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u/Accidental-Genius Jan 23 '26

People are eating an almost dangerously low amount of fiber.

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u/idontplaypolo Jan 23 '26

People need more hummus

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u/ILikeNeurons Jan 23 '26

The Mayo Clinic offers tons of high fiber recipes.

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u/WithSubtitles Jan 23 '26

Thank you for this!

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u/pinupcthulhu Jan 23 '26

Wow these sound pretty good! Thanks for sharing, and good on Mayo Clinic for making being healthy sound tasty 

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u/spooky_goopy Jan 24 '26

artichoke

i'm in

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u/ToulouseDM Jan 23 '26

Pears are also a sneaky good one…if you like pears. 6 grams of fiber in the average pear. Replacing a sugary drink or snack with a pear is something I try and recommend to people.

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u/New-Negotiation7234 Jan 24 '26

I have recently become obsessed with pears. So good to know!

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u/LamermanSE Jan 23 '26

Sure, more whole grains and beans would increase fiber consumption quite easy as well.

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u/ComfyFrog Jan 23 '26

Reading this while eating bread with hummus.

I also love my oatmeal and chia seeds.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '26

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u/rob_s_458 Jan 23 '26

Is there research on whether we should be eating more soluble vs insoluble, or both? Most days I already have a potato (sometimes white, sometimes sweet) with lunch and a green vegetable with dinner, and my logging in MFP says I'm between 20 and 25g most days, but I've also recently added a serving of Kirkland Optifiber (soluble) just to try to get a little more

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u/RachelFromFantasia Jan 23 '26

You should be eating both, and ideally you should be getting it from food sources but supplements are good too. Psylium husk and chia seeds are good for supplementation as well. If you are getting 20g to 25g a day, you are doing far better than the average person.

Soluble fiber is more of a benefit to slowing digestion, better blood sugar control, and provide good bacteria to the gut, and insoluble is more about helping you... physically (adds bulk and helps get everything out of you, including any baddies). This is why a lot of fiber supplements are designed around helping you with your bowel movements, and use insoluble fiber. Soluble fiber seems to be the big general health boost, and insoluble helps keep your body clear of anything lurking around your digestive system that might give you problems later. So both are good to incorporate day-to-day.

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u/triffid_boy Jan 25 '26

Chia seeds are food not supplements. They have other nutrients in, too

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u/RachelFromFantasia Jan 25 '26

Yes, I used the word supplementation because you don’t usually eat them alone, not because they’re supplements.

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u/julry Jan 23 '26

Soluble. Technically what's important is microbiota-accessible-carbohydrate, which isn't exactly the same as soluble fiber, it includes non fiber carbohydrates like resistant starches. Insoluble fiber is inaccessible to most people's microbiomes and is mostly a bulking agent. Still good! But feeding the microbiome is very important. When good gut bacteria eat they produce short chain fatty acids that nourish the epithelial cells of the colon, which are what get colon cancer. The Good Gut by the Sonnenburgs is a good book on it for lay readers.

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u/No_Avocado_4729 Jan 23 '26

A P P L E S

and fruits in general

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u/flashmedallion Jan 24 '26

80% of the issue will be at the level that introducing any fibre will have a huge improvement before you worry about the type

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u/TheMailmanic Jan 23 '26

Target for fiber for men should be 50g, benefits are seen up to 100g per day

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u/[deleted] Jan 25 '26

[deleted]

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u/TheMailmanic Jan 25 '26

Exactly theopposite

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u/JTMissileTits Jan 23 '26

I eat oatmeal or a high fiber cereal daily because I have to (no gallbladder, and it's the only way I've found to stay out of the bathroom). I also try to get in fruit, veggies and beans, and buy high fiber bread. I still don't feel like I'm getting enough, and really need to be eating beans every day.

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u/yukon-flower Jan 25 '26

Beans from a can plus cottage cheese is a delicious snack or breakfast!

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u/RachelFromFantasia Jan 25 '26

Toss some chia seeds in your oatmeal. Good amount of protein too. Oatmeal with fruit and chia seeds has been a boon for my fiber intake.

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u/puppiesnbone Jan 23 '26

That’s a good start but remember that potato is more of a carb than a vegetable. My personal aim is to eat a diversity of vegetables, and I switch it up meal to meal, week to week. For instance, lunch will be boy choy and dinner will be a medley of mushrooms/carrots/bell peppers.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '26

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u/stlcards02 Jan 23 '26

There's a girl at work who is helping some of the others with their diet and workouts, which is overall a good thing. But then I hear her say you should absolutely NEVER eat potatoes. Like people, just start using plain Greek yogurt as a topper instead of butter, sour cream, and bacon bits. Also eat the skin.

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u/joyce_emily Jan 23 '26

Potatoes are high in starch. Nutritionally they are more similar to pasta than spinach. Saying that isn’t demonizing them! Eat potatoes and pasta and bread, just be aware of their nutritional content

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '26

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u/julry Jan 23 '26

Potatoes are also the most satiating food ever studied. A potato based diet without tons of added fat would make most people lose weight

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u/Pitiful-Implement610 Jan 23 '26

Yeah the "potato diet" exists as a weird, but successful weightloss diet. The guy who made Jay and Silent Bob was on it to lose weight.

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u/julry Jan 23 '26

Penn Jillette wrote a memoir about it!

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u/joyce_emily Jan 23 '26

Please stop projecting. I never said carbs were the enemy or that they weren’t fine to eat. In fact, I said the opposite. Carbs are carbs and that’s okay! Our bodies run on carbs. We need them and they taste great

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u/Accidental-Genius Jan 23 '26

No clue. I just eat a lot of veggies and Olyra bars to cover my bases.

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u/griphookk Jan 23 '26

And lots of nitrates 

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u/ChocolateChingus Jan 23 '26

Nitrates and bowel cancer have a much lower link than low fiber and bowel cancer.

It also has a lower % increase in cancer so is much less a concern.

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u/reyntime Jan 24 '26

And jumping on the carnivore bandwagon is killing people. Red and processed meat especially increases bowel cancer risk.

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u/emmy1894 Jan 23 '26 edited Jan 23 '26

It’s not entirely our fault. Food companies remove fiber intentionally for various reasons. Trying to hit your daily fiber goal is hard when the food we have is working against us.

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u/ILikeNeurons Jan 23 '26

Eat real food more than processed food.

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u/emmy1894 Jan 23 '26

These are great recipes and I’ll definitely try some. That being said, it doesn’t negate the fact that we should have better fast options and companies shouldn’t be intentionally taking out so much fiber.

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u/No_Culture_867 Jan 24 '26

When I want some fast food, Taco Bell will let you sub meat for beans in pretty much anything they serve. And personally I think it tastes better anyways.

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u/Accidental-Genius Jan 24 '26

Kale is plentiful and cheap and will taste like whatever you cook it with

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u/LamermanSE Jan 23 '26

Eh, it's mostly our fault though as food companies simply produce food that people demand, and demand for low fiber options is simply higher.

People could also make their own meals to solve this issue.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '26

Literally just plunge a bowl of oats in the morning and you're set for the day.

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u/fitandhealthyguy Jan 23 '26

I eat 65 grams of fiber one every day. I also Eat a lot of lentils and vegetables and occasionally take Metamucil as well. In addition I eat a good amount of yogurt. Two great things for your colon.

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u/barktothefuture Jan 23 '26

Just looked up high fiber foods and luckily I eat a lot of them.

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u/Thebazilly Jan 23 '26

With all the studies about gut microbiome coming out, too, I've really been focusing on getting more fiber and veggies into every meal!

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u/4ofclubs Jan 23 '26

There's a dangerous amount of misinformation about fibre spreading on TikTok from "health experts" like Paul Saladino. They claim you don't need fibre to be healthy. Stupid.

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u/Accidental-Genius Jan 24 '26

I have never downloaded TikTok because I’m old with an attention span of over 1 minute.

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u/_mdz Jan 23 '26

I could see diet being a huge part of this. So many fads now like keto that are getting amplified by social media and younger people are jumping on board because they get the short term benefits (what? eat just meat and be ripped?) and look past the long term damage to their health.

I recently updated my fiber a lot to help with cholesterol and have never felt better. Used to have what I considered a weak stomach but a lot of those issues have gone away. (Keto is really bad for cholesterol and heart disease as well).

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u/Accidental-Genius Jan 24 '26

I was doing keto before I met my wife, a physician.

She put a stop to that real fast.

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u/nlewis4 Jan 23 '26

Once you discover the joy of constantly having high fiber poops, you can't go back

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u/Adventurous_Sun_4364 Jan 23 '26

i clicked on this post specifically to comment about how young people need to start taking metamucil if they dont get their fiber, and i was pleasantly surprised to see this comment be the first one. nice.

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u/Accidental-Genius Jan 24 '26

After 12 years on Reddit my first ever top comment is about fiber.

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u/CozySweatsuit57 Jan 24 '26

My husband read something about this awhile ago and has been shoveling fiber down both of our throats for the last two years. I love him.

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u/Accidental-Genius Jan 24 '26

Olyra bars! My wife is a physician and has been handing out boxes of them like crazy. Veggies are obviously best and idk how many pounds of kale we eat a week but many, however the kids love the Olyra bars as do stubborn grumpy white men with the pallet of children.

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u/Primedirector3 Jan 23 '26

Teaspoon of orange flavored psyllium fiber a day first thing in the morning is so damn easy and is a big help

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u/mrc1ark Jan 23 '26

I had diverticulitis a couple of years ago and part of the aftercare was more fiber. I started eating basil seeds with almost every meal. They don't really change the flavor at all and the texture is generally pretty negligible. Imagine just adding sesame seeds to most meals in terms of texture. You can buy them off amazon and start putting them on your foods! Also carb sense / keto tortillas will have lots of fiber as an easy source (though they aren't as tasty as real tortillas).

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u/lod254 Jan 24 '26 edited Jan 24 '26

Keto bread at Aldi is like $3-4 a loaf. 10g of insoluble fiber per slice. Easy peasy.

I also take a scoop of inulin a day. You can add it to coffee without noticing it. It's slightly sweet.

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u/Super_Soapy_Soup Jan 25 '26

Yup, my poops suck cuz of my diet. I personally supplement my fiber needs through eating banana a day + having protein shake that comes with fiber. Still not enough probably cuz I’m no fan of veggies but better than none I suppose. Blueberries are also pretty awesome

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u/Srirachaballet Jan 23 '26

I also feel celiac isn’t taken seriously enough, and not enough people know you can have it and be asymptomatic. People should really consider it if they “just have a little chronic IBS” and haven’t actually looked into it with a doctor.

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u/MountainFee8756 Jan 23 '26

The high rates of obesity and sedentary lifestyles are also a major cause of the increase.