BY Jimmy Downs

Tuesday Sept 18, 2012 (foodconsumer.org) -- A review article in Advances in Nutrition suggests taking rice bran supplements may also reduce risk of breast cancer.

A.J. Henderson of Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO. and colleagues reviewed previous studies and found the chemopreventive potential of dietary rice bran are related with numerious bioactive phytochemicals in rice bran including ferulic acid, tricin, β-sitosterol, γ-oryzanol, tocotrienols/tocopherols, and phytic acid.

What dietary rice bran compounds can do to prevent breast cancer and other  malignancies is induce apoptosis -  programmed cell deaths that are missing in cancer cells, inhibit cell proliferation and alter cell cycle progression in cancer cells.

Additionally, dietary rice bran derived bioactive ingredients can also prevent tissue from being damaged by free radicals by scavenging these free radicals and blocking chronic inflammatory responses, both would otherwise increase risk of cancers including breast cancer.

In addition to breast cancer, dietary rice bran may also prevent other cancers including lung cancer, liver cancer, and colorectal cancer, according to the reviewers.

Another thing rice bran phytochemicals can do to prevent colorectal cancer is activate anticancer immune responses and influence the colonic tumor microenvironment to enhance its anticancer effect.

In the case of colorectal cancer, dietary rice bran prevent the disease by modulating gut microflora communities and regulating carcinogen-metabolizing enzymes. 

Dietary rice bran is far much cheaper than prescription drug and it is easy to obtain. Food consumers may be better off takin rice bran supplements even if their risk for breast cancer is lower.  This wonder food ingredient can help do more than breast cancer prevention.

Breast cancer is expected to be diagnosed in more than 230,000 American women in 2012 and about 40,000 will die in the same year from the disease and its complications, according to the National Cancer Institute.