Bran Process Found to Cut Cancer Risk

Presenting findings at an American Chemical Society meeting in Boston, researchers said that processing wheat bran by a method called extrusion increased the bran’s cancer-fighting potential--lowering the risk of colon cancer--when compared with raw wheat bran or cereal processed using flaking techniques. The study involved laboratory rats and was conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the University of California. The six-month study showed as much as a 40% reduction in the number of aberrant “crypt cells” in the colons of rats fed a diet of extrusion-processed wheat bran.