Then, early last year, the headlines slowed the momentum. A study involving nearly 90,000 women showed that fiber wasn't the crown prince of nutrients, after all. Women who ate about 28 grams of fiber a day weren't any less likely to develop colon cancer than those who ate no more than 8.5 grams. Public reaction was one of confusion. Not so fast, researchers said.
Fiber does guard against other serious health problems.
And the research evidence on that bears it out. Even the author of the Harvard study, Charles Fuchs, M.D., says that most of us should be eating twice as much fiber as we now consume. Most people should shoot for at least 25 grams of fiber. That means packing your diet with fiber-rich foods. A bowl of vegetarian chili at lunch could add to your daily total, with one cup of kidney beans providing more than 7 grams of fiber.