Animal studies on tumour suppressive effects of dietary fibre supplementation
| Animal model | Cancer | Dietary fibrereferences | Main findings |
| BALB/c, C57BL/6, BALB/c nude mice | Lymphoma | High-fibre(8%) versus low-fibre (<0.3%)32 | ↓ tumour growth and ↑ survival in mice on high-fibre diet; ↑ butyrate levels in serum and mouse lymphoma tumour; ↑ histone H3 acetylation level; ↑ FAS, p21, p27 and Bax expression |
| BALB/c mice | Melanoma | β−1,3 glucan (50, 100 and 200 g) versus PBS39 | ↓ tumour weight, lung metastasis and mortality;↑NK cell-mediated antitumour activity |
| Athymic nude mice | Urinary bladder cancer | Modified citrus pectin (350 and 700 mg/kg body weight) versus vehicle41 | ↓ tumour burden; ↓ galectin-3 and Ki67 expression (cell proliferation marker); ↑ cleaved caspase-3 (cell apoptosis marker) |
| C57BL/6 mice | Melanoma | Mucin (3% in drinking water) or inulin (15% supplemented in chow) versus standard chow42 | ↓ tumour growth and ↑ antitumour immunity with total CD45+ cells, effector CD4+ and CD8+ T cells, and total DCs; ↑ expression of chemokines, inflammasome-related and antigen presentation-related genes; Inulin: ↓ melanoma resistance to MEK inhibitor |
| Copenhagen rats | Prostate adenocarcinoma | 1,3–1,6 β-D-glucan (50 mg/kg/daily orally)44 | ↓ tumour growth and ↓ malondialdehyde (oxidative stress marker) levels |
| C57BL/6J mice | Pulmonary metastatic melanoma | Yeast-derived β-glucan (1 mg intraperitoneally) versus PBS45 | ↓ lung metastasis and ↓ gene expression of tyrosinase; ↑ monocyte-dependent antitumour immunity; ↑ levels of TNF-α and G-CSF in lung and plasma |
| NCR nu/nu mice | Metastatic breast cancer | Modified citrus pectin (1% (w/v) in drinking water) versus regular autoclaved water46 | ↓ tumour growth, angiogenesis and spontaneous metastasis |
| Sprague-Dawley rats | Breast cancer | Inulin, oligofructose or pectin (15 g of fibre in 100 g basal diet) versus basal diet47 | ↓ tumour growth |
| C57BL/6 mice | Mammary cell/Lewis lung cancer | Yeast-derived whole β-glucan particles (800 µg daily) versus PBS62 | ↓ tumour weight and splenomegaly; ↓ polymorphonuclear myeloid-derived suppressor cells (PMN-MDSC) |
| Nu/Nu nude mice | Pancreatic cancer | Engineered resistant starch (Hi Maize 260) versus standard diet66 | ↓ tumour growth; ↓ acetylcarnitine, arginine, aspartic acid, hypoxanthine, inosine, and xanthine; ↑ glutamine |
| Copenhagen rats | Pulmonary metastatic prostate cancer | Modified citrus pectin (0.0%, 0.01 %, 0.1% or 1.0% (w/v) in drinking water)69 | ↓ lung metastasis in rats given 1.0% MAP |
| BALB/cABom nude mice | Prostate adenocarcinoma | Rye bran (30 g/100 g diet) or soy protein (22.5 g/100 g diet)74 | ↓ tumour growth and weight; ↓PSA secretion and ↑ cell apoptosis |
PSA, prostate-specific antigen.