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Dietary Fiber and Gastrointestinal Epithelial Cell Proliferation

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Dietary Fiber

Abstract

The use of high-fiber diets in the treatment and prevention of gastrointestinal disorders has markedly increased in recent years. In view of this widespread popularity for consuming diets rich in fiber, it has become increasingly important to determine what effects the different forms of dietary fiber have on the epithelial lining of the gastrointestinal tract. Older studies mostly concluded that consumption of diets high in bulk or fiber produced little or no change in the gastrointestinal epithelium. However, with the advent of newer, more sensitive techniques, recent studies have demonstrated that dietary fibers produce marked alterations in the morphology and cell renewal of the gastrointestinal epithelium. These morphological and cytokinetic changes appear to have important implications for maintaining a normal healthy epithelium and preventing mucosal disease. The development and refinement of techniques that measure the mucosal topography, cell size and number, rates of cell mitoses and migration, DNA synthesis, and cell cycle times have all enhanced our ability to study dietary perturbations of gut epithelial cell proliferation. This chapter will review principles and techniques for measuring cell proliferation and their application to studying the effects of the fiber on the gastrointestinal mucosa.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology, School of Medicine, University of California, Davis, California, 95616, USA

    Lucien R. Jacobs

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  1. Lucien R. Jacobs
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. The George Washington University Medical Center, Washington, D.C, USA

    George V. Vahouny

  2. The Wistar Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

    David Kritchevsky

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© 1986 Plenum Press, New York

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Jacobs, L.R. (1986). Dietary Fiber and Gastrointestinal Epithelial Cell Proliferation. In: Vahouny, G.V., Kritchevsky, D. (eds) Dietary Fiber. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2111-8_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2111-8_14

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-9249-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4613-2111-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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