A gut health and cancer researcher shared the foods she eats to lower her disease risk

• Dr. Susan Bullman researches the relationship between gut health and cancer.
• She said eating too many ultra-processed foods can promote tumor growth.
• She shared the fiber-rich, high-protein whole foods she eats to reduce her cancer risk.

As colon cancer rates continue to rise in people under 45, researchers like Dr. Susan Bullman are studying the role gut health may play in the uptick.

“These individuals are often very healthy — they’re exercising, they’re physically fit,” Bullman, a researcher and associate professor at MD Anderson Cancer Center, told Business Insider.

In many cases, these patients also follow nutrient-rich diets, as Business Insider previously reported.

Still, these days it can be tough to hit your daily recommended amount of fiber and vitamins, given the oversaturation of low-nutrient, ultra-processed foods in our supermarkets.

Packaged snacks, which tend to lack essential nutrients, can disrupt the production of protective mucus in the gut, allowing harmful microbes to enter the bloodstream. Over time, this can lead to inflammation and the growth of cancerous tumors.

Through her research, Bullman has found that eating fiber-rich foods like lentils and beans not only feeds beneficial gut microbes. It may also reduce the risk of developing colon cancer and oral cancer, because dangerous gut bacteria can travel to the mouth (and vice versa). Plus, there is some evidence that high-fiber diets can improve responses to treatments for skin cancer.

“If you think about your gut as a housing estate, you want the real estate to be occupied by these beneficial microbes,” she said.

Influenced by her own research, Bullman shared a few of the foods she eats to reduce her cancer risk.

Oatmeal with fruit is a filling, high-fiber breakfast

The recommended daily fiber intake is 25 grams for women and 38 for men — but most Americans eat less than 10 grams a day, according to the USDA’s Economic Research Service.

Bullman likes to start her morning with oatmeal and fruit. A cup of oatmeal with a cup of raspberries has about 12 grams of fiber.

“I often have grapes and bananas to try and get some extra fiber in there,” Bullman said. She also snacks on pears, which are one of the highest-fiber fruits.

She focuses on whole protein sources

“High-protein” products have become trendy over the last few years, as protein intake is linked to muscle growth and overall health.

Bullman, who strength trains with free weights and also tries to eat enough protein to see results, said she’s wary of some of the new items on offer in grocery stores.

“You’ll see things like high-protein cereals, high-protein pasta, and you think, ‘It’s full of protein, so it’s good for me,'” Bullman said. But she said items like protein bars are often ultra-processed, containing ingredients like emulsifiers and stabilizers to make them tastier and give them a long shelf life.

Instead, Bullman focuses on whole protein sources, such as chicken. For lunch, she sometimes has chicken salad with chia or pumpkin seeds for more fiber and protein.

Dinner is typically a fist-sized portion of protein, such as grilled chicken or beef, accompanied by some fiber-rich vegetables and whole grains, she said, more or less following the Mediterranean diet.

Adding kefir to smoothies

Bullman also tries to eat fermented foods, which are rich in probiotics and great for the gut microbiome. She swaps dairy milk with kefir, a fermented milk drink, in her smoothies.

When buying kefir, she recommended looking at the list of microbes on the label — the more variety, the better. “You don’t want to just take one microbe,” she said. “You want to make sure that it’s a community.”

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