A diet high in fiber is associated with a lower level of estrogen in the bloodstream (Gaskins et al., 2009). Estrogen will break down into estradiol in the body, and a high-fiber diet will reduce the levels of serum estrone and estradiol in the blood (“Nutrition and Breast Cancer,” 2015). An increase of estrogen that is eliminated from the body in the stool is also related to a diet high in fiber (“Nutrition and Breast Cancer,” 2015; Gaskins et al., 2009). Fiber is known to bind to bile acids, toxic compounds, and carcinogens. The whole grains that are high in fiber are also high in antioxidants which include phenolic compounds and trace minerals that have been linked to the prevention of disease (“Nutrition and Breast Cancer,” 2015).
Kefir has a creamy taste and consistency; it is an acidic alcoholic fermented milk product produced by fermenting milk (cow, buffalo, ewe, or goat) with kefir grains (Prado, 2015). The kefir grains are a mixture of acetic acid bacteria and lactic acid bacteria. Some of the health benefits associated with kefir (and not the milk that it comes from) are that it can prevent diarrhea and enterocolitis caused by Clostridium difficle. Kefir can act as a safe food preservative and can protect against intoxications from aflatoxin B1 (Prado, 2015). Kefir can also work against Salmonella, E. coli, staphylococcus, and listeria monocytogenes (Prado, 2015). Additional activity includes that ability of the bacteria in kefir to act as an antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, and immunoregulatory agent (Prado, 2015). Also, kefir showed some antiproliferative effects on gastric cancer in humans (Prado, 2015). Probably the most popular reason to ingest kefir is that it is a source of probiotics (Prado, 2015).
References
Gaskins, A., Mumford, S., Zhang, C., Wacrawski-Wende, J., Hovey, K, Schisterman, E.
(2009). The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 90(4). Retrieved from
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2744625/
Nutrition and Breast Cancer. (2105). Retrieved from
http://cancer.ucsf.edu/_docs/crc/nutrition_breast.pdf
Prado, M., Blandon, L., Vandenberghe, L., Rodrigues, C., Castro, G., Soccol, C. (2015).
Milk Kefir: composition, microbial cultures, biological activities, and related products.
Frontiers in Microbiology, 6, Retrieved from
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4626640/