Appendicectomy and dietary fibre.

The hypothesis that dietary fibre protects against appendicitis was tested. One thousand seven hundred subjects, involved in another enquiry, were sent a questionnaire asking about their intake of cereal fibre and other foodstuffs, and whether or not they had had an appendectomy. The respondents, who represented 92 per cent of the sample, were divided into those who ate wholemeal bread daily and those who ate wholemeal bread rarely or never. These groups appeared to be very similar with respect to age, sex, smoking habit, alcohol intake and various other factors. Comparison of appendicectomy rates between those who ate wholemeal bread and those who did not showed a deficit among the former, which is consistent with a protective effect of cereal fibre, but the difference was not statistically significant.