Diet With Insufficient Plant Substances - What Can It Lead To?

Author: Nia Rouseberg Time for reading: ~1 minutes Last Updated: January 27, 2026

In this article, learn more about Diet With Insufficient Plant Substances - What Can It Lead To?. A diet rich in plant substances can reduce carcinogenic risk.

Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute in London have found that prolonged exposure to mice with a diet that includes products rich in the compound indole-3-carbinol has a preventive effect on inflammatory diseases of the intestinal mucosa and at the same time has a positive effect on preventing colon cancer. The announcement was published in the medical journal Immunity.

In the digestive tract, the compound indole-3-carbinol is released during the consumption of various representatives of vegetables of the genus Cabbage (kale, broccoli, cauliflower, alabaster, turnips and others).

Characteristic of colon cancer is that it usually begins in the form of a polyp and most often has a slow growth. Importantly, not every polyp has carcinogenic potential.

Dr. Stockinger and her colleagues found that some laboratory mice fed only purified and controlled food developed tumor-like formations of the colon within 10 weeks, as opposed to those fed "ordinary" food - containing e.g. cereals.

The explanation is that the so-called controlled diet has a significantly lower content of nutrients of plant origin to activate a specific receptor (aryl hydrocarbon receptor - AhR) . This receptor is involved in the reception and transmission of signals from the external environment, as well as in the conversion of undifferentiated cells into specialized intestinal cells.

According to the researchers, the insufficient amount of nutrients of plant origin with food leads to a reduced amount of compounds that activate AhR.

According to the author of the study, even without the presence of genetic predisposition, a diet devoid of vegetables is a risk factor for the development of colon cancer.

The researchers found that in mice, the absence or inactivation of this specific receptor, AhR , leads to the development of frequent intestinal infections, as well as a risk factor for the development of colon cancer.

At the same time, enrichment of the diet of mice with the compound indole-3-carbinol significantly reduces the tendency to tumorigenesis.

The finding leads to the optimistic conclusion that while the impact on genetic predisposition is difficult to achieve so far, an appropriate diet with more vegetables can reduce carcinogenic risk.

Diet With Insufficient Plant Substances - What Can It Lead To?

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