Dietary fibre increases cancer risk: "Post-menopausal women stand a 1 in 2 chance of suffering from osteoporosis (brittle bone disease) and 1 in 5 of them will die as a direct result. (30) That is twice as many as many fractures as there were in the 1950s. (31) Osteoporosis is caused by a number of things, but it is basically a calcium deficiency which is at the heart of the disease. Very few surveys have concentrated on intake of any nutrient other than calcium and more research is needed on this subject. However, as the eating of bran both inhibits the absorption of calcium from food and depletes the body of the calcium it has, is it coincidence that the incidence of osteoporosis has increased by about ten percent a year for the past two decades? In England alone, a fifth of all orthopaedic beds are now occupied by patients with broken hips and the direct hospital costs alone amounted to more than �160,000,000 a year over a decade ago. (32) That figure did not include other breakages, personal costs and, of course, the pain and hardship brought on by the disease. Broken bones also require zinc for their repair, and zinc is another mineral whose absorption is adversely affected by cereal fibre. "