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Dietary fiber pros and cons
Posted by: Ron
If you read popular health media and government recommendations, fiber is something you must have in your diet and 30 grams per day is recommended.
Be careful with your fiber consumption
Fiber is a double edged sword. It has benefits as well as disadvantages.
The cons of fiber
If you have a great diet, never eat junk food, grains, cereals or other processed foods, you have very little need for fiber. In that case eating fiber will rob you of nutrients. It’s also undigestible by humans. What fiber does is it acts like a magnet. It attracts particles, binds to them and carries them out. Eating a lot of fiber with a fresh wholesome diet has the disadvantage of fiber binding to nutrients, vitamins and minerals and preventing your body from absorbing them. It also slows down your digestion and if you already have a sluggish digestive system, it may prolong the feeling of the food just sitting in your stomach.
Fiber also irritates the colon rather than protecting it. A 3 year study back in the late 90s (published in the October 14th, 2000 issue of the Lancet) showed that the group who had higher intake of fiber showed a 67% higher risk of developing at least one adenoma (which is a type of polyp that is most likely to become cancerous.)
The pros of fiber
Since fiber is undigestible by humans, it literally sweeps through your intestines, scraping things off its walls that have been “stuck” there. These are usually left overs of some type of flour from grains. It binds to the crusty stuff and takes it out. As it does that, it irritates the colon. This can be used to your advantage, when you want to literally clean up the built up gunk in your colon. This is what the NSP Ab Trim Colon Cleanse Kit does. I would only suggest using fiber short term.
Fiber also indirectly helps slow down the release of sugar into the blood stream because it’s undigestible, it slows your whole digestion down. That means the release of insulin will slow down too. This is more like a by-product of eating roughage. Again, for some, this maybe a great short term solution. The key term is “short term”.
Most people are afraid of leaving out fiber from their diet as that’s what they contribute their “regularity” to. In reality, when you eat high quality foods, enough fats and repair your digestion, you will automatically be regular. There would be nothing to plug up your plumbing. Therefore there would be no need to use fiber to sweep it out.
Fiber can be used as a quick fix when you’re constipated. Then your best bet is to eliminate the source of your constipation rather than rely on that specific quick fix. I’ve written about other, more beneficial quick fixes.
Are you a high fiber consumer or are you regular without it?
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