Fiber Without The Fiber?

“Eat more fiber!” everyone says. Including us, to be fair, because it’s quite correct—most Americans do not eat nearly enough:

• The World Health Organization recommends we each get at least 25g of fiber per day: The Joint WHO/FAO Expert Consultation on diet, nutrition and the prevention of chronic diseases
• A more recent meta-review of studies, involving thousands of people and decades of time, suggests 25–29g is ideal: Carbohydrate quality and human health: a series of systematic reviews and meta-analyses
• The British Nutritional Foundation gives 30g as the figure: 30 g of fibre a day: An achievable recommendation?
• The US National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine recommends 21g–38g per day, depending on age and sex: NAS | Dietary Reference Intakes for Energy, Carbohydrate, Fiber, [and more]
• A large study last year gave 30–40g as the figure: Therapeutic Benefits and Dietary Restrictions of Fiber Intake: A State-of-the-Art Review*

*This one is also a great read to understand more about the “why” of fiber

Meanwhile, the average American gets 16g of fiber per day.

So if you’d like to improve your own score on that front, then check out our main feature on that topic, here: Level-Up Your Fiber Intake! (Without Difficulty Or Discomfort)

However…

More than one way to get things moving

When it comes to the specific problem of constipation, there are some foods that work a lot better than just fiber.

Researchers (Dr. Eirini Dimidi et al.) have found that kiwi, rye bread, and mineral-rich water are the most effective dietary options for chronic constipation relief, outperforming traditional “eat more fiber” advice.

Of course, two out of three of those do contain fiber, but on a gram-for-gram basis, they performed significantly better than a high fiber diet without those dietary items, for constipation relief.

Some supplements were also found to help, namely psyllium, certain probiotics, and magnesium, which were also found to help manage symptoms, but again not nearly as much as the aforementioned top-scoring items.

If you do want to do those latter three though, since they’re very recommendable in any case and it’s not like this is an “either/or” choice, then to make the most of them, see:

• Why Psyllium Is Healthy Through-And-Through
• Stop Sabotaging Your Gut ← this one is about how most people inadvertently stop their probiotics from working, and how to not make that mistake
• Which Magnesium? (And: When?)

Meanwhile, they also found that general high-fiber diets and senna supplements (commonly taken for laxative effect) lacked strong evidence for effectiveness in chronic constipation.

This information seems quite reliable, since Dr. Dimidi and her team reviewed 75 clinical trials resulting in 59 recommendations, and these recommendations were further vetted by an expert panel including dietitians, a nutritionist, a gastroenterologist, a gut physiologist, and a general practitioner.

To see this in full, you can find the full paper here: British Dietetic Association Guidelines for the Dietary Management of Chronic Constipation in Adults

Do still eat plenty of fiber, though

Dr. Dimidi herself noted that a high-fiber diet is still very important for overall health, even if it doesn’t seem to do as much as one might think with regard to constipation.

We at 10almonds have also covered why fiber is a critical component in avoiding metabolic syndrome (and especially diabetes), here:

From Apples to Bees, and High-Fructose Cs: Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same? ← while the title talks about sugar, the article talks about this and sugar’s counterpart for these purposes, fiber.

Take care!