Dietary Fiber Facts for Vitamins, Supplements, Health and Wellness

Dietary Fiber: Facts and Information

Consuming a lot of fruits and vegetables in your daily diet helps keep you healthy. The reason for this is not just the vitamins and minerals they provide but also the dietary fibers they contain. Research on fibers is increasingly pointing to their usefulness not only in relieving constipation but also in reducing the risk of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.

Dietary Fiber – an Overview

The term fiber refers to all the components of food from a plant source that the body is unable to digest. Fibers may be of two types: soluble fiber that dissolves in water and insoluble fiber that does not. The fiber present in vegetables, wheat bran, and whole-wheat flour and nuts is of the insoluble type whereas the fibers in beans, citrus fruits, barley, apples and carrots is of the soluble kind.

Benefits of Dietary Fiber

Often called roughage, this dietary fiber is neither digested nor absorbed in the human digestive system and therefore, passes right out of the body. So, if all the fibers do is go in and out of the body, how is it useful? The insoluble fibers swell up in the intestine and this increases the bulk of the body’s waste material and makes it softer, causing it to be excreted easily from the body. This fiber is therefore useful in persons who suffer from constipation.

The soluble fibers dissolves in the digestive system and result in the formation of a jelly-like substance. Research is increasingly showing that this gel has the capacity to cause a lowering of blood glucose and cholesterol levels, making fibers a valuable food for people with diabetes and high blood cholesterol levels.

Besides these benefits, a diet rich in fibers also helps with weight reduction. The presence of a higher amount of fiber in your food leaves you feeling full even after eating smaller portions of food and this effect lasts for a long time. As a result, with a fiber-rich diet, you do not feel hungry very fast and the lesser the food you consume, the faster you lose weight.

So, go on and make this healthy choice of including dietary fibers but go slow with the transition from a low-fiber diet to a high-fiber one because if done suddenly, it may cause you to develop abdominal cramps and gas.

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