What’s all the hype about fiber?
Here’s a story for you: Around 50 years ago, the English physician Dr. Denis Burkitt noticed that African bushmen seemed to be free of the ailments that plagued their “civilized” counterparts in the West. Those ailments included heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and obesity.
Dr. Burkitt, wanting to explain these differences, began studying earlier observations of the bushmen. His findings pointed him towards a comparison between the diets of the two groups. The main reason for the difference between their health, he decided, lay in the amount of fiber they were eating.
Today’s average American consumes about 8 grams of fiber a day. In comparison, the bushmen of Dr. Burkitt’s study consumed about 100 grams a day. They, like our hunter-gatherer ancestors, acquired all of that fiber from a number of roots, berries, leaves, and other plant foods. Seeing this, Dr. Burkitt began to criticize the consumption of carbohydrate sugars and starches in refined form. He also pointed to the dangers of eating white flour. Stripped of their bulky, chewy coverings, these foods failed to provide the necessary amount of fiber for a healthy diet.
We know now that fiber can actually prevent obesity and other chronic diseases of aging. It slows the rate at which food enters your bloodstream while increasing the speed at which food exits your body through the digestive tract. This helps to keep your blood sugar and cholesterol in ideal balance by quickly eliminating toxins and decreasing your appetite.
Fiber can lower blood sugar as much as some diabetes medications, as well as lowering cholesterol and promoting weight loss. Some studies have shown that fiber lowers cholesterol and the risk of heart disease by as much as 40%. As an added bonus, it’s also a great natural cure for constipation and irregularity.
An amazing natural source of fiber is Acacia gum, which is what we used to create Cholesterade®. This stuff really does the job. In a study on Acacia gum’s effect on the cholesterol levels in human plasma over 8 weeks, scientists found:
- Triglycerides – reduced by 50%
- Total Cholesterol (TC) – reduced by 17.9%
- LDL Cholesterol (bad cholesterol) – reduced by 21.4%
- HDL Cholesterol (good cholesterol) – reduced by 12.9%
- HDLC/LDLC Ratio – increased by 44%
If you want to reduce triglycerides and raise your “good” cholesterol, start a low-carb diet paired with the right cholesterol supplements (we swear by Cholesterade®!) and lessen your intake of foods like white bread, potatoes, white rice, crackers, and sugar. Good luck!