Could Your Gut Be Blocking Your Dietary Fiber?

Why adding fiber to your diet may not be enough to provide health benefits

Look at all those whole grains! That’s a lot of fiber — sure would be a shame if you just POOPED IT ALL OUT!! Photo by ABHISHEK HAJARE on Unsplash

Given my PhD in genetics, focusing on the microbiome, I get a lot of questions about what we can do to improve our gut health. Is there a magic bullet, some secret ingredient that we should be eating but aren’t?

Usually, I have a one-word answer, followed by lots more words.

“Fiber.”

“Dietary fiber isn’t just a scrubbing brush for our insides; fiber describes the stuff that we can’t break down directly, but serves as a great food source for gut microbes. More fiber seems to promote a healthier gut microbiome, and also leads to better heart health, increases stool bulk, and lead to the production of healthy short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs).”

However, a new study published in the journal Microbiome suggests that simply adding generic fiber to your diet may not be enough. Some people see great improvements from adding fiber to their diet. Others don’t see much benefit at all.

Evidence so far suggests that this could be due to our gut microbes.

It’s a chicken-and-egg problem, isn’t it? Eat more healthy fiber to feed your gut microbes and improve your health — but you need to have those gut…