Original title: The Health Benefits of Dietary Fibre
Dietary fibre is carbohydrate from plants that the body does not digest. Gut microbes help mediate some of fibre’s effects, including effects on appetite, metabolism and long-term inflammation. The review finds that fibre intake is linked with metabolic health and several other health outcomes. It argues that improving fibre intake could benefit public health.
Imagine cooking a meal with ingredients that your body cannot use on its own. Some ingredients reach the kitchen helpers, who change them into things that affect how the whole meal is handled. In this paper, fibre is the ingredient, and gut microbes are the helpers linked to effects on appetite, metabolism and inflammation.
People eating diets low in plant foods may miss fibre’s links to metabolic and gut health. The review argues that improving fibre intake could be a public-health strategy, though it does not test a specific diet or intervention.
This is a narrative review of relevant English-language articles found through a PubMed search, not a trial that tests whether increasing fibre causes better health. The abstract reports associations and proposed pathways, but gives no study counts, effect sizes, recommended intake, or details on how to achieve higher intake.
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The Health Benefits of Dietary Fibre — Thomas M. Barber, Stefan Kabisch, Andreas F. H. Pfeiffer et al. — Nutrients — doi:10.3390/nu12103209
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.