Demystifying Fibre: an apple is more than just an apple.

Eating lots of fibre and whole grains leads to a lower risk of dying. That’s the conclusion of a New Zealand researcher who has spent years bringing data together from studies all over the world.

If nutritional guidelines focussed on increasing dietary fibre and on replacing refined grains with whole grains, it would reduce the risk of death from a broad range of important diseases, said the researcher, Jim Mann from the University of Otago, New Zealand.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in 2020 the leading cause of death was ischaemic heart diseases (IHD); dementia, including Alzheimer's disease was the second leading cause of death. Cerebrovascular diseases, lung cancer and chronic lower respiratory diseases rounded out the top five leading causes.

All these diseases are called Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) because they aren’t related to pathogens or bugs that can kill us as was the case less than 100 years ago.

The New Zealand research discovered that people who ate more fibre were less likely to die of these common non-communicable diseases.

It’s not surprising, the average consumption of fibre across the Western World has plunged since the 1960s to less than 20g per day with up to 80 per cent of people getting less than 10 per cent.

Guidelines in most western countries suggest more than 30-35 grams a day, and they’d really like you to be eating more than 50grams. Interestingly, in a 1987 nutrition textbook I found a recommendation to eat 100 grams a day – and that was before science even really knew the full importance of fibre!

It’s no mystery why people aren’t getting to their recommended amount of fibre though, fast foods and convenience foods are very low in fibre (and most other nutritional goodness).

Only plants contain fibre, it is not found in any animal products. But it’s not hard to get to a good amount of fibre – the following table shows fibre content of common foods.

So, the following menu is around a 50 grams of fibre – and that doesn't include adding any fruit or nuts as snacks...or dark chocolate which has good fibre too!

Breakfast: 1 cup cooked oats with ½ cup blackberries and a table spoon of hemp seeds

Lunch: Salad or stir fry with: ½ cup quinoa, 1 cup baby spinach or kale, ¼ capsicum, ¼ onion, ½ carrot

Tea: Lentils or beans (1 cup cooked); brown rice or buckwheat (1/2 cup) roasted veges (sweet potato, cauliflower etc); ½ cup green peas

The New Zealand study was commissioned by the WHO (World Health Organisation) to provide information on the association between dietary intake and health outcomes as part of updating global recommendations. The researchers analysed nearly 135 million person years of data from 185 prospective studies and 58 clinical trials with 4635 adult participants.

After they analysed the data it was clear that individuals who consumed the highest amount of dietary fibre had the lowest likelihood of dying. For every 8g increase of dietary fibre eaten each day, total deaths and incidences of coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and colorectal cancer decreased by 2-19%. Risks of stroke and breast cancer were also reduced: 25-29g of fibre each day was associated with a reduction in risk of a wide range of health outcomes but the data suggested that higher intakes could provide even greater protection.

Further results from the analysis of randomised trials showed higher intakes of dietary fibre reduced body weight and lowered blood cholesterol and systolic blood pressure.

The analyses provide compelling evidence that dietary fibre and whole grain are major determinants of numerous health outcomes.