Dietary Fiber Reduces Risk of Cardiovascular Disease?

Is there a miracle treatment for reducing cardiovascular disease?  Perhaps the title of this blog post is someone disingenuous, but the intent on grabbing your attention is not…  To clarify, I am not one to suggest that there is a ‘natural’ miracle cure for any type of disease.  However, with that being said, there are plenty of things that we can do to improve our health including the use of dietary changes, exercise, and some dietary supplements as well.

Though dietary fiber may not exactly be a ‘miracle cure,’ the results of a recent study suggest that increasing dietary fiber intake from natural sources is associated with a reduction in classical as well as novel cardiovascular risk factors in a high-risk cohort.

For some basics about dietary fiber click the following text–  Dietary Fiber Cheat Sheet.

Study results:

Increasing dietary fiber intake from natural sources resulted in statistically significant reductions in the following:

• Body waist circumference (Yup, the old ‘love handles.’)
• Blood pressure
• Fasting glucose
• Total Cholesterol
• C-reactive protein

Well, given that dietary fiber from natural sources is so beneficial to our health, why don’t we choose to eat more of it??? New guidelines suggest that men should consume 38 g per day while women should consume 25 g.

Reference:

1. Estruch R, Martinez-Gonzalez MA, Corella D, Basora-Gallisá J, Ruiz-Gutierrez V, Covas MI, Fiol M, Gómez-Gracia E, Lopez-Sabater MC, Escoda R, Pena MA, Diez-Espino J, Lahoz C, Lapetra J, Saez G, Ros E. Effects of dietary fiber intake on risk factors for cardiovascular disease in subjects at high risk.  J Epidemiol Community Health. 2009 Mar 15.