How Much FIBER Do You Need Each Day?

we've all been told a million times that

we should include

more fiber in our diet and we're given

multiple reasons for this

the purpose of this video is to question

how much

fiber should we be getting in our diet

and more importantly what does the

research

actually say about this not necessarily

epidemiological observational research

that's based on food

frequency questionnaires but what does

actual randomized control research

say about the fiber question i'm dr ken

berry a family physician with 20 years

of clinical practice

and this video is going to help you

understand how much fiber do you need to

eat each and every day

all you have to do is turn on the

television or read a magazine article or

jump on twitter

and you're going to be told things over

and over like

eating more fiber helps support weight

loss lowers your cholesterol

lowers your blood sugar improves your

heart health prevents diabetes

completely

helps constipation decreases your risk

of colon cancer or my personal favorite

that it detoxes some part of your

body now people who have ever taken

too much fiber either from fiber

containing foods

or from a fiber supplement will tell you

that the side effects of having too much

fiber are

no fun whatsoever they include gas

lots of gas bloating constipation

diarrhea wait a minute constipation

yeah and cramping and actually worsening

of irritable bowel syndrome

symptoms so it's it's almost like your

bowel is telling you

hey don't eat all this fiber but

many powers that be including the fda

and the american heart association say

hey you need to eat lots of fiber

if you're a man you should eat from 30

to 38 grams each and every day if you're

a woman

you should eat 21 to 25 grams each and

every day

if you're a child between the ages of

one and eight you should eat 14 to 31

grams

each and every day so what does the

research say

but first let's talk about where this

idea even came from

who had the bright idea that we should

eat lots of fiber

in our diets it actually comes from a

british surgeon by the name of dennis

burkett

and he was a very very intelligent

surgeon

there's actually a childhood cancer

burkitt's lymphoma

named after him he was very prominent

british surgeon

he practiced in africa for years and he

noticed that the african natives

who were his patients had these

ginormous poops several times a day

and he also noticed that they ate a lot

of fiber in their diet

and he also noticed that they didn't

have colon cancer

very often and they definitely didn't

have constipation

and they didn't really seem to have any

other bowel issues

and so he came up with this hypothesis

that eating a high fiber diet

should protect the human body from lots

of things including constipation and

colon cancer

so this idea literally came from an

impromptu

hunch that a single individual had

he did not do any control research he

did not do

any meaningful research on this

whatsoever he just

wrote a book about this and became known

as the fiber guy

and lectured all over the world and

since as i

mentioned earlier he was a very

prominent british surgeon

and he had done some very good work in

other areas people

tended to take what he said as gospel

one thing that you need to understand is

that these africans that he was studying

and practicing on

they also didn't need any added sugar

whatsoever and they also didn't eat any

highly processed grains and they also

didn't eat

any vegetable oils so there's that

he also had one other hypothesis which i

tend to agree with

uh he hypothesized that squatting is a

better

position to take a bowel movement in

than sitting and that it would help with

constipation and other bowel problems

now

i think that hasn't been proven either

but i think he may have been onto

something there

now let's talk quickly about what fiber

actually is

fiber is plant matter that our gut

absolutely cannot digest it

is well basically it's the same exact

thing as sawdust

or cardboard okay so uh

when you start looking at some of these

claims like it prevents

it it helps you lose weight well if i

took you

where you're at right now and i replaced

10 or 20

of your diet with sawdust and every day

we just mix sawdust into your oatmeal

and into your corn flakes

and so you were getting 10 to 20 more

fiber a day

fiber that your body cannot break down

cannot use as nutrition in any way

whatsoever

doesn't contribute any calories

carbohydrates protein fat to your diet

well duh yeah you're going to lose

weight because i'm feeding you something

you cannot use

is nutrition right this is also the way

it lowers your blood sugar

because however much of your diet you're

replacing

with fiber is giving you no nutritional

benefit at all including no

carbohydrates so of course your blood

sugar is going to come down

as for the claim that it improves heart

health or decreases your risk of heart

attack or stroke

again we're replacing 10 to 20 percent

of your diet with

sawdust or cardboard every day so you're

not able to eat

that much in volume of sugars and grains

and vegetable oils so we're basically by

putting 10 to 20 sawdust into your diet

you're not able to eat the things that

are actually increasing your risk of

heart attack and stroke

so yeah that kind of makes sense now

there is the argument

that gut bacteria living in your large

intestine

can break down this fiber and use it

and then somehow magically you derive

nutrition from that now it is true that

the

the bacteria in your gut can break down

this fiber and they can use it as fuel

because they can actually break the

cellulose down

but you cannot now there is some limited

evidence that the short chain fatty

acids that these bacteria produce

from eating the cardboard and the

sawdust

can move across the cell membrane of

your enterocytes which are the cells

that line your gut wall

and you're parasites probably do benefit

from these short

chain fatty acids a little bit but

that's not really nutrition for you

that's just those cells now

the truth is those cells get plenty of

short chain fatty acids from your

circulation

like your cells are supposed to get

nutrition from right

and there's very little evidence that

your entire body actually benefits

from these short chain fatty acids

whatsoever now

what these bacteria also make in

addition to the short chain fatty acids

is they also produce lots of greenhouse

gases

like methane and carbon dioxide and you

experience this

in the form of gas and farts and so by

eating a high fiber diet

are you actually contributing to global

warming

now let's look at the actual research

to support all these claims about fiber

so the weight loss claim with regards to

eating more fiber

has literally never been proven there

are some epidemiological studies that

show a possible

association but there is no control

research showing any causation

whatsoever

so mark that one off your list what

about preventing diabetes and lowering

blood sugar

well i talked about earlier how this

might happen if i made you eat twenty

percent of your diet as

cardboard well yeah you're not getting

any carbohydrates that you can use

so therefore your blood sugar is going

to come down and your you won't develop

diabetes

but that's kind of a weird way to

prevent diabetes and

surely there's a better way than that

what about improving your heart health

well uh there's literally no research

that's that's of a controlled fashion

that proves this or shows any

kind of causation it's all

epidemiological research

now the detox thing anybody anytime

anybody

on the planet says hey buy my product

and it will

detox your liver or your kidneys or

whatever

you can officially hit the unfollow

button right

there or the block button because that's

[ __ ]

okay if you want to detox any part of

your body

you fast that's how you do that that

it's cheap easy free

side effect free you never buy a product

to detox your body

what about the claim about constipation

eating more fiber helps with

constipation

anybody who has irritable bowel c or

chronic constipation or idiopathic

constipation they'll answer this

question for you anybody

who's tried to eat more fiber for

constipation put put in the comments

what your actual results were

because the results are always more gas

more bloating

maybe more constipation or diarrhea and

cramping

those are not solutions okay just

because you're putting more

roughage in that your body has to expel

as quickly as possible

that doesn't mean you're you're

meaningfully treating the constipation

there's actually a a very well done a

little study on this let me read you the

conclusion

this was a study done in 63 patients and

what they did was they gave them

different and they all suffered from

idiopathic constipation

and the researchers gave them different

amounts of

fiber and and one group they gave no

fiber and then they they kind of swapped

them around and kept playing with this

and here's their conclusion idiopathic

constipation and its associated symptoms

can be effectively reduced

by stopping or even lowering the intake

of dietary fiber so

there's a link down in the show notes if

you want to read the whole study it

i know really you're probably sitting

there going wait what

i thought what what yeah exactly so

fiber does not help in any meaningful

way with idiopathic constipation chronic

constipation

or ibs c

it doesn't help with any of those it's

going to make you have worse symptoms

the more you cut your fiber the better

your symptoms will be

now let's talk about colon cancer

because that's really once you've

narrowed some a pro fiber person down

this is the one they're always going to

cling to is that it decreases your risk

of colon cancer

so let's talk about a study and again

the links are down in the show notes

below so you can check this out for

yourself

it's a meta-analysis of five randomized

control

trials in humans that's important right

and so they they analyzed these five

different studies

that purported to well they had the

hypothesis that that eating more fiber

decreased your risk of colon cancer

here's the conclusion from this study

there is currently

no evidence from randomized controlled

trials to suggest that increased dietary

fiber intake

will reduce the incidence or recurrence

of adenomas polyps within a two to four

year period

adenominous polyps are the precursors of

colon cancer so

no evidence no rcts to even suggest this

okay now let's go to another study this

study was published in

the journal of the american medical

association it was a meta-analysis of

13 cohort studies very very large

studies

and after they crunched all the numbers

here's the conclusion they found

in this large pooled analysis dietary

fiber intake was inversely associated

with

risk of colorectal cancer in

age-adjusted analysis

however however that's an important word

after accounting for other dietary risks

high dietary fiber intake was not

associated

with a reduced risk of colorectal cancer

yep you heard me right so now let me

answer the question that was asked in

the title of this video

how much fiber do you need each day well

according to the randomized controlled

trials and the actual research on actual

human beings

you don't need any okay if you happen to

eat some fiber occasionally i don't

think it's dangerous or bad

it's probably not a big deal it may lead

to increased

gas bloating constipation diarrhea and

cramping if you eat too much

but do you need to try to get the the 21

to 38 grams that the american heart

association

recommends no you don't there's zero

research

reports supporting this so why did the

aha say this

i'm not sure maybe we should ask them in

a tweet the fda

said the same thing what research did

they base it on

none it is all based on an impromptu

hypothesis had by a very famous british

surgeon

decades ago and there has never been a

credible study

to show causation between fiber and any

of the things

that you will hear as potential benefits

for getting more fiber

in your diet therefore stop trying to

get fiber in your diet

if you're taking a fiber supplement

throw that crap in the garbage it's a

waste of money

if you're trying to eat high fiber foods

that you don't really like

stop doing that okay just eat more fatty

meat

you don't need fiber fiber's never been

proven to help you in any meaningful way

now your gut bacteria they appreciate it

when you eat fiber

and they make carbon dioxide and methane

to warm the

the atmosphere when you do so maybe

think

twice before taking another fiber

supplement or eating another high fiber

food

i sure hope this video has cleared up

some confusion you may have had about

fiber

in your diet if you haven't already done

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