Understanding the Role of Soluble Fiber

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Dietary fiber is a component in food that serves an important role in overall health. Fiber is classified as a carbohydrate, however, our bodies can’t digest fiber the same way carbs gets digested in the body. Instead, fiber passes though the intestine and absorbs water. The fiber helps to form the stool so the muscles in the small intestine can push waste out of the body to help prevent constipation from occurring. For this blog post, we are going to focus on soluble fiber and it role to prevent cardiovascular disease.

Soluble fiber
Soluble means “dissolves in water” to form a gel-like material. Fiber in this category includes whole grain cereals, whole grain crackers, and oatmeal etc.  This type of fiber is important for heart heath due to its interaction with cholesterol. Cholesterol is an important role in the body to…
1. Helps to regulate hormones,
2. Produce vitamin D and bile,
3. Helps to build the structure of cell membranes.

 Our bodies naturally produce cholesterol on its own. We start to notice heart issues when excessive cholesterol is present in the body. This can be caused by consuming a high dietary intake of saturated fat and cholesterol. Here’s the cool thing about soluble fiber and its role to prevent cardiovascular disease. The following information is a simplified version of a very complicated mechanism.

Bile is a substance that is made by the liver and is released through the gall bladder into the small intestine to help break down fat. In order to make bile, the liver looks to the blood stream to see if any cholesterol is readily available (bile cannot be made if cholesterol isn’t available). When bile has accomplished its task to break down fat, there is a system that recycles the bile to be used again for another cycle. Here’s the cool thing about soluble fiber! When this type of fiber is introduced, it binds to bile and is unable to detach itself to be recycled again. It’s similar to getting gum stuck in your hair, it’s nearly impossible to separate the two. This causes bile to be excreted out of the body with fiber.

Now, since bile is unable to be recycled again, the liver is desperate and looks to the blood stream to use cholesterol to make more bile. This results in reducing the amount of cholesterol in the bloodstream (it’s a good thingJ).

Pretty cool huh?

Image result for simple mechanism for insoluble fiber and bile with cholesterol


Image result for cheerios label heart health


Next time you see this box of cheerios in the grocery store with this health claim, you can show off to your friends how intelligent your by helping them understand the role of soluble fiber!

Fiber recommendation

Men under the age of 50-   38 grams/day
Men over the age of 50-      30 grams/day

Women under the age of 50-    25 grams/day
Women over the age of 50-      21 grams/day

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Krause’s Food & the Nutrition Care Process 14th edition.  L. Kathleen Mahan, Janice L. Raymond


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