 Hey, this is Dr. Ruscio, let's talk about dietary fiber. Now, if you've been keeping your ear to the ground in healthcare, especially digestive health, you've likely heard that fiber is very important for your gut health. And that statement is probably a bit of an over extrapolation from what the research shows, but fiber can be helpful. However, many things, especially as they pertain to gut health are very individual, meaning a given recommendation will work for some and it may actually be detrimental or at least not work for others. And so it's very important to have an understanding of these simple nuances so you can look at a recommendation and say, okay, here is how I can figure out if I should or should not do this. So dietary fiber, the background has been fairly well documented to be able to improve constipation. So in those who are constipated, increasing or supplementing with dietary fiber has fairly compelling evidence showing the ability to reduce constipation. However, this is not an absolute. And one of the things that you see with a higher fiber intake can actually be a provocation of some of the symptoms associated with irritable bowel syndrome, increased bloating, increased gas, increased abdominal ascension or abdominal pain and looser stools in some cases. And as the study I'm about to share with you documents, in some cases, ironically, fiber can actually make constipation worse. So again, while the general or broad body of literature seems to suggest that increasing one's fiber intake can help with constipation, there's some evidence showing that it may actually make constipation worse. So let's cover this study and then wrap up with how you can navigate this nuance. The title of the study, I'll put the abstract up here on the screen, stopping or reducing dietary fiber intake reduces constipation and its associated symptoms. So the setup of the study continuing here, a few quotes, 63 cases of idiopathic constipation. This means constipation that didn't have any other cause. One of the main, I guess you could say causes or subtypes of constipation is IBS constipation. So this is when you have constipation associated with altered bowel function, which can be constipation and or diarrhea and also abdominal pain. And sometimes bloating. So when you see this constellation of abdominal symptoms along with constipation, the cause of the constipation might be the IBS, the irritable bowel. However, you have another subset who just has constipation and that's what this study was looking at. But these results I think apply to either subgroup. So they looked at a six month intervention where patients either went on a essentially a no, meaning a very low fiber diet, a reduced fiber diet or kept their fiber consumption the same. And what they found to quote here, patients who stopped or reduced dietary fiber had significant improvements in their symptoms while those who continued on a high fiber diet had no change. And continuing at six months, 41 patients of this 63 remained on a no fiber diet. So obviously it's working for the majority and 16 patients on a reduced fiber diet and six resumed their high fiber diet for religious or personal reasons. So in conclusion, idiopathic constipation, that means constipation that has no known cause and it's associated symptoms can be effectively reduced by stopping or even lowering the intake of dietary fiber. So what does this mean? Well, fiber and gut health is really a double-edged sword. Now, I think there has been a misinterpretation of data or the misreading of the science and led to an erroneous extrapolation from that data to make many health gurus and doctors and clinicians conclude that we all need a high fiber diet in order to be healthy. That does not seem to be true. And this study helps document that. Fiber can be helpful for some, but it can also be detrimental for other. And it's important that we don't fall into this absolutist type of thinking that it's either all good or all bad. Now, what do you do about that? Well, in healthy gut, healthy you, I lay out some simple steps that you can take to determine what your fiber intake should be. It's actually not that challenging, but you need a roadmap to walk you through the appropriate sequence of steps to determine this. And I also, in healthy gut, healthy you detail the literature on fiber as it pertains to overall health, risk of colon cancer, cardiovascular disease, other cardiovascular incidences, diabetes, obesity, and so on. And what the data clearly shows is there's no consistent benefit from fiber. Some studies show benefit, but an equivalent number of studies really show no improvement at all. So we really shouldn't be saying that you need a higher fiber diet for your gut health. And this is actually a common problem. I just got off the phone yesterday with a friend of mine who is a very well-known doctor in a health space who was a real health enthusiast. And after we had a discussion months ago, he kind of revised his diet and he said, boy, this is the first time I haven't had these loose stools that haven't plagued me for a while after cutting back on my dietary fiber intake slightly. So it's important that we don't, again, fall into this thinking that fiber's always good and you need a high fiber diet or fiber's always bad. But rather, there's a simple sequence of steps you can take to determine what you should be aiming for in terms of your fiber intake. It's actually quite simple. You start on a lower fiber diet and then slowly tighten it up to find where you feel best. Now, if you have other symptoms and imbalances in the gut, that can murky the process a little bit and that's where I'll refer you to the map or the great innate plan that's contained in my book, Healthy Gut Health to You. But the take home here is that fiber in your gut health is not a one-size-fits-all recommendation. Some do better on higher, some do better on lower. So make sure to do some experimentation and listen to your body and take your body signals as the barometer for if you're doing the right thing or if you're doing the wrong thing. So this is Dr. Ruscio and I hope this information helps you get healthy and get back to your life. Thanks.