Fibre keeps you ‘Regular’

·         We need to ‘do a poo’ at least once a day to remove the waste products and toxins left in our body after digestion has removed the nutrients.

·         ‘Doing a poo’ should be an easy, natural, and satisfying process. It should leave you feeling good about yourself, with a sense of inner cleanliness. There should be no straining (as this can lead to haemorrhoids or ‘piles’, or feeling that the job is ‘only half done’).

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Poos shouldn’t be hard or sticky. And you shouldn’t need to use half a roll of loo paper to clean up afterwards! After 2 or 3 days of using Fibre-Lax you may find you barely need to use any paper. And dirty underpants should become a distant memory!

·         Poos should be soft and bulky, and well formed. It’s even better if they float (‘floaters’) as this indicates they are light and contain plenty of fibre.

·         If your poos don’t compare with this ‘ideal’ try adding Fibre-Lax to your diet, as well as following the general advice given in ‘Healthy Diets’.

          Fibre keeps the digestive tract healthy

·         The principle advantage of a diet high in fibre is the health of the digestive system. The digestive system is lined with muscles that massage food along the tract from the moment a mouthful is swallowed until the eventual waste is passed out of the bowel (a process called peristalsis). Since fibre is relatively indigestible, it adds bulk to the faeces.

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Fibre can lower blood cholesterol

·          Recently, there has been a great deal of interest in cereal bran, since some studies showed that regular intake of foods high in soluble fibre - such as psyllium, oat bran, baked beans and soybeans - reduce blood cholesterol levels. When blood cholesterol levels are high, fatty streaks and plaques are deposited along the walls of arteries. This can make them dangerously narrow and lead to an increased risk of coronary heart disease.

It is thought that soluble fibre lowers blood cholesterol by binding bile acids (which are made from cholesterol to digest dietary fats) and then excreting them. Cereal fibre seems to be more protective against coronary heart disease than the fibre from fruit and vegetables.

                               A method of weight control

·              In many cases, people who are overweight or obese have been shown to lose significant amounts of excess body fat simply by increasing the amount of dietary fibre, especially soluble fibre, in their daily diet.

Fibrous foods are often bulky and, therefore, filling. They also tend to be low in fat. Soluble fibre forms a gel that slows down the emptying of the stomach and the transit time of food through the digestive system. This extends the time a person feels satisfied or ‘full’. It also delays the absorption of sugars from the intestines. This helps to maintain lower blood sugar levels and prevent a rapid rise in blood insulin levels, which has been linked with obesity and an increased risk of diabetes.

The extra chewing time often required of high fibre foods also helps contribute to feeling satisfied. As a result, a person on a high fibre diet is likely to eat less food and so consume less kilojoules (calories).

                                  Good for people with diabetes

§         For people with diabetes, eating a diet high in fibre slows glucose absorption from the small intestine into the blood. This reduces the possibility of a surge of insulin, the hormone produced by the pancreas to stabilise blood glucose levels.