High Fiber Diet Protects Heart: Study

For those aiming to improve their nutritional profile, experts advice to bulk up on dietary fiber. High fiber food helps in digestion and reducing colon cancer.

But adding more fiber to your diet offers many more health benefits. The latest finding from the University of Alabama, Birmingham, states that high fiber diet is good for the heart as it reduces cholesterol. It helps one to maintain their weight, reducing the risk of being obese or overweight. And if this was available in the form of a pill, the whole world would be craving for it.

According to Jody Gilchrist, a nurse practitioner at the Heart and Vascular Clinic at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, a simple way of making sure you are consuming fiber food is by ensuring that the grains you consume are whole grains. Wheat bread, white rice and white flour should be replaced with wheat bread, brown rice and whole wheat flour.

Brown rice offers 14 percent of daily value of fiber in one cup, cereals that have at least 7-10 grams of fiber per serving without sugar should be consumed, reports according to the Door County Daily News state.

"Most nutrition experts say that a person needs at least 25 grams of fiber a day as part of a balanced diet," Gilchrist was quoted as saying in Health Day. "The American Heart Association recommends that a good rule of thumb is 14 grams of fiber for every 1,000 calories consumed, and at least 10 grams should come from soluble fiber."

Consuming food that is high in soluble fiber such as oat bran, oatmeal, beans, peas, rice, bran, and barley controls how much food the person consumes, as it makes one feel full quickly and above all it lowers cholesterol by obstructing the manner in which cholesterol is absorbed by the body, reports Health News.

In the meanwhile, insoluble fiber, such as whole-wheat breads, most whole grains, cabbage, beets, carrots, turnips, cauliflower, and apple skin, adds bulk to the food. It avoids constipation and maintains the healthy functioning of the digestive system.