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. 2022 Jul 20:378:e054370.
doi: 10.1136/bmj-2020-054370.

Fibre intake for optimal health: how can healthcare professionals support people to reach dietary recommendations?

Nicola M McKeown  1   2 , George C Fahey Jr  3 , Joanne Slavin  4 , Jan-Willem van der Kamp  5
Affiliations

Fibre intake for optimal health: how can healthcare professionals support people to reach dietary recommendations?

Nicola M McKeown et al. BMJ. .

Abstract

Nicola M McKeown and colleagues advocate for the importance of translating the health impact of high fibre diets to patients and clients, with emphasis placed on incorporating a variety of plant based foods to achieve dietary fibre recommendations

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: We have read and understood BMJ policy on declaration of interests and have the following interests to declare: NMM has received research funding from IFANS for the updating of a publicly available Dietary Fibre Database https://iafns.org/our-work/research-tools-open-data/dietary-fiber-database. NMM has in the past received funding for investigator initiated grants and for payment for serving as a consultant from General Mills Bell Institute of Health and Nutrition, speaker honorarium from Cereal Partners Worldwide, a gift-in kind to support dietary fibre research from P&G, and is an unpaid scientific adviser on the Oldways Whole Grains Council. NMM is currently supported by a grant from the NIH National Heart, Lung, Blood, and sleep disorders. GCF Jr, JS, and JWvdK have no conflict of interests to declare.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1
Functional properties of dietary fibre. Colours identify dietary fibres that have the same functional properties. Red: soluble, viscous fermentable fibre; green: soluble, viscous, non-fermentable fibre; purple: soluble, non-viscous, fermentable fibre; black: soluble, non-viscous, fermentable fibre; blue: insoluble, partially fermentable; orange: insoluble, non-fermentable
Fig 2
Fig 2
(a) Pooled relative risk estimates from meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies examining associations between dietary fibre and chronic disease risk. Mean follow-up time ranged from 9.2 years for coronary heart disease to 10.9 years for colon cancer and a median follow-up of 12 years for stroke. (b) Pooled relative risk or hazard ratio estimates from meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies examining the association between dietary fibre intake and mortality. Mean follow-up time ranged from 11.5 years for coronary heart disease to 13.2 years for cancer. (c) Pooled relative risks are from meta-analyses examining associations between fibre food sources and type 2 diabetes. Blue dots indicate the estimated risk derived from comparing the high to the low categories of dietary intake (n=10, prospective cohort), and the orange dots indicate the estimated risk derived from a dose-response analysis for 5 g cereal or 2 g fruit or vegetable (n=8, prospective cohort)
Fig 3
Fig 3
Effect of low and high fibre diets on gut microbiota composition, diversity, and function in host physiology. CVD=cardiovascular disease; CHD=coronary heart disease; CAD=coronary artery disease; T2DM=type 2 diabetes mellitus
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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