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[UpRiverSpencer]

If you’ve experimented with different diets, you’ve likely seen that while some people agree with having fibre in their diet others reject it entirely. Normally the rejection is on the grounds that fibre doesn’t serve any essential purposes. Moreover, all it does for you is create a more voluminous bowel movement but, that’s about it.

On the other hand, western dietary traditionalists swear by fibre and say that you must need it in order to use the bathroom at all. Some even go as far as to say that it’s cancer and other illness-preventing.

These are the sorts of divergent opinions in the nutrition sphere that often cause a lot of confusion among people. However, on UpRiver we are always looking to have more of a spirited discussion backed by science and logic in order to come to the soundest conclusion, not just arbitrary opinions. With that said we also very much appreciate anecdotal experiences and take them under advisement.

So with all this said, Please share with us what you know about dietary fibre and whether or not you fall into the camp that thinks it’s essential, or a waste of time and absolutely useless. Moreover, if you fall somewhere in the middle and think it’s dependent on some factor or another please let us know that as well!

As always, we look forward to hearing from you!

[UpRiverMatt]

Yeah it’s quite a contentious issue in nutrition, like many things.

It seems that fibre isn’t necessary. I’m basing this off of studies like the one below, from the fact that many societies like the Inuit live on zero fiber diets with zero colon cancer, from groups like Zerocarb on Reddit – which has 150k members or so who feel better digestion-wise on zero fiber diets, individuals like Viljalmur Steffanson who lived past 80 years old with no issues on a meat-only diet, and from my own personal experience.

Taking an excerpt from the Carnivore Diet article on UpRiver:

“In an interventional study (causation), those with constipation were randomly put on zero, low and high fiber diets to see what happened. The low fiber diet essentially cured constipation. After one and six months, each group was asked about how often they had a bowel movement, how difficult they were to pass, whether they had anal bleeding, abdominal pain, and bloating:

-In the zero fiber group, 100% showed improvement in bloating, in the low fiber group, 31.3% showed improvement and in the high fiber group, 0% showed improvement.
-Average bowel movement frequency in the zero fiber group went from 3.75 +/- 1.59 days to 1.0 +/- 0.00 days and there was no improvement in high fiber group [4 Ch.9]
-On the zero fiber group, everyone stopped having to strain to pass a bowel movement
Abdominal pain only improved in the zero fiber group, the fiber groups showed no improvement
-On the zero fiber group, everyone stopped having anal bleeding

The results of this study are so clear cut that it is hard to argue against it. For more information, check out this YouTube video by Dr. Paul Mason, or some of the anecdotes about digestion improvements on the communities listed in the “more resources” section above the references.”

4. Ho, K. (2012). Stopping or reducing dietary fiber intake reduces constipation and its associated symptoms. World Journal of Gastroenterology , 18 (33), 4593. doi:10.3748/wjg.v18.i33.4593

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