Fiber has many important, healthy benefits - including lowering your cholesterol. Obtained from either healthy foods or supplements, fiber works by preventing cholesterol and other fats in foods from being absorbed by the small intestine and into the rest of the body. If your diet is low in fiber, adding a little bit of fiber can help you to keep your heart healthy.
There are two main types of fiber: soluble fiber and insoluble fiber. Although both are important to include in your diet, only one of these fiber types appears to help lower your cholesterol. Studies have found that soluble fiber has the ability to lower your LDL cholesterol. In fact, the National Cholesterol Education Program, the agency that designs the guidelines for lowering cholesterol, recommends adding soluble fiber to your diet, too. There are a variety of ways to get this type of fiber in your diet - ranging from certain foods to supplements. Ensuring that your diet includes a proper amount of fiber can improve your overall health - especially your heart health.
Adding fiber to your diet has been shown to help lower your cholesterol, but how does it work? It turns out that fiber has a unique way of lowering your cholesterol -- specifically by preventing it from being absorbed into your blood. Unfortunately, it only works on one type of cholesterol. Nonetheless, fiber is important to your heart health and offers additional, healthy benefits.
While fiber has the ability to lower your cholesterol, the good news that you do not need much fiber to fulfill these requirements. You can obtain fiber from a variety of foods, but if you feel that you are not getting enough fiber in your diet, you can also take supplements or consume certain health foods with added fiber to them. However, make sure that you do not consume too much fiber, since this can cause some undesirable side effects - including bloating and abdominal cramping.
So, you don't think that you are getting enough fiber in your diet. If this is the case, you could add fiber supplements to your diet. They can also help to lower your cholesterol, but think twice before you opt for this convenience. Other sources of fiber -- like fruits, veggies, and whole grains -- offer you fiber and many nutrients. If you take only fiber supplements, you may be missing out on the added healthy benefits that high fiber foods have to offer you.
Although the numbers of high-fiber foods you can include in your diet are abundant, there are also some simple steps you can take to ensure that you are getting enough fiber in your diet. Are you leaving the peels on your favorite fruits? Have you switched to wheat bread yet? If not, you are missing out on some important ways to include fiber in your diet. Additionally, there are many healthy high fiber snacks and foods you could add to your diet.
