Fibre and the Gut

Fibre is important for your gut but is often overlooked. Now is the time to change that.

Fibre acts as nourishment for the good bacteria in your gut, helping it to thrive. This helps your digestive system work more efficiently, allowing food to move through and help keep your bowel movements regular. Too little fibre in your diet may lead to constipation.

New research indicates that fibre can help to fight heart disease, reduce food allergies, and reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes and bowel cancer. The issue is that most people don’t eat enough fibre in their diet. UK government guidelines advise adults to aim for 30g of fibre a day, yet it is currently thought most adults get around 18g a day.

The good news is that boosting your fibre intake is easy. For breakfast, wholegrain cereal or porridge oats are a simple way to up your fibre. For the rest of the day aim to eat plenty of fruit and vegetables, pulses such as beans, lentils and chickpeas, potatoes with the skin on and wholemeal versions of carbs such a wholewheat pasta and brown rice.

If you think you need to up your fibre intake, then the foods above are easy ways to do that. However, it is recommended that you build up gradually as some people can become bloated and find they have more wind as the gut becomes used to the increase in fibre.

Our Functional Gut test will assess how healthy your gut is and give you a gut health score out of 10. You will also receive personal dietary and lifestyle advice to improve your gut health. You can order a test here