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The unending conflicting advice of things that you should and shouldn’t eat if you want to get healthy and slim down can be incredibly overwhelming.
No sooner are you switching to low-fat everything before someone tells you that full-fat is better for you, and have you tried almond milk? Do you need to be eating kale and quitting sugar? Are carbs the devil?
But what if making just one change to your diet could have positive effects? It sounds pretty compelling.
Researchers from the University of Massachusetts Medical School set out to do just that by seeing what eating more fibre would do for 240 adults with metabolic syndrome.
Researchers divided the group and put one half on an eating plan in-line with the American Heart Association Guidelines which include minimising sugar, alcohol and saturated fat and increasing fruit and vegetable intake.
The other group were merely told to increase their daily intake of fibre to 30 grams.
Neither group had to change their exercise routine.
Both groups were monitored for 12 months and the researchers found that at the end of the period the improved measures – including weight, blood pressure and inflammation levels – were no different between the group who dieted in a more traditional sense and the group who added more fibre to their everyday eating.
The lead author of the study Dr Yunsheng Ma said of the findings,
“By changing one thing, people in the fibre group were able to improve their diet and lose weight and improve their overall markers for metabolic syndrome.”
The sample group is small, however the focus on fibre is a simplified way of making smart and healthy choices. The best sources of fibre are fruit, vegetables, legumes and wholegrains and the recommended intake for Australians is 25-30grams per day.
Even still, health experts have warned not to see increasing fibre as a magic elixir, saying that increasing fibre has the side effect of increasing the intake of filling fruit and vegetables and crowding out the room for calorie dense and not nutritionally sound choices.
