Fibre is a key to good health.

There is a saying “you are what you eat”. We have all heard it and it seems that a recent study by Imperial College London and the Medical Research Council (MRC) is reinforcing this saying.

There is an anti-appetite molecule called acetate may be the thing we are all looking for to reduce obesity. This molecule is produced as a waste product when fibre is digested.

There is another belief that many have about the brain being connected to the bowel and if the gut is not working properly then there will be brain issues.

Acetate moves to the brain from the gut after digestion and activates a signal to stop eating. So the brain is connected to the gut and it seems that eating more fibre will produce more acetate and reduce the desire to eat. This should contribute to reducing obesity rates.

This could potentially be a major finding, and a huge way to reduce the health issues and costs associated with obesity. Professor Gary Frost, lead author of the study, from the Department of Medicine at Imperial College London, said; “The average diet in Europe today contains about 15 g of fibre per day,” said. “In stone-age times we ate about 100g per day but now we favour low-fibre ready-made meals over vegetables, pulses and other sources of fibre. Unfortunately our digestive system has not yet evolved to deal with this modern diet and this mismatch contributes to the current obesity epidemic. Our research has shown that the release of acetate is central to how fibre suppresses our appetite and this could help scientists to tackle overeating.”

“Acetate is only active for a short amount of time in the body so if we focussed on a purely acetate-based product we would need to find a way to drip-feed it and mimic its slow release in the gut,” Professor Gary Frost said. “Another option is to focus on the fibre and manipulate it so that it produces more acetate than normal and less fibre is needed to have the same effect, providing a more palatable and comfortable option than massively increasing the amount of fibre in our diet,” he said.

Other research recently has shown that those with more fibre in their diet have less likelihood for heart issues than those with less.

Keep an eye out for foods that have increased fibre or added acetate.

So it does seem that research is showing again and again that “we are what we eat”.

Written by Rachelle Williams – the Green Food Safety Coach