Fiber: the Epidemic of Absence
“Every choice you make in favor of increased fiber in your diet will amplify the health of your gut—and improve your mood.”
Scott Anderson, John Crayan, Ph.D, Ted Dinon, M.D. — The Psychobiotic Revolution
The Broad Function of Fiber
UCLA professor of gastroenterology, Emeran Mayer, M.D. considers a high-fiber diet the “gold standard” for health. In this page, you’ll find out why. The vast majority of Americans consume too little fiber for a variety of reasons, but we were not taught about its importance for many decades. For example, a college nutrition textbook from the 1940’s (Rose’s Foundations of Nutrition (1944 ed.) makes no mention of fiber. Nada!
Today we know that the jobs performed by fiber and resistant starches influence immunity, disease-prevention, stress, weight-gain/loss, blood sugar/insulin, decision making, and overall behavior.
Disease Fighter!
Berries are high in whole fiber and a rich source of antioxidants.
The human gut is a metabolizing ecosystem and your entire body and brain are symbiotic members. We are a team and can’t survive without each other. Below are some broad reasons why fiber and whole plant foods are crucial to health and wellness.
1. Feeding the Gut
When you read that fiber “feeds your gut,” that means multiple things, including: 1) food for bacteria (the microbiome) and 2) actual calories for human gut tissue and 3) a bulking agent to prevent bowel stagnation. A healthy diet delivers fiber-derived calories directly to the gut lining, fueling normal neurotransmitter production and the guts three-part protective barrier. Fiber serves a mission-critical role in the normal non-stop communication between the gut ecosystem, your organs, and the brain along the Vagus nerve (below right).
2. Regularity
Regular bowel-movements generally mean the absence of bowel stagnation, a good sign. Flatulence is a common challenge when a person elevate whole-plant food and fiber intake. It’s not a health concern; rather, it’s a sign of improving health. Some minor, transient bloating might mean backing off. A few weeks or a month after shifting towards more fiber, as your beneficial microbes flourish, flatulence decreases, but won’t go away. Go slow. For example, when first adding legumes into the mix, begin with one or two tablespoons daily. As the healthy gut bacteria flourish, the problem lessens.
3. Eliminating Toxins and Excess Hormones
Fiber helps the body bind-to and eliminate toxins and excess hormones. For example, dietary fiber binds to the excess estrogen the liver dumps into the small intestine. Lowering estrogen reduces circulating IGF-1 and cancer risk.
4. Reducing Cholesterol Absorption
A bacon and eggs breakfast might hit the spot, but the body requires none of the cholesterol (your liver makes all the body needs). You can reduce cholesterol absorption by adding high fiber to the menu; perhaps some stir-fried veggies, or whole rolled oats with chopped nuts, an apple, or berries. Combinations rich in nutrients and abundant fiber bind to cholesterol. Instead of all the cholesterol being absorbed by the bloodstream, some will pass with poop and some be metabolized by bacteria. Vola’! You’ve lowered your dietary cholesterol and vascular disease risk.
The Vagus nerve interconnect connects the brain, gut and organs.
5. Blood Sugar Control
Fiber slows digestion, which lowers blood sugar spikes and the need for insulin, collectively known as “glycemic control.” AT RIGHT — a table showing three ranges of daily fiber intake and their relative improvement to glycemic control. The lowest fiber intake level shown (10 – 20 grams daily) would be indicative of a person eating the Standard American Diet (SAD). On the opposite end of this continuum (35 – 50 grams daily) are lacto-ovo vegetarian and vegan diet-styles with “significant positive effects” to glycemic control, and generally considered a disease-fighting program.
6. Disease-Fighting Antioxidants Ride Shotgun
When we elevate fiber intake, antioxidant polyphenols are along for the ride — thousands! To date, over 8,000 have been identified. Of course, good-ol’ vitamins and minerals are along for the ride too. With a few exceptions[1], our true and faithful disease-fighters come not from dairy cows, pigs, chickens, or other animal flesh, but from low-calorie, whole, peasant food—the plain-Jane garden-variety vegetables like brassica crops, legumes, fruits and berries, whole grains, mushrooms, nuts and seeds and spices (but not salt). So called “superfoods” can be cheap and close at hand!
ABOVE RIGHT — a child harvests the fiber, nutrients and antioxidants that reverse the action of free radicals, lower inflammation, and disease risk. As noted elsewhere, more calories means more free radicals. So, folks who habitually eat highly caloric snacks and meals without whole plants produce free radicals like all get out — more than the body can handle (oxidative stress).
Organizing meals with ample fiber — carbs absorbed slowly, filling without being overly caloric — is a disease-fighting lifestyle. Oxidative stress is an essential health topic, a state of elevated disease risk indicative of the lack of fiber and overeating (see Insulin and Metabolic Disease). You can soup-up the list above with super-high antioxidant sources: berries, turmeric, cinnamon, oregano, rosemary, black pepper, cumin, and so forth. Yet, we need not be extravagant. “Plain-Jane” fruits and veggies are wondrous sources.
AT RIGHT — Cleveland Clinic offers some choice words of caution to those who might expect to “supplement” their way to health.
[1] Exceptions: If a person does not eat meat, they must supplement omega-3 polyunsaturated fats and vitamin B12.
“Polyphenol supplements aren’t likely to give you the health benefits you’re looking for.”
Whole plant foods—not supplements—are the thrifty, complete approach to getting vitamins, mineral and disease-fighting antioxidants.
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/polyphenols
“Whole Fiber”—Means Two Types
Keeping it simple, there are two types of fiber in whole-plant foods:
Soluble (fermentable)
Insoluble (non-fermentable)
The pectin found inside an apple is an example of soluble/fermentable fiber. It dissolves in water. Gastroenterologist, Emeran Mayer, M.D. refers to soluble fiber as “microbiota accessible carbohydrates”—the stuff that feeds the microbes.
The tough, non-digestible skin of the apple is insoluble/non-fermentable fiber. Other examples of non-soluble fiber sources include: nut skins, the stringy part of celery, and super-tough cellulose. Insoluble fiber is the less abundant form and passes with your poop.
All plant foods contain both types of fiber and the body needs both, probably more than you currently consume. The phrase complex carbohydrate is used less today. It simply refers to whole plant foods: combined fiber, unrefined starch, and naturally occurring sugars.
“Fiber” in a Jar
Be cautious with separate, refined fiber products. The “oat bran” (shown at right) is derived from the whole oat kernel. It is largely soluble fiber (pectins) and will get sticky when water is added. It may contain very little insoluble fiber, the stuff that adds “bulk” to your stool. Both are important![i] The reliable, cheap, nutrient-dense approach to getting fiber is to eat whole plant foods.
Often “refined” means products derived from corn, rice, oats, or wheat. In the example shown, an essential part of the oat kernel (fiber) was stripped away and sold back to the consumer. God only knows where the critical nutrients (in the germ) ended up? Somewhere in this chain of industry there is a consumer eating refined oat flour ( hopefully not you). All refined flour products produce a higher glucose spike when digested, compared to whole oats and therefore require the pancreas to produce higher levels of insulin (see Insulin and Metabolic Disease).
[I] Defeating Diabetes, Brenda Davis, RDN
Microbiome Overview
The microbes inhabiting your gut are called the microbiome. All together, they might weigh around three pounds soaking wet, depending on diet. Roughly 60-percent of dry-weight poop is dead bacteria. What do they eat? About 30-percent of the total caloric value of a meal—ideally—will go towards feeding the microbiome. That’s a lot! So when preparing meals, remember, a crowd depends on you!
Specialists and Generalists
Earth’s multi-cellular beings all have interior spaces they share with microbes. It’s been this way for over 1-billion years. The human gut microbiome includes specialists that seem to be found nowhere else, but these are exceptions. Most are generalists and do inhabit other worldly places beyond our gut.[i] Around 1000 unique species are now known to inhabit the lower gastro-intestinal tract (GI tract) of people. On a given day there might be, say, a hundred or more species present. While greater diversity tends to support health, a narrower group of species predominate.
Mutualistic Symbiosis
There certainly is competition between the microbiome species, but when well-cultured on a Real whole food diet, the relationship between you and your microbiome is, in the words of the late Harvard Biologist, E.O Wilson, an example of “mutualistic symbiosis.” Both sides of the relationship are co-dependent beneficiaries.
The fiber that feeds the microbes in the lower small intestine and colon produce useful byproducts used for both your physical and mental wellbeing. There is constant chatter between the gut and the brain and the communication is two-way. In this dialog, the soluble fiber comprised of short chains of sugar—three to ten sugar molecules in length—are solid gold.
Dr. Mayer, the UCLA gastroenterology professor, considers the general health of our gut ecosystem “the gold standard for a healthy diet.”[ii] Meaning, when your microbiome is healthy, so are you. Diverse, collaborating, and well-fed — the good guys prevail and body and the brain work better.
[i] The Psychobiotic Revolution—pg. 107
[ii] Interconnected Plates, Emeran Mayer, M.D.
Anaerobic Fermentation
The cells of the body use oxygen to release the energy from food, but not the microbiome. Metabolism without oxygen (anaerobic fermentation) was here on Earth working terrific perhaps one-billion or more years before early multi-cellular critters evolved.
At right is a colorful (and fanciful) depiction of a very tough neighborhood. With the combined intelligence of an ecosystem, your microbiome is inseparable from “you”! This internal space for nutrient absorption and enzyme, hormone and neuro-transmitter action must —ceaselessly—guard against pathogenic bad-guys. [I]
[i] The Psychobiotic Revolution—pg. 15
In the lower GI tract, the soluble/fermentable dietary fiber gets consumed by means of relatively inefficient anaerobic fermentation (metabolism without oxygen). Anaerobic metabolism is “inefficient” because metabolism without oxygen releases about 14-times less ATP energy from each molecule of glucose than would occur with oxygen (oxidative phosphorylation). As you might guess, the insoluble/non-fermentable fiber sails on through, largely intact.
The upshot? After fermentation is over, there is still chemical energy unused and available, including, flammable methane (fart-gas), and short-chain fatty acids. AT RIGHT — Butyrate is a species of short chain fatty acid getting lots health-science attention in recent years. Dr. Mayer notes: “Butyrate has widespread anti-inflammatory effects throughout the body, including in the brain.”[i] Hoorah for soluble/fermentable fiber and short-chain fatty acids it yields!
[i] Interconnected Plates, Emeran Mayer, M.D.
The short-chain fatty acid Butyrate:
Lowers inflammation
Crosses the blood-brain barrier
Stimulates Brain Growth Factor
Behaves like an anti-depressant
Directly feeds the cells lining your colon
Accesses the immune and endocrine systems
Your Guardians and Defenders
The cells that line the intestine and colon (the epithelium) are powerful guardians and defenders in a very tough neighborhood. Health requires them to be in top shape all the time. They live short, extremely energetic lives of about one week. Narrow folds in this high-energy single layer of cells—what the gut doctors call “crypts”—are among the rare places in the body where stem-cells are common. Any specialized cell that might be in short supply can be created on the spot.
As a university student studying the biological sciences, and as a HS Science teacher, I assumed that all our cells and tissues received their needed energy through the blood stream. Well, mostly that’s true, but now there is a new understanding about the gut.
Rather than receiving all their nutrient through the blood supply, the colon epithelium receives the majority of food energy directly from short-chain fatty acids. Whether we call them resistant starches (amylose) or soluble fiber, smallish soluble fiber chains are crucial to short chain fatty acid production. Fiber literally feeds your gut.
The Gut Barrier and Auto-Immune Disorders
The GI tract operates three barriers to disease: 1) a mucus membrane; 2) tight-junctions between epithelial cells; and 3) our immunological barrier that responds when bacteria, food, or toxins leak through anywhere into the blood stream.[i] These three keep the good and the bad microbes contained and prevent the blood from being contaminated. As we’ll discuss, the triple barrier barrier also influences stress and, therefore, behavior.
The gut’s extremely energetic epithelium — a single layer of cells — is being replaced weekly, so you don’t have to wait long to feel the benefits of a better diet! As previously explained, normal plant fiber is both soluble and insoluble. Chewed and digested together, they help keep our gut mucus membrane and the gut lining in good shape—as does limiting sugar, refined carbs, and saturated fat.
Habitually eating nutrient-stripped, low-fiber, high-fat, free radical add-ons (the SAD), means your Guardians and Defenders get sick. Recalling that our genetically close primate relatives are happy eating mostly plants and insects. Theirs and our teeth — perfect for grinding; their long intestines and yours, perfect for digesting fibrous food.
Our very human early ancestors generally consumed much more whole plant fiber than we moderns now do.[i] Habitual SAD damages and starves the gut epithelium, thins the mucus membrane, and breaks-down the tight junctions between the cells of our gut lining.
[i] The Story of the Human Body—pg. 224
[i] Robert Lustig, M.D. Emery Pharma Podcast: Episode #1—Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease
Before looking deeper at a relatively new chronic disease epidemic of a “leaky” (overly-permeable) gut, consider that most American’s believe they get enough fiber—but 95-percent of Americans are deficient day-to-day.[i] The recommended daily intake of whole plant fiber is 25 grams for women and 38 grams for men.[ii]In the 1980’s, Harvard’s huge Nurse’s Health Study and the follow up with over 100,000 career health professionals, the daily average intake of fiber was 11 grams.
Food Revolution Network, a vegetarian advocacy organization, notes that thriving, lean vegans (who avoid all animal products) might consume up to 60 grams daily. Estimates from paleontology suggest our pre-agricultural ancestors may have approached a daily average of 100 grams,[iii] roughly seven to ten-fold more than modern S.A.D. consumers.
[i] Closing America’s Fiber Gap
[ii] Centers for Disease Control Website
[iii] Brenda Davis, RDN. Food Revolution Network Interview, 2024
The current recommended daily intake of whole plant fiber is 25 grams for women and 38 grams for men.
Most Americans believe they are getting enough fiber, but 95-percent have insufficient intake. The current daily average U.S. intake ranges from 10 to 15-grams.
Auto-Immune Breakdown
Absent soluble fiber, the colon will lack short chain fatty acids, meaning the gut epithelium cells are weakened, starving, and can’t replace or repair themselves properly. AT RIGHT — Should the triple barrier become weakened and permeable, toxins, food particles, or microbes can pass between and through the cell layer and enter the blood stream. The alert immune responds, “tags” the invaders and produces anti-bodies.
What if the “invader”—the stuff that leaked into the blood stream—was a beneficial gut-bacteria, plant particle from other healthy food? The immune response will be creating “immunity” to something normal and health-promoting, meaning an allergy or some other auto-immune problem.
That’s exactly what a food allergy is, an immune response where none is needed. Allergies, asthma, bowel diseases, multiple sclerosis, polymyalgia rheumatica are possible related examples. Keeping the gut lining impermeable is extremely important to disease prevention.
The SAD Mismatch
A profound mismatch exists today between our long-established gut-and-metabolic physiology and a modern diet of processed foods with added emulsifiers and insufficient fiber.[i] Auto-immune disease diagnoses keep rising, including: allergies, asthma, eczema, Crone’s disease, ulcerative colitis, irritable bowel syndrome and multiple sclerosis, and others. Also escalating are rates of depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, ADHD, obsessive compulsive disorder, schizophrenia, and other behavioral health problems.
About one-in-seven U.S. adults have symptoms of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). Diagnoses of mental health disorders among those who suffer IBS is considerably higher than in those without[ii], depression being quite common.[iii] About one-in-five adults with IBS will share a co-morbidity of schizophrenia and will probably have other bowel disorders.[iv]
[i] The Story of the Human Body
[ii] The Psychobiotic Revolution—pg. 213
[iii] The relationship between irritable bowel syndrome and psychiatric disorders…
[iv] This is Your Brain on Food—pg. 196
A Leaky Gut and Chronic Stress
Chronic gut permeability or “leaking,” introduces pathogens, toxins and allergens directly into the blood and launches a two-stage stress-producing response: 1) the body’s immune and inflammatory system is switched on; 2) and gradually, inflammation triggers our endocrine system (hormones in the brain and elsewhere) which then dials up cortisol, adrenaline, and chronic-anxiety, which appears to translate into elevated rates of depression, bi-polar disorder, ADHD, etc.
Stage One
In Stage 1, the immune response produces cytokines and chronic systemic inflammation, like a low-grade fever throughout the body. This one doesn’t let up until the gut lining is healed; that is, until the diet changes. During COVID-19 we saw how the immune response itself can cause serious damage, even death, in a metabolically weak patient with a “pre-existing condition.” Inflammation is just the beginning.
Stage 2
In Stage 2, we fire the HPA Axis. A week or a month into the inflammatory response, the endocrine (hormone) system ramps up:
- The Hypothalamus in the deep brain, just above the brain stem,
- The Pituitary gland nearby, and
- The Adrenal glands—one each atop your two kidneys. [i]
[i] The Psychobiotic Revolution
The HPA Axis and its proper function defines “you” on any given day: sleep, hunger, satiety, digestion, attention, mood, energy, growth, fat deposition, anxiety, and so forth. The dietary causes of the gut “leaking” includes: nutrient deficient, fatty, and fiber-less meals. The role of stress itself is a complicating factor — a vicious cycle — because stress generates additional high-calorie comfort/reward eating behavior (craving). There are too many calories and the wrong kind.
Related, profound disease factors include insulin resistance and liver fat. The page Insulin and Metabolic Disease outlines a more complete hormonal explanation of chronic stress, but the body’s storage of fat is going terribly wrong. GI tract permeability is a major wrinkle in the U.S. health crisis.
Plants to the rescue! Because gut-cells live energetic short lives, we can quickly stop and reverse gut permeability. Ditching the processed foods and going “plant-forward” can yield dramatic results. However, long-term behavioral health conditions which have links to gut health, such as depression and ADHD, are far more difficult to reprogram.
Junking the Juice
Pressing juice for cider was the principal Eurasian tradition involving apples (which originate in central Asia). The seedling trees that grew from Johnny Appleseed’s fertile wanderings in the early days of the American republic were pretty tart and intended for making hard-cider, not fresh eating. The fermentation process yielded alcohol that kept the juice from spoiling. “Cider” back then was a secure food (with a kick), but less sweet. Today, at your small town, fall Farmer’s Markets, folks might be operating the manual apple shredder and a home-brew cedar press: communal pressing starts in mid-September.
That’s all, well, communal and groovy, but something’s missing Wayne. The fiber, dude!
Instead of eating it, we’re throwing the fiber into some luck schmuck’s compost pile, The image at the top of this page is a far healthier idea. Use a kitchen knife, dehydrator, or wood stove. Sliced and dried, whole fruit is fully preserved, available year-round.
Fruit Juice, naturally sweet, tastes amazing, not especially glycemic, is a fantastic source of fructose–which is metabolized 100-percent in the liver. When excessive, fructose sans fiber it’s a major driver of liver fat; indeed, exactly the same as “added sugar” (50-percent fructose) More on this subject under Insulin and Metabolic Disease. Also discussed in Carbohydrate Foods and Health. The upshot: Eat whole fruit, not just the juice.
The A, B, C’s of Sugar, Starch and Fiber
A–Sucrose: a double sugar
“Added sugar” means sucrose or its chemical equivalent. Sucrose is a disaccharide (double sugar) comprised of fructose and glucose in equal parts. Caloric sweeteners such as sucrose, table/brown sugar, molasses, high-fructose corn sweetener, honey, maple syrup, molasses, cane sugar, beet sugar are metabolically similar –comprised of roughly 50% glucose and 50% fructose. Let’s break down what that means.
B — Glucose
The simple sugar glucose can be metabolized by every cell, tissue and organ. For example, your brain burns glucose beautifully, consuming roughly 20-percent of your calories at rest. Blood cells and eyeballs can only burn glucose. The glucose molecule is also the fundamental building block of plant fiber and starch (described below). This offers a very powerful hint on the importance of carbohydrates for human nutrition.
Glucose has always been extremely common in the food portfolio of human-kind: the leaves, shoots, fruits, tubers, grains, vegetables, nuts, legumes, and so forth. Unquestionably, humans evolved the capacity to use lots of whole carbohydrate plant-foods, meaning lots of glucose. The modern highly-processed/packaged foods—what we see the wild-eyed child ripping open as they leave the store–are made with refined carbs.
To repeat for emphasis, ultra-fine, nutrient-stripped white-flour products still contain the protein and fat, but the fiber, vitamins, minerals and disease-fighting antioxidants were removed at the factory. The starch that remains goes straight to glucose in the small intestine.
Milling and refining any food, increases the speed with which it is metabolized; meaning, its ability to spike blood-sugar, insulin, and trigger our addiction neurotransmitter. No doubt, you’ve noticed how hard it is to eat just one. On the page Insulin and Metabolic Disease, I discuss how highly processed foods and high glucose spikes are linked to food addiction and hacked eating behavior.[i]
C–Fructose (Fruit-Sugar)
Whole fruit tastes amazing because of fructose is the sweetest caloric sweetener. Of course, fruit is packed with fiber, vitamins, and antioxidants. Fruit travels well. It’s a marvelous source of hydration and quick energy. Keep a few in your car or handbag, in addition to water, rather than the junk-old. These are the healthy sources of fructose. Consider allowing fruit to entirely replace the packaged snacks, juice-drinks, Red BS, and junk-ola.
Because of its abundance in “added sugar”—and our limited ability to metabolize it—fructose plays an important role in our chronic disease explosion. Avoiding the refined fructose in added sugar is a natural first step towards “healthy,” but it’s’ not easy.
Fructose is only metabolized in the liver. Health-science didn’t figure this out until the mid-1980’s–after the U.S.D.A. dietary guidelines cause the increase in sugar consumption. A few decades later, clinician-scientists like lab-researcher and med-school professor, Robert H. Lustig, M.D., began waving the proverbial red flag. He was publicly described its dangerous effect to the liver around 2010. Of course, alcohol (and excessive fat intake) will also fatten the liver.
The liver is THE WORST place for fat to accumulate, because it has hundreds of vital functions. The SECOND WORST type is visceral fat—meaning belly fat. A protruding belly is often connected to the liver fat that is now invested in close to HALF of U.S. adults.
Starch and Fiber — 101
Starch and fiber are carbohydrates assembled from the glucose molecule. Starch comes in two forms: straight-chain or bushy/branched-chain. The straight-chain form is less common, very health, and abundant in lentils and beans (legumes). Called amylose, this starch is slow to digest and therefore generates a lower rise in blood sugar: called “resistant starch.
The branched, bushy-chain variety is very common. Called amylopectin, it is abundant in tubers and grain. This starch is converted to glucose quickly and, therefore, generates a higher spike in blood-glucose. Rising insulin should faithfully follow rising glucose.
[i] Metabolical—pg. 167
AT RIGHT–representations of how glucose is organized in food:
Amylopectin and amylose: dietary starches
Glycogen: Your day-to-day reserve fuel stored in liver and muscle tissue
Insoluble fiber (Cellulose): Long chains/sheets of interconnected glucose molecules that pass with your stool
Soluble fiber* (not shown) Short fiber chains, roughly 3 – 10 glucose molecules in length that feed the microbiome
Healthy Shopping with Kids
Teachers know the importance of class-time spent helping students grasp the value of why. What are some personal reasons why I’m supposed to learn this stuff? Knowing why is every bit as important as the study “content,” the what they are learning. It helps to motivate and improve the classroom vibe. Parenting about food and health is no different.
With two-thirds of grocery store products containing added sugar, deficient fiber, lacking disease-fighters—even more formulated with imbalanced inflammation-producing fats—a grocery store, deli, or coffee shop can be Hazardous Terrain (metabolically speaking).
Before entering the store or deli, explain to the child—and to yourself—why we’re entering and what ya’ll will, and will not, be leaving with.
To be perfectly honest, for a food nerd like me, it’s a mini-heartbreak to notice a child leaving a store with hands full of processed, expensive, sweet-fat-emulsified SAD junk. There in-hand is the child’s future risk for weight gain, vascular disease and diabetes.
Given our current national statistics, a bootstrap estimate is that 30 to 40-percent of the students in an average U.S. public school will become type-2 diabetic and die early from its complications. Seventy years ago that number was a single-digit.
Is type-2 diabetes terminal? Hell no, but if it’s not reversed the risk of early death goes up. Most people with type-2 diabetes, who don’t actively reverse it, die from complication of vascular disease (heart disease, stroke, dementia, peripheral arterial disease, etc), with astronomical chronic medical/care expense. Seventy years ago that number was a single-digit. Amazingly SAD!
Assuming you’ve talked to the kids about why and what, before entering the “Terrain,” everyone now take a few deep breathes. With your charges in hand, go directly to the produce section. There we find the original “sweet-treats.”
Grab a few to eat ASAP, a few more for later, and some for the pantry. With nature’s sweet disease-fighters in the basket, take another deep breath and smile! Now complete your foraging mission. Staying clear of the trigger areas–the sweet-fat, highly processed packaged and expensive junkola with long lists of ingredients–is not easy, but you’ve made a great start.
An Epidemic of Liver Fat
Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) was not a thing before 1980. Back then, liver disease was generally alcohol-related. Today, approaching half of U.S. adults possess some liver fat from excessive fructose, fat, or ethanol consumption.[i] It’s a major underlying factor in our non-communicable chronic disease pandemic.
So, what’s wrong with a little liver fat? When fatty, the liver begins to fail at its job—“500+ vital functions” according to Johns Hopkins Medical. For example, it can’t properly filter out toxins or excessive hormones (such as estrogen) and it processes less glucose. While every cell of the body can burn glucose, your liver is actually responsible for converting about one-quarter of all your glucose intake (and 100% of the fructose). So, your pancreas must secrete progressively more insulin to manage and convert the glucose still in circulation.
Sugar, refined carbs, fats/oils, and protein can all contribute to elevated triglycerides (fat in the blood) when they are in excess of caloric need. They also fatten the liver. Repeating a theme of this entire page, ALL the macronutrients can play a part in diminishing the body’s ability to process glucose, but the liver is GROUND ZERO for this critical requirement of health.
Fatty liver exacerbates a fundamental health problem, persistently excessive insulin, also called “insulin resistance.”[ii] Once more for emphasis, controlling blood-sugar (and fatty liver) is not solely about your intake of refined carbs and sugar.
[i] Metabolical—pg. 153
[ii] Defeating Diabetes—pg. 30
Garth Davis, M.D. is a Houston-based bariatric surgeon. He was a specialist in “treating” obesity and diabetes, using radical procedures, like gastric bypass surgery. He was making money hand over fist.
Then, Davis profoundly reversed his understanding of how best to treat obesity and diabetes and he changed his medical practice. After years of surgery, he was seeing the same people every bit as sick as they were before, some far worse. His surgery hadn’t actually treated the disease, one of maladaptive human behavior and lifestyle!
ON THE RIGHT–Dr. Davis beautifully explains the public’s misunderstanding of the causes of insulin resistance, diabetes and obesity. This has everything to do with elevated blood-sugar, triglycerides and the liver fat Dr. Robert Lustig describes as “the baddest guy in medicine.”
“So, we see that, popular belief to the contrary, the high blood sugars that define diabetes are not, in fact, the cause of diabetes. Rather, those high blood sugars are an after effect, a symptom… .
The problem is actually the fat and inflammation that is destroying the body’s ability of utilize sugar safely.”
Garth Davis, M.D. in Proteinaholic, Page 152
Humm? The “fat and inflammation that is destroying the body’s ability of utilize sugar safely”? That description is a very long way from the public’s general understanding of someone’s problem with “blood sugar,” weight-gain, or type-two diabetes.
To paraphrase Dr. Davis, elevated triglycerides—fat in the blood—bugger up the insulin receptors and thereby blood-sugar management and is a product of excessive calories, inflammatory fat, carbs, and protein. All in! All may relate to uncontrolled blood sugar, but not simply “sugar” or “carbs.”
You can be metabolically sick and not be fat, but about 80-percent of those with protruding bellies and apple-shaped torsos are metabolically unhealthy. Either way, there is a very high probability of liver fat and insulin receptors disabled by fat (insulin resistance). This is the subject of the page Insulin and Metabolic Disease, which I hope you will consider reviewing.
According to Dr. Lustig, the major contributors to the U.S. liver fat epidemic are: fructose, alcohol and chronic stress. Yes, stress can hack your metabolism. The liver weighs around 3 – 5 pounds. It processes one-quarter of your glucose and ALL of your fructose intake. By weight, fructose is about 50-percent of “added sugar.”
Research funded by the National Institutes of Health show that key markers of metabolic health improve after just ten days—once the metabolically sick person dumps the added sugar, pop, and fruit juice.