I was reading about how exactly fiber reduces cholesterol and it turns out that the reasoning is very simple (atleast the main effect). There are two kinds of fiber- the soluble in water kind and the other that just doesn't want to mix with water. The soluble kind thats typically found in oats, barley (yes, beer too) etc., mixes with water and forms a gel like goo which absorbs the cholesterol in food thats in our digestive system (much like a sponge) before the cholesterol even has a chance to get absorbed by our body. They say as a rough rule of thumb that this mechanism reduces absorption by about 10-15% (not bad at all).
Now I was thinking about this mechanism a bit- and if the above logic is the main mechanism of cholesterol reduction by fiber then it seems that for the above to work the cholesterol should still be unabsorbed by our digestive system. Meaning the fiber and the cholesterol food should be consumed within the window of our digestive process to have effect- in other words if I ate ice cream for dinner and oat bran for breakfast it may not be effective at all. Now if that where correct, I'm better off eating dessert after a meal (or before If I want to reduce my appetite) and still have the absorption of cholesterol reduced as opposed to eating ice cream by itself.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Cholesterol and fiber
Posted by Manohar at 2:10 PM
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13 comments:
I dont understand it...
Are you assuming that the soluble fiber only removes 10-15% of the unabsorbed cholesterol in the digestive system? Shouldnt it be true that soluble fiber reduces the already existing cholesterol in the body? In that case, why would it matter if you time the window in which you eat cholesterol rich food...
As a side note, why would you eat ice cream if the intention is to lower cholesterol. Given that the 10-15% reduction leaves 85%, isnt that bad after all...:)
@mindframes: From what I read about how soluble fiber reduces cholesterol- its purely a digestive tract mechanism. That is the fiber can only remove cholesterol that is in your digestive tract from the food you have eaten and not yet absorbed by your body.
The second part was more a speculation-- if the above mechanism is the only way in which soluble fiber reduces cholesterol- then its purely like a filter for what you are eating and to maximise the filter mechanism the filter (soluble fiber) should be present with the food that needs to be filtered or it would be ineffective... thats the whole point of the blog--- thats more like a question :)
@mindframes: Oh another bit of trivia that i came about- there are two kinds of cholesterol... 1. dietary 2. serum.
first one is the cholesterol content of food and two is the cholesterol in the serum. Absorption from dietary to serum is not 100%.. and is a function of genetics. For some people its very little (as little as 5%) and for some the very lucky ones the absorption is high :)
So either way the 85% (very rough number don't take it literally)left behind in the digestive tract is not fully abosrbed by the body.
Hmm..that's interesting..I always thought that the soluble fiber can reduce overall cholesterol...
dei sdpal, neenga rendu perum phone panni pesaradhu dhaanennu comment potte, unna san diego vandhu udhaippen..:)
@mindframes: this is what i'm able to dig up... could be wrong. point of blog was if that is correct how can we maximize cholesterol absorption- i'm not sure that came out very clearly in my post :)
@mindframes:
:-) If my comments can make you visit SanDiego, Im all up for it.
@manohar: Good info dude!
@sdpal: Machi...Nenja nakkitta po...:)
Where is sdpal's comment that prompted the comment at 7:40 PM, February 19, 2007 from Mindframes?
I don't see it!
it was for a different blog "Crystal Ball" by mad-max...
I think it is better to eat oats in the morning as it moves very slowly through the digestive system and so cholesterol eaten later might also be taken care of.
Btw, the soluble fiber content is more in beans than oats and among vegetables, broccoli stands out.
whewww....grrrrr...me not in this area...
@survivor: how slowly- 6 hours? 12 hrs? I would think for the average person its between the above two numbers. Which would mean you are out of luck for cholesterol during dinner.
Just as a supposition- what if one had oats for lunch? One can take care of cholesterol during breakfast, lunch and dinner.... Ofcourse i'm assuming you have enough fiber to bind with them all.
Also I was thinking will fiber be so discriminative to cholesterol alone or will it bind with nutritive elements and remove those too...
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