Instant Genius - Why you're probably not getting enough fibre – and how to fix it

Episode Date: August 29, 2024

New, so-called ‘superfoods’ frequently find their own moment in the spotlight. But what if there was one type of food that really did help with everything? Well, microbiome scientist, dietician and ex-chef Dr Emily Leeming thinks that the magic ingredient could be fibre. Following the release of her book Genius Gut, we spoke about how eating more fibre can not only improve your day-to-day life, but also lower your risk of death – from bettering your mood to helping you control your appetite, and even slowing your ageing. Listen on for Emily’s cooking and meal prep tips for upping your intake! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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episode we're busting some myths about your diet. Now, we're constantly being told about certain foods that can revolutionise our health, with new so-called superfoods constantly having their own moment in the spotlight. But what if there was one thing that really did help with everything else? Well, microbiome scientist, dietitian, and ex-chef, Dr. Emily Leaming, thinks the magic ingredient could be fibre. Following the release of her new book called Genius Gut, we spoke to Emily about how eating more fiber can not only improve your day-to-day life,

but also lower your risk of death, from raising your mood to helping you control your appetite and even slowing your aging. Listen on for Emily's cooking tips while upping your intake. So Emily, we're always given really conflicting advice about our diets and loads of terms are thrown around and we hear about vitamins and minerals and we also hear about fibre, but what actually is fibre? Where does it fit into that and where do we find it? So fibre is a type of carbohydrate and actually we consider it to be the fourth macronutrient. Macro as in we need a lot of it. And it's essentially the plant roughage from plant foods like whole grains, beans, fruits and vegetables and nuts and seeds.

And it's really, really important for our health. Thank you. So what are the best sources of fibre there? You mentioned a few, but are there any particular standout foods? So I think historically we've somehow always thought of fiber being kind of about salads and lettuce, but actually lettuce isn't actually the richest source of fibre, not by a long mile. When we're thinking about fibre, the best sources are looking towards whole grains and also beans and legumes and nuts and seeds. So just for comparison, if I had a bowl of salad leaves, that's about 100 grams of lettuce, that only contains about 1.8 grams of fibre.

Actually, if I compare that to, for example, some chickpeas, chickpeas contain 8 grams per 100 grams. So for the same amount of fibre, you're actually just, for a bowl of salad, you could probably just have a tablespoon or a teaspoon of beans. So actually to add some beans into your day, to switch your bread to whole grain or pump a nickel, that's going to be a really great ray of getting extra fibre. And also a handful of nut and seeds. I mean, cheer seeds, another great example where it's actually 30 grams of fiber for 100 grams. So big difference. That's amazing.

I had no idea about chia seeds. It feels like what else is in there. Almost a third is fibre. And we'll definitely come back onto some more tips at the end of this and even some meals to help people get more fiber into their diets. But before we do, let's talk about what it actually does in our bodies, the science of fibre and the human body. What role does it play?

Is it important on the scale of things that we can eat? So fiber is the closest thing that we have to a soup of food, if a super food is even a real thing. It's so important for our digestion, for the health of our gut, but also for our gut microbiome. So previously we thought fiber was just something that just help us go. It had a very kind of unsexy reputation of just something that just helped you have regular bowel movements. But actually, we're now really understanding how important fiber is for our health. So our bodies aren't able to digest fiber itself. What happens is it moves, through into your lower large intestine, the home of your gut microbiome. So your gut microbiome contains

100 trillion microbes, including bacteria, viruses and fungi. And these bacteria can feed on the fiber. It's their favorite meal. They break it down into these special molecules called short-chain fatty acids. And it's these short-chain fatty acids and other metabolites that are really important for our health and they can not only help support the health of our gut, but they can travel far and wide across our body, even reaching as far as our brain and are really important, for example, for helping to support our blood-brain barrier. This is the kind of protective fortress that stops toxins getting into our brain. So there's many different benefits of fibre, including looking after our gut bacteria. So tons of benefits there. And

let's break some of those down. But firstly, let's stick on that big general overview. There's a stat in your book about how fibre is associated with a 30% lower risk of death. Is that all of those things combined? Is that one main function? And what does this actually mean for your day to day life? I think when we talk about health in general, we tend to talk about reducing the risk of a kind of future disease. And I think I'm going to touch on that first, but we do also really think about how health makes us feel day to day and the benefits that we can feel from changing our diets right now. So in terms of the risk of death, actually, we know that even just a small increase of fibre, so just for every seven grams of fibre that you have a day, there's a lower risk of heart

disease, stroke, colorectal cancer, type two diabetes, those kind of really major important effects that are going to really help improve your health in the long run for something. that is, you know, perhaps including a handful of nuts in your day-to-day, just to kind of quantifying that in terms of the amount of food. So that's really important. But then actually, I really think that we need to be talking about how food makes us feel now. What does health mean now? So having lots of energy, being able to kind of move around, feeling kind of mentally sharp, basically feeling like you're kind of hitting your day, feeling your absolute best. And fiber is really important for that too. It helps to slow down the release.

of sugar into your bloodstream, which is going to help you feel energized for longer. You also feel fuller from the fact that the fibre being adds bulkiness, which then helps to stretch some of your kind of muscles in your gut, which then sends signals back to your brain saying that you feel full. So it's going to help you feel full and satiate it for longer. And there's also lots of heart benefits as well. We know that fiber is really important for helping to lower your bad cholesterol that's, you know, really important and making sure that we're protecting our arteries. And that's something that we need to be thinking about in earlier life and not just later, because we know that these things can have a cumulative effect from quite young. So can fibre help with weight management then if we're

talking about arteries? So I think when we talk about weight management, the big thing that's coming up through kind of weight research from scientists is actually this problem with appetite. So it's that we kind of feel really hungry. And then we know that when we feel really hungry, our brain can then kind of switch and take over control and perhaps direct us to foods that are kind of really high in energy, kind of high in fat, because it's a safety mechanism, right? It's our brain saying, you're starving. I need to make sure you have a source of energy. So that can be a really big problem when someone's trying to lose weight because their brain is kind of taking over control and willpower doesn't exist. So when it comes to fiber, fiber can play a really helpful

role there because it helps us to feel fuller for longer. It kind of helps to kind of add bulk to our food and it helps to kind of stretch those gut muscles to our brain that we feel full. So adding in fiber to our diet, so having lots of fruits and vegetables, beans, whole grains, legumes are going to help us feel really satiated for longer, which is going to help with weight management. Let's return back to the brain. You've mentioned it a few times, but I love the element. The of your book, I think it's even the subtitle of your book, that the gut microbiome is your second brain. So how are they linked and how can fibre support your brain health? So when I talk about the second brain, it's actually technically, if we're being the nitty gritty here, talking about

the gut. And it's actually this web of nerves around your gut that's called the enteric nervous system. Now, this web of nerve starts in your esophagus and it goes all the way down to your bum because actually we think about your gut. Your gut isn't just your stomach. It's your mouth all the way down to exiting at the other end. And these nerves are incredibly sensitive. They're sending lots of signals back to your brain. And there's actually so many nerves there. There's more nerves than there are on your spinal cord. There's more nerves than there are in the brain of a cat. So it's very kind of similar in that kind of aspect to your brain. And they're both connected your brain and your enteric nervous system, your second brain and your gut

through this kind of cable, which is your vagus nerve. So you've got this direct connection from your gut to your brain communicating information back and forth. What your gut bacteria then can then plug in and talk to your brain through your vagus nerve, through this direct pathway that goes kind of up and down chatting back and forth to your brain. There's other different ways that your gut can signal to your brain, not just through this direct connected pathway, but also through producing these special molecules, these metabolites, that then get into your bloodstream and can circulate around your body. It can also interact with your immune system, and then your immune system can then talk to your brain. So we know that 70%

of your immune system lives in your gut. So you've got this direct interaction between your gut microbiome and your immune system. They grow and they develop together from, you know, the day you were born. So they're hugely instrumental and working together for each other. And fiber then plays a huge part in that because you need a thriving gut microbiome for a thriving immune system. And for have a thriving gut microbiome, you need fiber. In the book, you mentioned memory and problem solving and cognitive tests. I mean, can fiber literally make you cleverer? So it's been really interesting. So this is a very early field of research. And so a lot of the research that's been done up until this point has been mostly on mice models. And that's really the way that research

tends to happen is that we look at mice models first because we can contain them, you know, in a controlled environment. You know, we have them in a cage that's not running off to go to the shops or kind of pick up their kids from work. You know, we're able to test them and open them up as well. So that's been really interesting insights into this connection between the gut and the the brain with memory and also sociability and lots of different other kind of cognitive and behavioural aspects. Now we're seeing whether this translates from animals to humans. And we're seeing some really interesting early research into this. So quite small trials and humans, but some really exciting evidence that shows that there is this connection, particularly

with fibre as well. So for example, colleagues at Keynes College London recently gave people a prebiotic fiber. So this is a specific type of fiber that's known to feed your good gut bacteria. And what they found is that after three months, the people who took the prebiotic fiber had better memory than those who took the fake supplement, the placebo. So they performed better on tests that are used for early screening of Alzheimer's disease. So really interesting results there. There's also been other really interesting evidence looking at mood. So a group at Oxford University gave a group of participants a different type of prebiotic fiber called galactoologosaccharides. And what they found was that they saw that by showing them certain kind of negative images

and positive images, that people were more drawn when they took the prebiotic supplement towards the positive. So their kind of bias kind of shifted for being less negative to more positive. They had a more positive outlook on the images they were looking at from taking this prebiotic fiber. So showing that, you know, we've got perhaps. this change in the underlying kind of framework, emotional framework of our mood through feeding our gut bacteria because, of course, we can't digest this fibre ourselves. It's directly feeding the gut bacteria that we have. That's really fascinating. I wonder if you can tell me where I could get prebiotic fibre. Like, what form does it come in? So you can get them in pills supplements and you can

find them in powders that you mixed with water. But what I really try and say is that when we're talking about these fibers, like let's think about whole foods because actually all these different foods contain many different types of fiber. And you're not just getting all these different types of fiber. You're also getting all these amazing other nutrients and kind of bioactive compounds that are really potent and powerful for your health. And I think when we talk about, you know, micronutrients quite often, for example, we talk about maybe 50 or 60 or maybe we look at the back of a, you know, a multivitamin pack and we see, you know, list of, you know, list of six and we think, okay, great. But actually, there are 26,000 biochemicals available on

food. So for me, it's always one of the best food sources of this. Can we then improve them, put them into our diet and eat more of them? So for example, with prebiotic fiber, you know, we know that onions, garlic, asparagus, leaks, beans, really great sources of prebiotic fiber and really great to include as much as possible. And you spoke before about Alzheimer's I wonder if you could pick up a bit about aging, like how fibre can help us stay healthy as we age. So we know with our gut microbiome that as we age, it gets a little bit less resilient.

And the problem with this resilience decreasing is that it's more likely to perhaps get an infection or go kind of a bit haywire and then you've got an imbalance gut microbiome. As you age, you want to kind of try and kind of protect against that happening by making sure that we're feeding our gut bacteria, the fibre that we need. And I think, you know, if we go back to the fact that most of us are not eating enough fibre in our day, that that can be a key thing that you can do to take action to look after your gut bacteria as you get older. Yeah, I just want to pick up on that that you said there, that we're not getting enough. So what is the recommended daily intake of fibre? So we're meant to be having at least 30 grams of fibre a day. Most of us in the UK

are not meeting that anywhere close. So we get on average about 60% of that 30 grams recommendation. We're having about 19 grams of that 30 grams a day. We are slightly better than the US that are only getting 15 grams on average a day. But I still think that's still a huge deficit that we're having. We know that that potentially translates into other problems. Could be, for example, that you've got constipation. so constipation is where you struggle to kind of get everything out or whether you've got kind of

really hard kind of lumpy poo that is then a struggle and you're not going that often. And that's not just something that's going to make you feel uncomfortable in the moment. We know that actually that has a cognitive effect as well. So we've seen that a really big population study of over 110,000 people, that people who had constipation versus those who had rest, regular bowel movements, had a cognitive age of people three years older than those who went regularly. So there's a knock-on effect from these things that I think is really important. That's fascinating and crazy to think that most of us are actually fibre deficient.

Apart from looking at what's in our toilet, are there any other signs we should be looking out for to tell whether we're in that proportion of people who need to be eating more? I think in general we've got to think that all of us need to be eating at least that 30 grams of fibre a day. Of course, there's going to be a few kind of individuals who need to talk to their doctor because they perhaps have a certain condition or kind of disease state that maybe they need to have some individual specific advice to them. But if you're generally well and healthy, we need to be hitting that 30 grams of fibre a day. At least, there are some people who say that perhaps we need to be having even more than that. And I think, you know, it becomes one of these

things where we get perhaps a bit intimidated about what does this 30 grams mean in real life? You know, do I need to be obsessively tracking this? And I think I kind of usually try and say, I'm like, if you want to use an app, you want to track it for a week or two weeks just to get an idea of where you're at, then great. But there's definitely, you know, lots of different things that you can do without having to stress or think about specific numbers by just making sure you're having, you know, lots of high fiber foods that are particularly high in fiber, lots of different tips and tricks that will cover later and that are featured in my book as well. When you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work, use Indeed sponsor jobs.

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Can we survive without it? So if you don't eat enough fiber, what we also potentially see is, is that your gut bacteria can then chew on the mucus that lines and coats. It protects your gut lining. So your gut lining is quite sensitive. It's just one kind of single layer of cells. And so you need this kind of mucus to kind of guard and protect your gut barrier lining. And actually, if you're not feeding your gut microbiome, the fiber that it needs,

it's need to get kind of food from elsewhere. So it starts chewing on this mucus. And what then happens, it can then get to your gut lining. And your gut lining then becomes inflamed. It can potentially not function as well, which means that the little kind of gateways that allow nutrients through into your bloodstream can then become faulty.

And then you get, for example, you know, food stuff that shouldn't be in your bloodstream passing through. That can then cause inflammation. And we know that this inflammation can then kind of trigger more events, more responses that could, could lead to further problems down the line, particularly if that's happening often on a regular basis. Pretty gruesome. On the other end of the spectrum, is it possible to have too much fiber?

Can we damage ourselves by just like going for that? So I think this is a question that we don't really fully know the answer to. I think it really comes back down to the individual and really listening to your body and what you feel and how you feel, I think if you're going to go to complete extremes and have a really, really high amount of fibre, you're then pushing out all those other nutrients that are important and realistically, healthy diet is about having a balance and getting adequate amounts of everything that you need. But I do tell people that, you know, listen to how your body's feeling. You don't need to go from hero to zero when you're up in your fibre intake. You know, take it slow, take it easy. If you're feeling a little bit

uncomfortable and you've got kind of stomach issues or kind of some digestive issues, slow down for a little bit, you know, maybe you kind of pull back and then slowly start to increase again and just find that kind of sweet spot that works for you. I think most people, 30 grams of fiber, should make you feel pretty good and it might just be the one or two people that, you know, have quite sensitive stomachs and just might struggle there. Okay, so I want to know how I can get more now after all of this. You've convinced me, and I'm desperate to hear your tips on what I should eat. Emily, you were actually a chef before, weren't you? So you're in the perfect position to advise us all on what we should be eating. So what are your top cooking and eating tips for getting more

fibre, reaching that limit, getting that 30 grams? Absolutely. So I think, you know, being a chef, my first thing is always like, how can we make this delicious? Because if it tastes good, we're going to eat more of it. And it's just that simple fact. So I'm very kind of anti-chew chewing on a kind of limp lettuce salad that's kind of with one soggy tomato. So how can we make that food taste delicious? Because we will end up eating more of it if it tastes good. So a few tips and tricks. Definitely think about the kind of high fibre heroes. So think about, for example, perhaps switching your bread to a rye bread, which tends to be high in fiber than a whole wheat bread, or pump a nickel is a really great kind of source of fibre.

One slice of pumpernickel bread contains six grams of fibre, which is really great, really easy way to add that in. Nuts and seeds, I tend to have a jar of nuts and seeds by the kettle. I know that if I'm having a snack, I can grab it, I can see it visually there, it reminds me. But also nuts and seeds are such a great way of just adding them to your breakfast in the morning. You can toast them and sprinkle on salads. You know, perhaps if you're having avocado toast, you know, you can just like put some on there as well

if you've got kind of seed mix. And that's really kind of great source of fiber. You're going to get, you know, you've got sheer seeds, ground flax seeds again, really high source of fiber. But also things like wheat bran and oat bran, really great source of fiber again and really easy to kind of add into this kind of mix and blend. If you're thinking about fruits and vegetables, surprisingly, avocado is kind of one of the highest ones in fiber there, which I think a lot of people don't think about because it's got that lovely, creamy texture. Lots of different vegetables and fruits will have all those different types of fibres that we need.

And we want a variety of fibers because our gut bacteria like to feed on different types of fibers. So just trying to kind of think about, you know, is it that actually I'm going to go for like the multi-pack of kind of salad leaves or perhaps it's the stir-fri bag of veggies? You're going to get all that different fiber from the different types.

And it also contain lots of different types of nutrients as well. And then beans, we can't forget beans. They're really very much a staple of my own diet because I'm very passionate about beans. They're a great source of plant protein, but they're also really rich in fibre. And I think they're so easy to add into so many different things, whether we're having them whizzed as a hummus or kind of put into a stew or a pasta or a stir fry or you're roasting them with spices and then having them as part of a salad. They're a really great addition. Emily, if I'd brought you someone who was severely fibre deficient and needed a big meal to get through that

and get up to that 30 grams, what one meal would you make for them? So I think really for me, it's actually not necessarily like one meal. It's how can you split that across the day to make it manageable? Because I think if you're just trying to get your 30 grams of fiber in one meal, it's probably going to make you feel quite uncomfortable, if it's particularly if you're not eating much fiber and you might just be kind of sat there for a really long time. Whereas actually, if you split that into thinking that your breakfast, for example, it's like 10 grams of fiber, your lunch is 10 grams, and your dinner is 10 grams, or maybe it's 8 grams and you're having, you know, a kind of high fiber snack. So for breakfast, for example, a great example could be

that you're having your toasted pump-knick or rye bread. You know, you've got two eggs in there, maybe for some protein, then you've got your nuts and seeds. And I think just trying to get as many veggies in there as possible. So I try and make, for example, like a veggie kind of scrambled egg. So it's just, you know, you've got kind of mushrooms in there. You've got onions, which is going to give you that prebiotic fibre. You've got some herbs. Again, going to add in some extra nutrients and a bit of fibre as well. And then you can sprinkle some seeds on that. Actually, if you prefer something sweet, then maybe instead you might want to have kind of a bowl of berries with some Greek yogurt or some kephyr to get some extra boost of microbes in there.

And you can add your nut and seed mix on that as well. And perhaps, you know, some like kind of higher fiber whole grain granola if you like. If you're going to something for lunch or dinner, then very much thinking about, you know, what is the whole grain that you can include? I think whole grains have had a really bad wrap, but actually they're really great full of fiber. And just making a quart of your plate,

whole grains is really helpful. And then when you're thinking about the fruits and veg, I don't think you necessarily need to stress about what fruit and veg are on that. But if you can just up that portion to about half your plate, that's going to be really helpful. forgetting that. And it could be something as simple as having a whole grain pasta. So whole grain pasta is about eight grams per 100 grams. That's a really easy switch. And I love pasta. Like I'm not

going to say to anyone, don't have pasta. Like the pasta is fantastic. So we don't have to go and have some exotic buddha bowl. You know, it's making those easy swaps that fit into your everyday life and eating the foods that you enjoy. And talking about easy swaps, you were telling me before about peeling your veg and freezing things, things that we're all familiar with as pretty day-to-day food prep stuff. Where does that come in? How does fibre interact with those processes? So I just think that as a tip that if you're going to keep that skin on, it's going to help you have kind of extra fibre. So of course, you want the foods that have got edible skin. So I'm not saying keep your peel on your banana. But if you're having, for example, carrot in your kind of, I make this like really great

butch a Mooseley thing for breakfast, and I put grated carrots and I put grated apple in. I don't peel the carrot and I don't peel the apple because that's extra fibre. It's really great. Same with potatoes. You know, keep the potato skin on. If you're having, you know, fruit like Kiwi, keep the skin on, that's a really great added boost in terms of fibre. The other thing you can do, and I'm a huge fan of trying to save time when I'm cooking, is I'm a big fan of leftovers. And actually, that could actually be better for your gut microbiome to be having and enjoying your leftovers because we see that resistant starch that is found in kind of cooked grains acts in a very similar way to fibre in terms of feeding your gut bacteria.

And when you cook grains, the starch molecules inside then reform into a form of starch called resistant starch. And this resistant starch is different because it actually makes its way to your gut bacteria in your lower intestine. This actually really interestingly also happens when you freeze bread. We see that when you freeze bread, the same process happens. You get more resistant starch forming, which is then going to feed your gut bacteria more. So if you're going to cook grains and you're going to make a big meal, make extra, you know, it's fine.

It won't change if it's reheated. It just means you're getting a little bit of extra benefit and you're saving yourself time. Is it okay to eat ultra-processed foods? and is there any fibre in them? Can I have my chicken nuggets, my fake chicken nuggets? So I think ultra-processed foods is for me becoming kind of clean eating 2.0 where we're getting very afraid of these foods. And really it's very much about the big picture of our diet.

So if you're occasionally having chicken nuggets, that doesn't matter. You know, it's really about what you're doing in the grand scheme over kind of weeks and months and years that makes a difference for your health. So I'm very much like, let's focus on adding in those foods that we know are really important for our health, like adding in, you know, fiber-rich foods, adding in those whole grains, those fruits and vegetables, those beans and legumes. And yeah, if occasionally for a couple of meals, we have, you know, fish and chips or, you know, we get a burger, like that doesn't matter in the big picture.

You know, if we think how many kind of thousands of meals we have across a year, balance is really important in that. And I think as soon as we start seeing in the research really interestingly that we become fixated on just eating, kind of quote-unquote, kind of healthy nutrient-dense foods, then actually the people you become more anxious because you're then kind of getting into a more kind of disordered eating pattern. Chicken nuggets now and again, or whatever it is in ultra-processed foods, is not going to make a difference. It's when it takes up a large percentage of our diet that we need to kind of consider. we know that if you eat loads of ultra-processed foods in general, that is associated with kind of poor health outcomes. But actually it was really interesting,

a study that looked at the subcategories of ultra-processed foods, the subgroups. What they found was that there were certain food groups that actually were protective for health. And a key one of those was bread and cereal products. So ultra-processed bread was found to actually be good for you and not the other way around. And what the researchers thought was actually because these foods were high in fibre,

and that was really helping to make sure that it was showing that it was better for you. That was Dr. Emily Leaming talking about her new book, Genius Gut, the life-changing science of eating for your second brain, which is in bookshops now. Thank you for listening to this episode of Instant Genius, brought to you by the team behind BBC Science Focus magazine. Buy the latest issue of science focus in your favourite shop or find us online at sciencefocus.com. This podcast is sponsored by Name, Audio and Focal. The texture and emotional depth of music can be lost through digital sources or poor signal. Name audio believes you can have digital precision with analogue warmth.

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