Fiber

Of all the many benefits of a WFPBD, I am thinking without any hard evidence that fiber might be the most important . There is of course no fiber in animal products. When I just looked up online to see what was generally said about fiber, they primarily mentioned that it helps with constipation. To me this is probably the least important aspect of what fiber does in our body.

As you learn more about the WFPBD and fiber you will be learning about the microbiome or bacteria in our gut. This is especially important in the large intestine.  Now when I was in medical school , I was taught that the large intestine was mainly for absorption of water and storage and passage of stool. I did a search for what does the large intestine do and here is the quote given on the first response: The purpose of the large intestine is to absorb water and salts from the material that has not been digested as food, and get rid of any waste products left over.

Now this next part is a little teleological thinking, but it makes sense. So how long does food spend in different parts of our intestinal tract ? On average food spends 2- 3hours in the stomach, 2 hours in the small intestine and 13 hours in the large intestine. Now if the only purpose of the large intestine was to absorb water and pass stool, then why would it spend so much time in the large intestine ? I believe and many others do as well, that it has to do with the microbiome.

Fiber in particular in the large intestine is acted on by the bacteria to form short chain fatty acids in Vegans . These do miraculous things in the body: ie- one acts like metformin the number one medication for type 2 Diabetes, another acts like a statin the number one drug for lowering cholesterol and another one butyrate is the preferred food source for the cells lining our intestinal tract. On this preferred food, the intestinal cells have smaller gaps between them and a thicker mucous lining.  These 2 things help prevent unwanted substances getting into our blood stream. Known as a leaky gut. This helps prevent or improve many diseases , especially the autoimmune diseases. Now those are some of the good things that can happen on a WFPBD in people. But omnivores microbiome’s can do bad things such as convert L-carnitne into TMAO which increases risk for cardiovascular disease. Their microbiome does many other things too, like even affecting the obese individual’s  cravings for certain foods.

Knowing only some ( which is still a lot ) of what fiber can do for an individual and its effects on our health  as it helps us develop a “good” microbiome instead of the bad microbiome from animal products and highly processed foods is why I believe that it is one of the most important results of a WFPBD if not the most important.

Now the microbiome can change in as little as 10- 14 days on a diet.

There are many studies that show switching to more plants in our diet helps almost everything,  but you still do not get the whole benefit of the diet if you continue to eat highly processed food and animal products. So yes you get the benefit of eating less cholesterol for example, but wouldn’t you like to get the “statin” like effect too without the expense or side effects of the medications.