Promote Mental Wellness Through Meeting Your Daily Fiber Needs

To promote a healthy gut an adult required between 25-38g of dietary fiber a day. This helps to keep your gut system working at its best as well as feeds the health promoting microbes which live in your gut. Another reason to eat in a way which meets you daily fiber needs is it may help improve your mental health.

Over 264 million people will experience depression in their lifetime. There are a number of lifestyle strategies which may help reduce the symptoms associated with depression such as social connection and physical activity. Nutrition is another important strategy which can influence your mental health.

There are a number of nutrients which have links to improvements in mental health. One of these may be the amount of fiber in your diet. A dose-response meta-analysis reported that for every 5g increase of total dietary fiber was associated with a 5% reduction in the risk of depression. Hence, researchers concluded that dietary fiber may be a protective component against developing depression.

Dietary fiber can be found in good amounts in plant-based whole foods such as nuts, seeds, fruits, vegetables, legumes, beans, and whole grains and whole grain containing foods like Corn Thins slices. By structuring your meals to be made up of three quarters of plant-based foods and snacks at least half a plant-based food, this will help you to meet your daily dietary fiber intake.

If you are one of the many people severely lacking in dietary fiber it is important to add dietary fiber in slowly and include adequate fluids. Try increasing your dietary fiber intake by around 3-5g a week. This may help reducing unwanted symptoms of a rapid dietary fiber increase such as bloating and unwanted gas.

Examples of foods and the approximate amount of dietary fiber they will give you are:

1. Oatmeal with 2 tablespoons of flaxseeds = 15g dietary fiber
2. Greek yoghurt with 1 tablespoon of chia seeds = 5g dietary fiber
3. Vegetable sticks with hummus = 5-7g dietary fiber
4. Banana topped with peanut butter = 5g dietary fiber

Take home message: Look after the health of your mind not just your gut by meeting the recommended dietary fiber needs each day.

Reference:

1. Saghafian F, Hajishafiee M, Rouhani P, Saneei P. Dietary fiber intake, depression, and anxiety: a systematic review and meta-analysis of epidemiologic studies. Nutr Neurosci. 2023 Feb;26(2):108-126. doi: 10.1080/1028415X.2022020403. Epub 2022 Jan 4. PMID: 36692989.