The original "super food" for overall health

Fiber could easily be called "the most important nutrient you didn't know you weren't getting enough of." And while most people recognize the digestive and heart-health benefits of fiber, few people are aware of fiber's head-to-toe healthboosting abilities.

Full-body benefits

Fiber is good for a lot more than just maintaining regularity. Fiber has been shown to help promote health throughout your whole body.

• Bowel and Digestive Support—Research shows that a high-fiber diet helps reduce the likelihood of hernias, hemorrhoids, diverticulitis, and other diseases of the bowel.
• Heart Protector—Fiber helps lower cholesterol levels. It's been shown that diets low in saturated fat and cholesterol that include 7 grams of soluble fiber per day from psyllium husk may significantly reduce the risk of heart disease. (One serving of FiberWise® drink provides 3.4 grams of this soluble fiber.)
• Powerful Immune Booster—Fiber provides food for the "friendly bacteria" in your large intestine that fight the growth of harmful bacteria and contribute to immune support throughout the entire body. In addition, fiber also absorbs and helps sweep away toxins, fat, and cholesterol so they are not recirculated into the blood.
• Weight Control—By helping people feel fuller longer, fiber helps stop overeating—helping to prevent weight gain and allowing people to more easily shed excess pounds.
• Blood Sugar Regulation—Fiber naturally reduces swings in blood sugar levels by slowing the release of sugars into the bloodstream.
• Natural Fatigue Fighter—Research has shown that boosting fiber intake improves mood and increases feelings of well-being while improving energy levels and reducing feelings of fatigue.
• Natural Cancer Fighter—Numerous studies suggest that eating a low-fat diet that is high in fiber can reduce the risk of developing some forms of cancer.

The Secret to Fiber's Success

So how exactly does fiber provide so many benefits to so many parts of the body? It all comes down to gut reactions. Fiber is essential to removing toxins, fats, cholesterol, and waste from the body during digestion. If fiber is not part of your diet, that toxic load is recirculated back through your body instead of being eliminated. Without the proper amount of fiber, the bile your body produces for digestion becomes increasingly toxic. Those toxins are then reabsorbed into the bloodstream, where they can irritate tissues and organs, resulting in inflammation—a condition that can negatively affect body systems in a number of ways. In essence, fiber is nature's perfect trash collector.

But fiber does more than just help prevent toxins and wastes from reentering the system, it also forces the body to pull cholesterol out of the blood to make new bile—helping control blood cholesterol levels and contributing to a healthy cardiovascular system.

Fiber: Nature's trash collector

1. The liver begins producing a substance necessary for digestion called bile. Bile is made of acids as well as cholesterol.

2.Bile is stored and concentrated in the gallbladder until foods that contain fat are eaten.

3. After eating, the bile is dumped into the small intestine, where it breaks up fat, grease, and food particles.

4. At the lower end of the small intestine, the bile is broken down into its individual component parts—cholesterol, fat, toxins, and wastes.

5. If there is an adequate amount of fiber in the intestines, the fiber binds up the cholesterol, fat, and toxins and sweeps them out of the body.

6. If there isn't enough fiber in the intestines, the cholesterol, fat, and toxins reenter the bloodstream and are recirculated throughout the body. These toxins will eventually reach the liver. This forces the liver to process them again and deliver them to the intestines in the next batch of bile. These toxins will repeat this cycle, accumulating in the bile, unless there is enough fiber in the system to remove them from the body.