Fiber plays a crucial role in women’s health. A high fiber diet supports both short and long-term health across all a women’s life stages.
1. Digestive Health: Fiber helps maintain regular bowel movements and prevents constipation, a common issue, especially during pregnancy and menopause.
2. Hormonal Balance: Certain types of fiber (Especially from whole grains, fruits, and vegetables) can help eliminate excess estrogen from the body, which may reduce the risk of hormone related conditions like cancer and endometriosis. This leads to a deeper conversation about specific types of fiber like insoluble and soluble, and how each plays an important role – also prebiotic and post-biotic fiber.
In a nutshell, soluble fiber dissolves in water to form a gel like substance, and this can slow digestion helping with blood sugar control, and lower cholesterol, and feed beneficial gut bacteria. This acts like a prebiotic. Some sources are oats, barley, beans, lentils, apples, citrus fruits, carrots, and psyllium.
Insoluble fiber does not dissolve in water and speeds up the movement of material through the digestive system and helps prevent constipation and promote regular bowel movements. Some sources of insoluble fiber are brown rice, artichoke, kiwi, cauliflower , green beans, nuts, seeds in the skins of fruits and vegetables. Both insoluble and soluble fiber is important to everyone’s health no matter your age or gender.
3. Heart Health: Women are at increased risk for heart disease after menopause, Soluble fiber can help lower LDL (bad) cholesterol levels and support overall cardiovascular health.
4) Weight Management: Fiber increases satiety and helps regulate appetite, which can aid and maintaining a healthy weight. This is important for managing conditions like PCOS and reducing the risk of Type 2 Diabetes.
5) Blood Sugar Control: Fiber slows the absorption of sugar, helping to maintain stable blood glucose levels and reduce the risk of insulin resistance and gestational diabetes.
6) Gut Health: Probiotic fiber feed common, beneficial gut bacteria, which influence immune function, mood, and inflammation. These are factors particularly relevant to women’s health conditions more prevalent in women like IBS.
Women should aim for at least 25 g of fiber per day and ideally find themselves around 35 g/day. This may mean incorporating a fiber supplement into your smoothie or another beverage of your choice that you have daily. Of course, getting our nutrition from food first is preferable.