A fibre-rich diet helps to achieve a healthy weight, lowers cholesterol, helps maintain bowel health and controls blood sugar levels. Studies even suggest that increasing dietary fibre is associated with a reduced risk of dying from cardio disease and cancers!

But before you race out to increase your fibre intake, read this!

Li, Tong and Qian (2020) studied the relationship between dietary fibre and constipation using the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The study involved data collected from 13,941 participants over the age of 20 years.

Constipation was defined by assessing stool consistency (Bristol stool forms 1 + 2), stool frequency (<3 bowel movements per week) and 3 constipation-related symptom questions. 

Adjusting for a host of demographic, socio-economic and lifestyle factors, along with dietary intake, physical activity significantly modified the association between dietary fibre intake and constipation.

In non-physically active participants, an increase in dietary fibre was not related to a reduced instance of constipation.

For physically active participants, an increase in dietary fibre was associated with stool consistency-related constipation. In people that exercise, every 1 gram increase in fibre results in 3% lower constipation.

A key takeaway from this study is that increasing dietary fibre alone is NOT as effective as increasing fibre intake in conjunction with exercise.

Fibre + no exercise = no association

Fibre + exercise = reduced incidence of constipation.