Recent developments in dietary-fibre hypotheses

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Kellogg (1923) and others stimulated the study of ‘fibre’ in the United States 1925 - 1940; he preferred ‘whole cereal foods’. ‘Dietary fibre’ is the residue of plant food that resists digestion by the alimentary enzymes of man and mammals. Edible fibre includes (1) plant dietary fibre (plantix), (2)undigested animal tiss ue polysaccharides, (3) undigested pharmaceutical products and (4) undigested biosynthetic polysaccharides. Degenerative diseases of unknown aetiology are common in Western communities but from all available evidence they are uncommon in rural areas of developing countries in Africa and Asia . The diets of Western countries contain little fibre in the energy foods (starches, sugars, fats); in the diets of rural communities in developing countries three to seven times more fibre is taken with the energy foods. It is suggested that the latter diets are protective against a wide variety of Western diseases . These high-fibre, high-starch diets have been shown to produce a remission of maturity-onset diabetes mellitus within 14 days.

This publication has 3 references indexed in Scilit: