Fiber reduces overall mortality by 23% • Hacker News Board

Re: Fiber reduces overall mortality by 23%

#81

Post by devchix » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 12:24 PM UTC

erulabs wrote: post #28

brandonb wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(OP here) - no affiliation with Olipop. But we've tried all the fiber supplements around the office, and we found Olipop is a pretty palatable option compared to, say, psyllium husk (which forms a gel when combined with water).

Worth noting that Olipop's fiber comes from inulin, which can be purchased as a supplement and dissolves in water nicely. I'm very curious why inulin is such an unknown product - its a polysaccharide, so it tastes mildly sweet despite having minimal to no impact on glucose levels. You'd think we'd have been supplementing almost all sugary foods/drinks with it for years, since it's a cheap and healthy sweetener.

The human body lacks the enzyme to digest inulin, it passes through the gut and feeds the gut bacteria, which I guess is why it's labeled a pro-biotic? Jerusalem artichoke (the root of a sunflower, Jerusalem is a corruption of girasole) contains a high concentration of inulin. This tuber is usually found served at upper-end swanky restaurants. One year I found it at a farmer's market, bought a bunch and gleefully carted it home. It was rather delicious. Also, gas that would turn a cow inside out. Beware.

Re: Fiber reduces overall mortality by 23%

#82

Post by thisislife2 » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 6:31 PM UTC

m463 wrote: post #66

thisislife2 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kind of wonder what the best form of added fiber should be. There are plenty of foods rich in fiber that you don't need to consider supplements. The article itself mentions - Foods high in soluble fiber including avocados, whole grains, chickpeas, apples, lentils, broccoli, brussels sprouts, certain seeds, and artichokes. Most fruits and vegetables also have varying amount of fiber, as does some variety of rice, mi…

Have you ever actually compared the amount of fiber foods actually have? I've tried it and it is hard. Let's say you need 38g of fiber per day and you need to make up half of it. You could eat 6 cups of brussel sprouts, or sprinkle 6 packets of benefiber on your food as you eat throughout the day. Also, a lot of natural fiber in quantity has some unpleasant gastrointestinal side effects. I'm not saying it is impossib…

I don't obsess so much about food now a days because apparently that's also a slippery slope that can develop to an eating disorder ( orthorexia - see https://www.bu.edu/articles/2013/when-healthy-eating-becomes... ). I however do understand your concern and I think one of the reason why we may be having a difference of opinion on this is because of culture - as an indian, my diet is quite different from a western one, and some of you may indeed require to change your diet to incorporate more fibre rich food or even supplements. My mode of monitoring my fibre intake is to just observe my poop - if it's too hard, there's too much fibre in the diet, and if it's too soft, there's less fibre. Eating a balanced diet, maintaining my weight, exercising, and adjusting my diet as per my annual health check-up is the routine I've adopted now (e.g., I've added chicken liver to my diet this year on the advise of my doctor because some vitamin level was borderline).

Re: Fiber reduces overall mortality by 23%

#83

Post by crdrost » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 7:05 PM UTC

bjoli wrote: post #80

crdrost wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep! Lustig has a book, Metabolical , that goes into kind of a simple explanation of the underlying mechanism here, and it's roughly like this: fiber-rich foods contain a combination of soluble and insoluble fiber, the insoluble fiber basically forms a sort of "net" of chunks and strings and such that you can't digest, and the soluble fiber forms a "gel" which gets stuck in the net and traps other foods. This gel is…

I am not saying that is wrong, but there are many mysterious claims in that book. I especially found the claim that "the most expensive burden to society is sugar" by a large margin was pretty astonishing. It lacks wide support in literature. As do many other claims in the book. Like refined carbohydrates being the main cause of weight gain through a rise in insulin. That is - at best - generally disputed, but is tou…

I also found that first one surprising, even if he gives his back-of-the-envelope calculation (He guesstimates, 75% of healthcare spending is for metabolic-syndrome type chronic diseases, and then he guesstimates that 75% of that is preventable, $3.5T times .75 times .75 gives his figure of $1.9T/year.)

But even if the margin is not quite as wide as the back-of-the-envelope calculates, it's still bigger by a decent margin, right? For instance [1] estimates with more detailed methodology that it's $2.9T over 3 years or ~$1T/year, with at least 44% of that attributable to obesity, so like ~$400B/year, whereas [2] talks about $240B/year cigarettes, $250B/year alcohol.

Of course Lustig would say "TOFI people exist, obesity isn't the problem, obesity is just another symptom of metabolic syndrome, so 44% is an underestimate for the costs of bad nutrition." Not sure I agree there but he'd defend higher numbers even if we agreed to use these sources as kicking off points.

And yeah I agree that the question of "what do we do about it" is something that he appears to have a very opinionated take on, but I'd like to see more hard data. Like I'm happy for him that he had a big study that showed reversal of metabolic syndrome symptoms just by switching sugary food out for starchy food while holding weight and calorie consumption constant, but how we get from there to "eat real food -- the problem is not what's on the nutrition label but all of the antibiotics and adulteration that they don't have to tell you about on that label" stuff seems a bit opaque.

[1] https://www.americanactionforum.org/research/the-economic-co...

[2] https://www.cdc.gov/chronic-disease/data-research/facts-stat...

Re: Fiber reduces overall mortality by 23%

#84

Post by red-iron-pine » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 8:07 PM UTC

NotMichaelBay wrote: post #65

BigTTYGothGF wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because then you'd have wasted time reading what turned out to be ad copy.

You're implying that the article has no value because its purpose is to attract readers to ultimately make a purchase. But if you're trying to attract readers, arguably the best way to do that is to provide something of value to them. If the goal is to attract readers without providing any value at all, it's extremely easy to do that nowadays with AI. And luckily it's just as easy to identify low-effort articles writ…

bollocks. now I have to question the validity of their statements since it's 100% clear they have a profit motive.

the hard part is that there may be legitimate benefits to fiber, but a claim that there is almost a quarter difference in mortality strains credulity.

obvious snake oil is obvious, but this is likely snake oil masquerading as real

Re: Fiber reduces overall mortality by 23%

#85

Post by m463 » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 2:46 AM UTC

thisislife2 wrote: post #82

m463 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever actually compared the amount of fiber foods actually have? I've tried it and it is hard. Let's say you need 38g of fiber per day and you need to make up half of it. You could eat 6 cups of brussel sprouts, or sprinkle 6 packets of benefiber on your food as you eat throughout the day. Also, a lot of natural fiber in quantity has some unpleasant gastrointestinal side effects. I'm not saying it is impossib…

I don't obsess so much about food now a days because apparently that's also a slippery slope that can develop to an eating disorder ( orthorexia - see https://www.bu.edu/articles/2013/when-healthy-eating-becomes... ). I however do understand your concern and I think one of the reason why we may be having a difference of opinion on this is because of culture - as an indian, my diet is quite different from a western on…

I think hard = not enough fiber and/or fluids.

I think you're right about diet. When I asked my first doctor about diet - what should I eat and not eat, he told me something counter-intuitive. He said "it changes back and forth every year, but one thing is agreed upon - eat a variety of foods".

A lot of my indian colleagues behave quite differently from the general population. They frequently cook at home and/or for themselves and bring the food in, and they generally use whole/individual ingredients. I've also heard that indians don't get alzheimers because of turmeric.

That said, as people age or become more sedentary I think proper fiber becomes very important.