Chapter 8. Whole Grains or Dietary Fiber, Which Is Best?

AGUIRRE, A.; BORNEO, R

Nutraceuticals and Functional Foods: Natural Remedy

NOVA Publishers

Año: 2014; p. 100 - 108

Many studies have shown that dietary fiber and whole grains have an important role in health. However, some studies also showed that the disease risk reduction is not significant when whole grains or dietary fiber intakes are increased. The presence of factors that may exert their influence concomitantly with the effect of dietary fiber has been often cited as a major drawback of observational or an intervention study in which dietary fiber is tested. Similarly studies which test epidemiologically or by intervention, whole grains, have a similar disadvantage, there are too many functional components, besides dietary fiber, present in whole grains that may have positive or counteractive effects on health outcomes. Despite all the controversy surrounding such studies there seems to continue to emerge information that suggest that both dietary components (dietary fiber and whole grains) may be beneficial in managing, preventing or even reversing certain conditions such as metabolic syndrome, diabetes type II, cardiovascular disease or obesity/weight management. In this chapter, we will review this so as to try to decide if dietary fiber and/or whole grains may have beneficial influences on people health. One thing all scientific and medical community seem to agree is that food consumed today lack sufficient quantities of both dietary fiber and whole grains and that consumption of these components is too low. Any effort aimed at reversing this situation would certainly be welcomed.