Fiber and Women’s Health: Why It Matters Even More in Your 40s and Beyond
Written by Alissa Brecht, MS, RDN, CSO Women’s Dietician Nutritionist and owner of Everyday Living Nutrition
Perimenopause and menopause can pose a whole list of challenges for women: weight management, hormone shifts, higher risk of chronic disease, and increasing cholesterol levels.
Perimenopause is marked with the decrease in the female hormone, estrogen. Estrogen, and other hormones such as progesterone, will continue to decrease until the ovaries no longer produce enough for ovulation to occur, ending the menstrual cycle. While estrogen plays a major role in reproductive health, it also affects many other areas of your body including the brain and cardiovascular system.
Fiber is an often-overlooked tool to help support women’s health. It is important at all ages and stages but makes a big impact in women in their 40’s and older.
This article will cover what is fiber and the different types of fiber, the benefits fiber provides women, and how to include more in your diet.
What Is Fiber?
The simplest definition of fiber is a type of carbohydrate that your body cannot digest, but provides a wide number of health benefits:
Aids in regular digestion
Supports fullness between meals
Helps control blood sugar levels
Lowers cholesterol levels
Supports a healthy gut microbiome
Deduces risk of chronic diseases
While most forms of carbohydrates like those found in pasta and bread, break down into glucose to become your body’s main energy source, fiber will go through the digestive system undigested.
Fiber is found in a wide variety of plant-based foods like whole grains, fruits, vegetables, beans, lentils, nuts, and seeds. Women are recommended to eat 22-25g of fiber per day.
Soluble vs. Insoluble Fiber
There are two types of fiber, soluble fiber and insoluble fiber, both providing their own health benefits. Most fiber-rich foods will provide a mixture of both, but some will contain more of one type of fiber compared to another.
Soluble fiber
Soluble fiber dissolves in water and creates a gel-like substance when passing through in digestive system, ultimately slowing digestion.
Benefits of soluble fiber:
Lowers cholesterol by binding to cholesterol in the digestive system to help remove excess from the bod
Leads to more stable blood sugars by slowing the absorption of sugars
Helps with satiety and fullness at meals by absorbing water to help prevent overeating
Food sources of soluble fiber include oats, peas, beans, banana, peaches, and chickpeas.
Insoluble fiber
Insoluble fiber does not dissolve in water causing more bulk to the bowel movement and helps food move through the digestive tract quicker.
Benefits of insoluble fiber:
More regular digestion
Similar to soluble fiber, research has also linked insoluble fiber to better blood sugar balance through improved insulin sensitivity. supports gut health.
Food sources of insoluble fiber include kiwi, whole wheat bread, citrus fruits, spinach, asparagus, berries, and green beans.
Having a mix of both soluble and insoluble fiber will provide the best health benefits.
Fiber’s Role in Cholesterol and Heart Health
Heart disease risk increases for women after menopause due to hormone changes. Estrogen works in the liver and helps regulate fat metabolism. Estrogen helps increase HDL cholesterol (“good” cholesterol), lowers LDL cholesterol (“bad” cholesterol), and can even help relax and dilate blood vessels for better blood flow. When estrogen begins decreasing at the start of perimenopause, it is not uncommon for women to then see increases in both cholesterol and triglyceride levels.
Soluble fiber specifically binds to cholesterol in the digestive system and can help remove any excess cholesterol from the body through your bowel movements. Research indicates that soluble fiber intake is linked to lower LDL cholesterol levels.
Fiber and Chronic Disease Prevention
As women increase in age, so does the risk of multiple chronic diseases including diabetes and cancer. But adequate fiber intake can play in role in helping to reduce the risk of developing these diseases.
Breast cancer
Fiber intake has been shown to decrease risk of breast cancer with a study from Harvard’s School of Public Health showing that women who had high fiber eating habits were 8% less likely to develop breast cancer.
Fiber plays a role in both reduction of blood sugar levels and reduction of estrogen exposure – both plays a role in reducing disease risk. Fiber also supports estrogen metabolism and removal, reducing lifetime exposure.
Colon cancer
Fiber helps decrease the risk of colon cancer in multiple ways.
Earlier in this article, fiber’s role in both adding bulk to bowel movements and helping to pass bowel movements easily was reviewed. This digestive benefit also helps to decrease colon cancer risk by lessening the exposure of carcinogens, or a cancer-causing substance.
Another way fiber can reduce colon cancer risk is through fermentation. When fiber passes through the digestive system, beneficial gut bacteria will ferment fiber to make short-chain fatty acids. Specific short-chain fatty acids have anti-cancer properties while helps prevent cancer.
Diabetes
Both soluble and insoluble fiber plays a role in reducing risk of diabetes development by leading to more controlled blood sugar levels by slowing the absorption of sugar from carbohydrates and promoting insulin sensitivity to bring sugar out of your blood and into the cells to provide energy,
Examples of High-Fiber Foods
Fruits & vegetables: berries, pears, apples, carrots, broccoli, Brussels sprouts.
Whole grains: oats, quinoa, brown rice, whole wheat bread/pasta.
Legumes: lentils, chickpeas, black beans, kidney beans.
Nuts & seeds: almonds, chia seeds, flaxseeds, pumpkin seeds.
Practical Tips for Increasing Fiber Intake
Increasing fiber intake should be something that is done slowly and over-time, by adding a little more fiber to your intake every week until you’ve reached your goals. The key to adding more fiber is to keep things simple and easy:
Add chia seeds or ground flaxseed into yogurts, oatmeal, and smoothies
Include a vegetable at every meal – don’t be afraid of frozen vegetables to keep things even easier.
Combine meat and beans together at meal times
Pre-cut fruit for the week for easy access on busy days
Be conscious of your water intake while increasing fiber intake, as water plays an important role in how fiber works in the body.
Remember that too much of anything, fiber included, is a bad things. Excessive fiber intake can lead to uncomfortable symptoms such as bloating, gas, and abdominal pain.
Conclusion
Fiber is a key support to women’s health including supporting heart health, digestion, weight management, and reducing risk of chronic diseases.
If you feel like you need more fiber in your diet start with small consistent changes and reach out to your dietitian to find support.
