Prebiotics & Prebiotic Fiber

There are two basic types of food fiber – insoluble fiber, which does not dissolve in water and is not fermented by the gut’s bacteria, and soluble fiber, which does dissolve in water and is fermented by the colon’s microorganisms or bacteria. Almost all plant food, which is where fiber comes from, will have some of each but in different proportions. For instance, wheat is about 90% insoluble fiber. Oats are 50/50 and the psyllium plant is mostly soluble fiber. All of the above have been well-known for some time. In addition, it has been long known that in societies that consume large amounts of plant foods each day, such as in many rural African societies, that the general health of the population is very good, and that the incidence of many disorders of the lower GI tract are almost non-existent. These include bowel irregularity, diverticulosis, colon cancer and polyps, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. We did not know exactly how or why this was occurring although it was obvious that the plant based diet was important.

Then in the mid 1990’s, medical researchers and nutritionists began to discover something quite remarkable about some soluble fibers. They found that certain soluble fibers such as inulin, oligofructose and FOS (fructo-oligosaccharide) caused some remarkable changes in the bacterial mix of the colon. They had discovered prebiotics.