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By Carolyn Williams

As part of a healthy diet, fiber is a nutrient most associated with keeping the digestive tract regular and — thanks to the marketing on the oatmeal container — lowering cholesterol.

But fiber’s role in the body goes way beyond regularity, and one of fiber’s most important roles stems from the influence that gut health has on heart health. To put it simply, a healthier gut means a healthier heart.

According to research, a healthy gut has a protective effect on the heart by influencing factors that cause and contribute to heart disease.

Here are four ways that eating fiber protects your heart:

1. Lowers cholesterol in multiple ways

Foods with soluble fiber (such as oats) have demonstrated ability to lower levels of LDL cholesterol — the type of cholesterol we want less of — when eaten consistently and regularly. Soluble fiber attaches to bile, a cholesterol-based compound that assists in digesting fats, and both the fiber and bile are later excreted. The body then uses circulating lipids (fats) to form new bile molecules, lowering total and LDL cholesterol.

But in addition to that, research now suggests that gut bacteria also influence blood lipid levels. In fact, bacteria in healthy guts play a role in lowering LDL cholesterol and triglycerides.

2. Prevents inflammation

Gut health plays a key role in the inflammatory process. The mechanism works like this: A healthy gut creates a protective barrier in the intestines, allowing nutrients to pass into the bloodstream but blocking out many inflammatory compounds in food. When these good bacteria are disrupted or become unbalanced, this barrier isn’t as effective and starts to “leak,” allowing those compounds into the body.

Because most chronic conditions are driven by inflammation, promoting gut health with a healthy, fiber-rich diet is key for preventing heart disease as well as a host of other lifestyle-related conditions.

3. Lowers blood pressure

Fiber can’t be digested, but good bacteria in the gut can ferment some fibers in the colon. The fermentation process produces short-chain fatty acids (SCFA). These SCFA provide energy and nutrients for the bacteria, and research suggests that SCFA production can also lower blood pressure.

In fact, eating a high-fiber diet is even considered a treatment for hypertension by some health professionals, since increasing fiber intake is the best way to increase SCFA production.

4. Helps you lose belly fat

Consuming a high-fiber diet is associated with less abdominal fat. This is important since people who carry extra weight in their abdominal area are at higher risk for developing heart disease.

Increasing daily fiber can help with weight loss by slowing down the digestive process to provide a feeling of fullness and satiety. And it can also increase the number and diversity of good bacteria to reduce inflammation, which is also now considered an underlying driver of obesity.

The takeaway

The gut-heart connection is a new area of research with lots of unknowns. Until

See FIBER, page 6

Loneliness

From page 3

The hug “was magical. It was surreal. We just held onto each other, and we cried,” Shaw said. Her daughter filmed the moment in a video that was posted on Twitter last month and went viral.

“We don’t want to live lonely and alone and terrified and afraid,” said Shaw, who along with her granddaughter has received a COVID-19 vaccine.

“We all want to be able to gather with the people we love and our friends. We want to go back to normalcy.”

Friendly calls and screening tools

Of course, loneliness won’t vanish even when the pandemic ends, said psychologist Benjamin Miller, a health policy analyst with Well Being Trust. Some people may still fear interaction, and Miller said programs to help will be needed more than ever.

In Chicago, the friendly caller program initially targeted seniors but will expand to primary care and pediatric practices, and will continue even when the pandemic subsides, said social worker Eve Escalante, manager of program innovation at Rush University Medical Center.

University of Texas researchers tested a similar friendly caller program with adults involved in a Meals on Wheels program. They found meaningful improvements in loneliness, anxiety and depression after four weeks. Several health centers have contacted the researchers to learn how to launch similar programs.

Even health insurers are paying attention. Last fall, Humana Inc. posted an online loneliness screening tool for doctors and included links for referrals to programs to help affected patients, some free and others covered by its health plans.

The insurer also created a “Far From Alone” campaign for older adults, with online links to free virtual programs, including exercise classes, cooking lessons and howto courses on gardening and journaling.

In Chicago, vaccination allowed Dianne Green and Janine Blezien to meet briefly in person recently for the first time.

Amid hugs, tears and laughter, they seemed like old friends.

“Dianne helps me as much as I help her,” Blezien said.

Now Green is considering becoming a volunteer for the friendly caller program, an idea that thrills Blezien.

“Dianne,” she said, “has so much to offer the world.”

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—AP