Dietary fibre is a type of carbohydrate found in plants, that your body cannot digest but is digested by good gut microbes that live in our gut.

Eating enough dietary fibre is important for gut health and is associated with lower risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and stroke.

While viral social media trends like fibremaxxing have helped raise awareness of the importance of fibre, most of the population do not eat enough fibre.

Only 4% of adults in the UK meet the daily recommended dietary fibre target of 30g.

At the Quadram Institute, we are studying how fibre impacts our health and microbiome to help inform ways to increase the quantity and quality of fibre in our diets.

Here we highlight some of our latest work on fibre.

Studying the structure of fibre to develop fibre-rich chickpea flour

Cell walls of plant-based foods such as cereals, pulses, fruits and vegetables are the main source of dietary fibre.

Researchers in Dr Cathrina Edward’s group are studying how plant-derived structures are physically and biochemically disassembled during their passage through the gastrointestinal tract.

Research from the Edwards group has uncovered how the physical structure of dietary fibre underpins its benefits to health. They found that wheat and chickpeas have different digestion profiles due to the differences in the cell wall structure.

Wheat cell walls are permeable to alpha-amylase, the main enzyme responsible for digesting starch. But in chickpeas, starch inside the cells is not digested, except in cells near the edges of the tissue that had been damaged during milling.

Researchers use combined microscopy techniques with advanced models of human digestion to track the effects of food processing on different cell wall structures, and assess how this changed their digestibility.

Research on the structure of fibre in food has led the Edwards group developing PulseON®. PulseON is a new fibre-rich ingredient made from chickpea using different types of milling and drying processes that, unlike normal flour milling, preserve cellular structure and therefore starch resistance to digestion. The results of a human trial showed that partly replacing wheat flour, made of refined carbohydrate, with PulseON® in staple foods like white bread lowered the blood glucose response by 40% and helps people feel fuller for longer.

Using our model colon facility to help us understand how fibre impacts the gut microbiome

Here at the Quadram Institute we are home to a Colon Model Facility which allows researchers to mimic the complex conditions of the colon to learn more about the important role of our gut microbiota including the impact of fibre on the gut.

The models simulate the human colon conditions outside the human body, by incubating colon medium, maintaining a temperature of 37°C, creating anaerobic conditions, and regulating pH.

Former PhD student Glória Máté-Koncz from the Edwards group used a model colon to mimic fermentation of beans in the colon to learn more about how we digest fibre found in beans.

The model colon has been used by Dr Gaia De Simone to investigate a high fibre chickpea-based snack effect on the human gut microbiome.

Researching the role of fibre in severe malnutrition

Our researchers recently led a study which found that children undergoing treatment for severe acute malnutrition lack an effective gut microbiome, which impairs their ability to use dietary fibre, hindering their recovery.

By studying the microbiomes of children hospitalised with severe acute malnutrition, Dr Akshay Bisht, working in Dr Fred Warren’s group found a lack of diversity in the microbes present that meant the gut microbiome of children with malnutrition couldn’t ferment the fibre inulin, which is commonly used as a prebiotic.

This illustrates the importance of carefully selecting the right type of fibre to support microbial diversity, restoring it when lost, and the importance of profiling the microbiome at different stages of recovery.

Sharing our fibre expertise to help develop high-fibre drinks

Along with our academic research studying the biology of how fibre affects our health, our researchers share their expertise with others to help develop foods higher in fibre.

Our Research Group Leader Dr Fred Warren is working with Funki Drinks, a UK company based on the Norwich Research Park. Funki Drinks aims to tackle the issue of low fibre intake in the UK population with its Fibre UP products, a unique carbonated soft drink fortified with a specially designed fibre blend.

Many existing fibre food products use inulin, an easy to incorporate but very short-chain fibre. Short-chain fibres are more rapidly fermented in our gut, producing more gas, which can cause bloating and abdominal pain. This limits the amount of inulin you can add to a product and may exclude consumers with existing gut issues, like irritable bowel syndrome, from benefitting.

Our researchers helped screen a wide range of longer-chain fibres to create blends that boosted the benefits while lowering risk of bloating and discomfort. This testing has enabled Fibre UP to contain 16 grams of fibre. That’s half of the recommended daily intake, helping consumers to bridge the fibre gap.

World-leading fibre researchers in Norwich

Later this month our researchers at the Quadram Institute will be joined by researchers from across the world to share insights from the forefront of fibre research.

We are hosting the 9th International Conference on Dietary Fibre which will showcase the latest advances in dietary fibre research and innovation. The conference is co-organised with the International Association for Cereal Science and Technology.

The conference will cover key topics in the area of fibre research including the gut-brain axis and fibre’s role in mental and metabolic health, fibre-related food technologies and innovations and sustainable strategies to enhance fibre intake globally.

Through learning more about how fibre impacts our health, we can help develop future strategies to improve the quantity and quality of fibre in our diets to improve health in the UK and across the globe.