By Nurse Mark

Imagine a drug that could reduce overall risk of death by 22 percent – and even better, reduce the risk of death from cardiovascular disease, infectious disease, and respiratory diseases by 24% to 56% in men and by 34% to 59% in women.

A drug that could do that amount of good would be considered by conventional medicine to be the greatest advance in health science since antibiotics and it would be a dream-come-true for Big Pharma. Doctors would be prescribing it to every patient that they see.

Well, sorry – there isn’t a drug that can do all that.

But there is something that can – and does.

It’s not high-tech, it’s not cutting-edge, it’s not sexy or miraculous, and it gets little respect or attention from most doctors. In fact, when you visit your doctor you’ll be lucky to hear it mentioned at all beyond a recommendation to “try to get more” – mumbled while the doctor is scribbling out yet another prescription for statin drugs…

What is this “miracle” substance?

Fiber. Dietary fiber.

Hard to believe? Well, believe it – increased dietary fiber intake will help you stay healthier and live longer.

Fiber can help:

• lower cholesterol
• stabilize blood sugar
• prevent Type II diabetes
• reduce inflammation
• fight obesity
• reduce blood pressure
• prevent respiratory infections
• prevent cancer
• and much more

Researchers at the National Cancer Institute analyzed data from the National Institutes of Health / AARP Diet and Health Study and reported:

Dietary fiber intake was associated with a significantly lowered risk of total death in both men and women. [...] Dietary fiber intake also lowered the risk of death from cardiovascular, infectious, and respiratory diseases by 24% to 56% in men and by 34% to 59% in women.

Another article, titled Study Strengthens Link Between Low Dietary Fiber Intake and Increased Cardiovascular Risk reported on October 18, 2013:

A new study published in the December issue of The American Journal of Medicine shows a significant association between low dietary fiber intake and cardiometabolic risks including metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular inflammation, and obesity.

“Overall, the prevalence of the metabolic syndrome, inflammation, and obesity each decreased with increasing quintiles of dietary fiber intake,” comments  Clark. “Compared with participants in the lowest quintile of dietary fiber intake, participants in the highest quintile of dietary fiber intake had a statistically significant lower risk of having the metabolic syndrome, inflammation, and obesity.”

[Senior investigator Cheryl R. Clark, MD, ScD, Center for Community Health and Health Equity, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston]

So, all a person needs to do is eat more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, right?

Maybe. But it takes an awful lot of all those things to get the recommended daily fiber intake.

The Institute of Medicine recommends fiber intake levels according to age and sex: 38g per day for men aged 19-50 years, 30g per day for men 50 and over, 25g for women aged 19-50 years, and 21g per day for women over 50.

So you are going to try to eat more fiber – how about a nice salad? A half-cup of lettuce, a half-cup of tomato, maybe a bell pepper, and a half-cup of broccoli for good measure – that’s a lot of veggies, right? But all told you’ll only be getting about 4 grams of fiber from all that…

OK, so let’s add a slice of whole wheat bread – why, that’ll add a whopping 1.9 grams of fiber right there!

And after all, you started your day with some oatmeal – that half-cup (uncooked) gave you two whole grams of fiber.

And your half grapefruit gave another 2 grams…

All that and you are just up to 10 grams of fiber – do you see a problem beginning to develop?

You are going to be eating rabbit food all day long if you want to get your recommended fiber from your meals!

Want to check it out for yourself? To see how much fiber you are really getting? Have some fun with our Rate Your Plate fiber counter page. You’ll be surprised… and maybe disappointed at just how low your fiber intake is!

What to do?

The obvious answer is to supplement your fiber intake.

But with what? Pills? It takes a lot of capsules to get in any amount of fiber. Better to save that for when you are traveling.

Most powdered fiber supplements either turn into wallpaper paste if you don’t choke them down fast enough or they taste like ground-up recycled cardboard – or both. Ugh!

Dr. Myatt had a great-tasting fiber product called Maxi Fiber that was so good that another company bought the rights to it and produced it for a while. Then they stopped making it, claiming that it was too expensive to make and they couldn’t sell it for enough of a profit.

They were right – a really great-tasting fiber formula that contains both soluble and insoluble fiber and that doesn’t turn to glue if it sits for a few minutes IS an expensive proposition to make. It took Dr. Myatt over 2 years to develop her Maxi Fiber formula, and no-one was more disappointed when the company that she licensed it to stopped making it.

Dr. Myatt immediately set about finding another company to manufacture Maxi Fiber – but it has been an arduous task as the ingredients are not cheap and Dr. Myatt’s quality standards are very, very high.

It has taken over a year to bring back Maxi Fiber – but we are pleased and proud to announce that IT’S BACK – and as good as ever, and at the same price as before!

Maxi Fiber is perfect to add to your daily Super Shake or smoothie.

Maxi Fiber is an important part of our delicious, easy-to-make, low-carb, guilt-free Myatt Muffins.

Maxi Fiber even tastes good enough that you can actually mix it with water and drink it all by itself – try that with any other fiber formula! (Any formula that doesn’t contain fake artificial flavoring chemicals that is!)

And here’s an amusing story about Maxi Fiber that we didn’t learn until recently. When the company making Maxi Fiber decided to stop making it we tried to secure the remaining supplies so that we could keep our loyal customers supplied while we found a new manufacturer. But there were no “remaining supplies” to be had. None. Not at any price. We were baffled, and disappointed.

It turns out that one of the top executives of that company also used our Maxi Fiber and liked it so much that she quietly bought up all the remaining stock for her own personal use! Now there’s a testimonial…

We didn’t learn of this until she was running out of her stash and contacted us to find out when we would be able to sell her some more!

Well Folks, Maxi Fiber is back and we are not going to let anyone run out of this great product ever again!

–> Get your Maxi Fiber here! <–

References:

Park Y, Subar AF, Hollenbeck A, et al.  Dietary fiber intake and mortality in the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study. Arch Intern Med 2011; DOI:10.1001/archinternmed.2011.18.

de Koning L and Hu FB. Do the health benefits of dietary fiber extend beyond CV disease? Arch Intern Med 2011; DOI:10.1001/archinternmed.2011.18.

Dietary Fiber Intake and Cardiometabolic Risks among US Adults, NHANES 1999-2010.  http://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(13)00631-1/fulltext#sec3  

More Support for Dietary Fiber Reducing CV, All-Cause Death. http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/737400

An Update on Statin Alternatives and Adjuncts. http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/776919_6

Study Strengthens Link Between Low Dietary Fiber Intake and Increased Cardiovascular Risk. http://www.elsevier.com/about/press-releases/research-and-journals/study-strengthens-link-between-low-dietary-fiber-intake-and-increased-cardiovascular-risk

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