DIETARY FIBRE – KEY TO SUCCESSFUL AGEING

Findings from an important new study that followed Australian adults aged 49 years and older, supports advice that eating a diet rich in fibre is key to ageing successfully, that is, ageing free of disease and disability. But not all fibre.

A paper on this study, by researchers at Sydney University’s Westmead Institute for Medical Research is published in The Journal of Gerontology (“Association Between Carbohydrate Nutrition and Successful Ageing Over 10 Years” 2016: vol 71(10); 1335-1340).

Lead author Assoc Professor Bamini Gopinath says the study is the first to look at the link between carbohydrate intake and successful ageing.

She notes, “Out of all the variables we looked at, fibre intake – which is the type of carbohydrate (fibre) that the body can’t digest – had the greatest influence”.

Professor Gopinath and colleagues defined successful ageing as, reaching old age disease-free and fully-functional – that is with “absence of disability, depressive symptoms, cognitive impairment, respiratory symptoms and chronic diseases (e g cancer and coronary artery disease)”.

The data covered a total of 1,609 adults who were free of cancer, coronary artery disease and stroke when the study started and who were followed for 10 years.

Of all the factors they examined – including total carbohydrate, total fibre intake, glycemic index, glycemic load, and sugar intake – the researchers found fibre had the biggest impact on successful ageing.

“Essentially, we found that those who had the highest intake of fibre had an almost 80 per cent likelihood of living a long and healthy life over a 10-year follow-up. That is, they were less likely to suffer from hypertension, diabetes, dementia, depression and functional disability” Professor Gopinath explained.

She and her colleagues note that study participants who remained constantly below the mid-range of consumption of fibre, compared with the rest of the group, were less likely to age successfully, and added, “These findings suggest that increasing intake of fibre-rich foods could be a successful strategy in reaching old age disease-free and fully-functional”.

Short-chain fatty acids (e g butyrate) produced as metabolites from indigestible fibre by resident gut microbiota hold the key to fully-functional, disease-free ageing

Various estimates indicate that the adult human body is made up of about 37 trillion cells, and every bite of food and every breath we take releases potentially toxic compounds including reactive oxygen and reactive nitrogen species, commonly known as free radicals, which can damage the chemical structure of our DNA. This naturally occurring oxidative DNA damage arises at least 10,000 times per cell per day in humans, possibly leading eventually to chronic disease including Alzheimer’s, heart disease, and cancer, frailty, morbidity and premature death.

Fortunately, our body is equipped with mechanisms which are able to protect our cells from this oxidative onslaught, and a miracle-working protein produced in every cell in our body known as glutathione (or GSH) is at the forefront of this antioxidant protection. So important, as the most powerful of antioxidants is this protein, that it is often referred to as the mother of antioxidants, the master detoxifier and maestro of the immune system. Glutathione is a substance, the levels of which in our cells can be predictive of our longevity. We literally cannot survive without this natural oxidant.

However, a study of 122 healthy individuals aged 19-85 years, by researchers at Emory University, Atlanta USA has shown that a steady linear oxidation increase takes place at the rate of 0.16 mV/year over the entire lifespan, but the capacity of the glutathione antioxidant system is maintained until 45 years and then declines rapidly with an oxidation rate jumping to 0.7 mV/year. It is interesting to note that until only a few hundred years ago, this was the average life expectancy. It is also important to note that most age-related chronic diseases including some cancers, cardiovascular disease and dementia often develop over a period of one or two decades, probably initiated by this mid-life dramatic increase in oxidative toxicity.

But the damage does not stop here. This oxidative stress triggers activation of the ‘master controller’ of chronic systemic inflammation, NF-kB, and chronic, low-level, systemic inflammation is now known to underlie almost every age-related chronic disease and condition usually resulting from chromatin dysregulation.

And here we come to the fibre connection and its health-promoting effects demonstrated in the Westmead Study. But it’s not all dietary fibre, only those dietary fibres which are not metabolised but pass undigested to the large intestine (colon) where it meets the almost 2 kilograms of a diverse range of trillions of resident bacteria which make up our intestinal ecosystem, collectively known as colonic microbiota.

The intestinal microbiota plays a critical role in the establishment and maintenance of body health, wellbeing and longevity, and the genus of bacteria considered most beneficial to health are the species of Bifidobacterium. These species are at their highest level in breast-fed, vaginally-delivered infants, gradually declining to much lower levels in old age. However as has been demonstrated in published human studies, changes to the diet such as high levels of certain soluble dietary fibre can alter the balance of colonic bacteria towards a potentially healthier bacterial balance with Bifidobacterium becoming the numerically predominant genus.

A diet high in this fibre passes undigested to the colon where it is metabolised in a fermentation process by these health-promoting bacteria, producing short chain fatty acids (SCFA) as metabolites. Among these SCFA, butyrate has received intense scientific attention for its evidence-based multiple beneficial chemopreventive and therapeutic effects from the intestinal tract and even to the body’s peripheral tissues.

The mechanisms of action of butyrate are multiple, with many related to its regulatory disease-preventive and therapeutic effects on gene expression, as a key member of the class of epigenetic substances known as histone deacetylase inhibitors.

Other key mechanisms are its antioxidant function as Butyrate is able to augment significantly, the body’s level of the potent, key natural antioxidant glutathione (GSH) outlined above, and with this, exerting a potent anti-inflammatory function. Butyrate is shown to boost the body’s natural anti-microbial peptide (AMP) immune function, and is shown in many published human and animal studies to beneficially reduce the risks for a wide range of age-related chronic diseases and conditions.

With all these disease preventing effects produced by these bacterial short chain fatty acids, particularly butyrate, as health-promoting bacterial metabolites produced right in our own chemical factory, the colon, when fed particular soluble dietary fibre as part of a healthy diet, it is not difficult to see the fibre - healthy ageing connection as demonstrated so elegantly in the Westmead and other studies.

Over a decade of intense research has allowed us to maximise the health-promoting mechanisms in the safe, evidence-based, 100% natural soluble vegetable fibre NEUROLEX.

Dr Maxwell Strong (0418 413657 - Email: maxwellstrongresearch@gmail.com) is happy to discuss this science in greater detail and welcomes enquiries from interested medical specialists, practitioners, dietitions, and medical researchers, as well as members of the public with an interest in ageing successfully.

www.neurolex.com.au

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