Treatment of obesity with dietary fibre: Present position and potential developments

Abstract

Obesity is one of the conditions included in the list of Fibre-deficiency disorders considered when Burkitt and Trowell developed their hypothesis of Dietary fibre deficiency as a cause of many of the diseases of the Western World. There is some suggestive evidence for a role for fibre but un travelling the relative contributions of different variables in the diet is very difficult1 (Trowell, 1975). In any case, the problem of attempting to use fibre to facilitate weight loss in the obese is almost a totally different question to that of whether or not high fibre diets reduce the tendency to weight gain in those so predisposed. The epidemiological data may point towards a role for fibre in maintenance of normal body composition, but these data do not allow the intellectual jump to a hypothetical role in weight reduction. Nevertheless claims have been made2 (Eyton, 1982) that slimming should be easier because the high-fibre diet is more filling and that weight loss will be quicker because a larger proporti...