Sure, fiber is good for keeping your bowel movements…um, regular, but researchers are finding surprising benefits of fiber for your joints. Good bacteria eat up fiber like your kids feasting on some chicken nuggets. The good bacteria then releases butyrate into our bloodstream when we eat fiber —a compound that has broad anti-inflammatory activities. This just might explain a surprising finding - why people with a high intake of dietary fiber generally have less knee pain. In a 2017 study published in Arthritis Care & Research, over 4700 men and women ages 45-79 years with or at risk of knee osteoarthritis underwent annual followups for 8 years and tracked their dietary fiber intake. The conclusion: “a high intake of dietary total or grain fiber, particularly the recommended daily fiber average intake of 25 gm per day, is associated with a lower risk of developing moderate or severe knee pain over time.” In addition two Framingham Health Studies following thousands of people found that higher fiber intake was related to a lower risk of having symptoms of osteoarthritis.

Eat more fiber. Your gut microbiome needs fiber to produce butyrate. Butyrate is the main energy source for colonocytes, the cells which make up your gut lining. Unlike most other cells in your body which use glucose as their main energy source, the cells of the lining of your gut mainly use butyrate. And here’s one more benefit of butyrate: antioxidants. Higher butyrate levels have been shown to increase levels of glutathione, a super-powerful antioxidant naturally produced in your body’s cells. Free radicals are linked to inflammation and many diseases are either sparked or fueled by inflammation, especially auto-immune diseases, like arthritis. Free radicals are the waste products from chemical reactions and they swarm around your colon - your body’s storage container for waste. So it makes sense that antioxidants sequestering free radicals and butyrate boosting your healthy gut lining just might be the reason fiber improves arthritis.

Unfortunately, most people in the United States consume less than half the recommended intake of dietary fiber daily. In fact, it’s estimated that 95% of Americans do not get their recommended daily amount of fiber. Try adding some fiber to your smoothies, your cereal, your yogurt, even your oatmeal, or sneak in some extra fiber to your baked treats with flax, chia, oat bran.