How Much Fiber To Eat, Where To Get Your Fiber, And Is Fiber *Really* Killing Your Insides?

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Welcome to the BenGreenfieldFitness.com podcast. This is Ben. And if you missed the podcast on Monday, then you missed the announcement that I am actually over in Vietnam right now competing in a triathlon. Actually takes place this Sunday called the Laguna Lang Triathlon. Don't worry, I'll put a bunch of updates out on the facebook.com bgfitness page if you want to predict my race time and win some cool swag and stuff like that. But in the meantime, that's why Brock isn't with me today for this episode, and that's why it might sound a little bit different. So today in this special episode, we are revisiting the controversial topic of fiber. And a couple of months ago on the BenGreenfieldFitness.com website, I published an extremely controversial guest article entitled is fiber bad for the top 12 myths and the real truth about whether fiber is killing your insides. Well, 96 comments later on that blog post, it still seems that some confusion persists about exactly how much fiber to eat and where to get your fiber and whether fiber really is a dangerous villain that is killing your insides. So in today's episode, I have Konstantin Monastirsky on the line and we're going to talk about everything that you need to know about fiber. If you still are confused and you have more questions after this episode, just head over to BenGreenfieldFitness.com where I have the show notes for for this podcast. Now, just a couple things I wanted to mention before we jump in. First of all, and you may have missed this if you didn't listen in to Monday's episode, the official video, audios, slides, takeaway notes and DVDs are now available from the Become Superhuman Live event. And I'm gonna put a link in the show notes for this episode down at the bottom of the show notes where you can click to get get them now. And that's everything that allows you to experience that live event in HD format. It's really, really cool information. A couple of other things I wanted to mention is that for the members of my inner circle, in just about a week On Saturday the 26th, I am going to be doing a live spreecast entitled Ask me anything about minimalist triathlon training. So if you want to join the inner circle, it's 10 bucks a month. And I know that there are a lot of other kind of membership websites out there in the podcasting community charging 50 bucks or $97 a month or something like that. And I'm trying to make this just really an affordable experience for pretty much any listener to the podcast. So you can check that out over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com inner circle and get in on all of the lives precasts that we do. And we recently did one called how to Create Superhuman Kids. And of course replays for all that stuff are also available in the Inner Circle. We've got like 600 form thread topics going right now and There are over 20 different webinars, there's over 40 different bonuses and PDF downloads and all sorts of stuff for you over there. So check that out. And I think that's all that I'm going to bore you with for special announcements today. So let's go ahead and jump into this interview with Konstantin and again, if you have questions and follow ups, go ahead and surf over to BenGreenfieldFitness.com and leave your comments in the show notes I know this fiber stuff can seem kind of confusing and almost frustrating to know what's good and what's bad, so I'd encourage you to join the conversation over there. And let's go ahead and jump in. Hey folks, it's Ben Greenfield. And if you have been a fan of the website BenGreenfieldFitness.com of late, you may know about a rather controversial article that was published there by my guest today. It was an article that discussed the myths about fiber. And it seems to really strike a chord with folks because of course we've all led to believe that fiber is kind of God's gift to mankind. And the guy that I have on the call today actually wrote a book called Fiber the Truth About Fiber's Role in Diet Failure, Constipation, hemorrhoids, Irritable Bowel syndrome, ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, and colon cancer. And this is certainly not the view of fiber that we're used to getting. And the name of my guest is Konstantin Monastirsky, and I'm really hoping I didn't just butcher your name. Konstantin. And he graduated from Medical University in 1977 with a pharmacy degree. He's a certified nutritional consultant and an expert in forensic nutrition, which is a field of science that looks into the connection between supposedly healthy foods and nutrition related disorders like diabetes and obesity. Now, I first found Constantin, at the risk of a too much information overshare here, when I was constipated, I actually went through a period of time last year where I had about three or four weeks of pretty severe constipation for which I tried a few popular laxative and cleanse type of compounds unsuccessfully. I found this guy, I read his book, I wrote him a few emails and long story short, he fixed me over a few weeks. In my case, my constipation was due to some antibiotics that I had to go on that messed up my gut and there were some different things that I had to do. But ultimately this guy took care of it and so he knows what he's talking about, even though it is a controversial view. So I am going to shut up now and thank you for coming on the call, Konstantin.

Ben, it's my pleasure. Thank you for inviting me to your podcast. Thank you for allowing my views to be shared with your loyal followers. Yeah, it is quite remarkable. I absolutely envy you. Your use, your energy, the work you're doing. It's absolutely remarkable. I wish we will be partners one day in doing something. We talked about it. I mean, I'm old and lazy and young and energetic, so it's going to be a good mix. But this is not. We are about to talk, right? We are about how I met over constipation, whatever it would be.

Everybody loves to talk about poop. Everybody loves to talk about poop on this show. You know, I know that you did produce this article and of course you've written an entire book. Whenever I have an author on the show, I link to your book in the show notes. But we could of course spend hours and hours talking about everything that's in your book. Can you give us the five minutes Cliff Notes version though, about why you're not a fan of fiber?

Okay, well, first of all, what is fiber? Fiber is a cellulose, essentially just a connection of bunch of molecules of glucose, fructose and galactose that make a very, very long chain which make it either insoluble or, or undigestible or indigestible. So essentially, when you consume fiber, it is the same thing as you would be, let's say, eating toilet paper. So the only different toilet paper contains glue to hold it together and then it was processed with a different type of machinery. So let me ask you a question. Will you willingly consume toilet paper or regular paper or wood? Yeah, I would say no.

Yeah, I would definitely say no. And I see what you're saying.

And that's exactly what you're doing. You're consuming.

But with fiber, there are other things that come along with fiber. I mean, I know that, for example, it serves as a prebiotic or it can get metabolized and produce Fatty acids in your colon, which could potentially be used as a fuel. And a lot of times it's wrapped up in all these phytonutrients and things, inside fruits and vegetables and things of that nature. So what is it exactly about fiber? If we go beyond just the toilet paper analogy and get a little bit more scientific, that would make it bad.

It is actually not true that fiber is a probiotic. Native human flora does not require probiotics. Native human flora resides inside your mucosal layer, mucosal membrane of your large intestine. And it doesn't require any probiotic. And if you are using fiber as a probiotic, all you attain is essentially either inflammatory bowel disease on a late stage, or in an early stage, inflammatory, inflammatory, irritable bowel syndrome. Fiber is traditional.

Sorry to interrupt, but when you were saying fiber, are you painting with a broad brush? I mean, are you saying all fiber? Say, if I were to eat an apple, are you talking more about, you know, high fiber supplements, you know, enriched brand cereal, stuff like that?

Fiber is called indigestible substance.

Okay?

There are two types of fiber, soluble and insoluble. And when people say it's indigestible, it means that it will not digest inside the stomach and it will not digest inside the small intestine. But after reaching colonial, after reaching the colon, the large intestine, our large intestine contains a great deal of bacteria. And these bacteria will start to ferment fiber. The same process as is used during beer making and in the process of fermentation. Both fibers, soluble and to a much lesser extent, insoluble, will produce exact same things as are produced when we're making beer or wine. Lots of gases, lots of acidity, and lots of alcohols, which are very bad for humans. Not suitable for stomachs for. For human. For humans. Because they will assimilate inside the large intestine. Yes, yes. And they will produce also fatty acids, but they will not. It will not produce essential fatty acids. Essential fatty acids can only be obtained through the diet. So anyone who is telling you that fiber is a probiotic, it is nonsense. A human body does not require probiotics. I wish to remind you that there are lots of people in the world that do not consume fiber at all in their diets. And about 30, 40 years ago, I'm 58, so when I came in the United States in 78, nobody heard about fibers. There were some fiber laxatives, but that was about it. In fact, fiber came into prominence in the early 80s, right? Before, earlier, if you travel to Europe, now you go to France and to Italy and you will see that everybody's appealing fruits and vegetables before they go into your dish or especially before giving.

Them to children, they're peeling them.

So this constant. Exactly. Because if you consume especially for a child, over consumption of fiber is a primary reason for little children developing type 1 diabetes. Because fiber causes clogging and inflammatory conditions inside the duodenum. And that leads to either acute pancreatitis, pancreatitis or acute chalitostitis, which then leads to very serious problem with the pancreas. And it's no longer capable of producing insulin for a while and then, you know, it's just inflammatory practice develops autoimmune reaction and that's how it cascades into a full blown type 1 diabetes. I describe this back on my site about 7 years ago and same thing in my book, People are still. If you ask any endocrinologist, pediatric endocrinologist, what is the cause of type 1 diabetes in children and they say, we don't know. Again, I know. And when you start to go on and investigate how this condition happens in young children, usually it is related to fiber. And now we have a catastrophic epidemic of type 1 diabetes. It was really never a big issue. It was a very, very small problem, but now it's really a huge problem for young children, especially because they have very small digestive organs, so they're much easier to clog, unlike adults. Appendicitis in young children, when physicians open up the body and they cut out appendicitis, what they find inside seeds, some fiber, I mean food nutrients that will not digest and assimilate in the human body. And also if you go into any book on physiology and you study the structure of stools, of fecal matter, it says it's 75% water. The rest is just cellular debris and bacteria. And if you detect undigested substances in human stools, that's a very serious problem. Either if you have undigested fats or undigested proteins, or undigested fibers or carbohydrates, that's a problem. And so this whole thing got perverted and fiber entered into mainstream medicine. For most people don't even know reasons why they enter. But the reason it became so prominent is because a lot of westerners developed chronic constipation after taking antibiotics. Exact same situations that you found yourself in recently. And physicians didn't really know how to deal with it on a day to day basis other than prescribing some Strong medication over the counter or by prescription. And they said, well, fiber probably will help, because what fiber will do? Why do people develop constipation after taking antibiotics in the first place? Because broad spectrum antibiotics decimate your flora inside your bacteria, inside your large intestine. And that bacteria is essentially a water binding factor. It's a cellular cells which will retain water. So it's what makes stool soft and pliable and moist. And when bacteria guns still becomes very hard and very quickly dehydrated. And so when you consume fiber, fiber, because it can retain water, especially indigestible fiber, it kind of becomes a substitute for bacteria. But bacteria play a very essential role in human digestion. I mean, the human health to begin with. They are essential for primary immunity. They're essential for producing biotin. It's one of the most prominent vitamins in the big group. And some other B vitamins as well. But biotin is a key one. And it's also responsible for producing vitamin K, which is responsible for blood coagulation. So when bacteria are gone and you replace it with fiber, you're causing yourself even more harm. Yes. If you're young and your body is supple and you're lucky, yes, it will help you. It didn't help you, but it helped a lot of people. So that's how it's working. But, Ben, there are absolutely no scientific reasons anywhere for fiber consumption. But what happened later is big pharma came into the picture and then realized that they can take essentially bran or psyllium, that's how you pronounce it, which.

Is psyllium seed plant.

Well, yeah, and they can use, you know, heavy machinery to mill it and then package it into bottles, and it costs nothing. The most expensive part of fiber supplements is a bottle itself, a packaging. What's inside is worthless because it used to be like, you know, they would sell bran to feedlots for, let's say, a dollar per, you know, dollar per, like, you know, 40, 50 kilograms of it, or 100 pounds for a dollar. And now if you mill the same stuff that, you know, cows don't even like to eat and put it on the store override aid, you can actually sell it with like a, you know, 100,000% markup and make lots of money. And then when you go and do this, you start to look for justification why it is good. And so you feed people the stupid stories about fiber being probiotic, about fiber being good for heart disease, about fiber lowering cholesterol, about fiber being protective from colon cancer, about Fiber inhibiting appetite so you don't gain weight and you don't overeat and so forth and so on. It's all lies. There is absolutely no scientific proof. You wouldn't find any serious academic article that actually says these things. And in fact one of the again going back to fiber relationship to constipation, back in 1991, FDA said to all the people who were selling fiber supplements as laxative said it's again that there is absolutely no proof anywhere that fiber helps constipation. So you are not allowed even to claim this. So in fact it is against the law to sell a supplement, fiber supplement and saying it's good for constipation. So what they now say, they say it's good for regularity. But trust me, I mean if you become regular, you don't need fiber because actually it will cause, eventually it will cause constipation. So it's not that my book is controversial, it's simply we had this perversion of common sense, perversion of logic, perversion of decency and Big Pharma came in and you know, now we have this universal group thing. So everybody, if you tell people for 20 years that something which was bad is actually good, they will start believing it at one point or another.

So, you know, I get what you're saying about like, you know, babies, you know, peel, peeling the skin of fruit and vegetables when you're going to feed it to like a child or something like that. But like, do you personally ever just like pick up an apple and you know, eat an apple or you know, would you ever, for example, slice up a cucumber and have that on a salad or something of that nature? You know, are those things that you think we need to worry about or are you more coming at this from a standpoint of a lot of these, these products that are on the market, you know, like laxative products and high cleanse type of products.

Ben, there are two questions in.

Yeah, I guess kind of two questions. Yeah, you can answer both of them.

It's okay. First question, do we peel what we eat? Absolutely. We peel cucumbers, we peel tomatoes, we peel. I don't eat fruits personally because I'm a former diabetic, but yeah, I mean if I would eat apple, yes, I would peel it simply because I don't want. And you know, just peel itself is very, I mean it has a lot of properties which are not desirable for human digestion. The whole purpose of the peel is to actually protect the plant from insects, from environment and so they may contain toxins and they also contain all the environmental garbage that it's in contact with continuously. So yes, for reasons of common sense, you know, and good health, you absolutely have to peel everything that your children will get or even for adults. But that's because we know we are in the know. And actually, when I was growing up, every, everything that I was, you know, everything that my parents were providing for me was peeled. And if you go to like in Italy or France and you go to high end restaurant, everything there will be peeled as well. Even tomatoes that goes on a pizza. If you go into whole food and you buy Italian tomatoes, can't they peel? Why do they peel them? Well, just because that's what they do at home. Once it's candy, it cannot be peeled. Second question, what am I against? And that's what confuses a lot of people. They say, well, if I can't eat fiber, that means I cannot eat anything that contains fiber. That's not true. My book opens up with the following paragraph. It says if you consume minor quantities of fiber from natural unprocessed food, there isn't anything wrong with it because A, small amounts of natural fiber, which is mostly soluble, will not obstruct your intestines or cause diarrhea, B, most of it will get fermented in the large intestine and C, the remainder will not bulk up the volume of stools high enough to cause any damage from quote unquote roughage. But that is not what most Americans do or are urged to do. And what they are urged to do, they actually urge to consume a great deal of processed fiber which comes in, guess what, morning cereals, fiber, fortified bread, or with laxatives, with specifically formulated capsules or tablets or wafers or drinks and so forth and so on.

Right, right. And I do want to get into those because I know that you certainly have an opinion on laxatives. And there are some things that people need to know. But before we get into that, is there a certain number of grams of fiber that people need to be paying attention to when it comes to the potential for creating some of these issues like irritable bowel syndrome and diverticulitis and some of these things. How much fiber is too much, basically, is what I want to ask you, and as a follow up to that, because I'm making it a habit here of asking you two questions at a time, how much does that vary from person to person? I mean, is it going to be, is there going to be a big difference between how much fiber you can actually handle?

It depends. If you have dysbacteriosis or dysbiosis, meaning your bacteria inside your gut was decimated with antibiotics or heavy metals or what have you, then you can actually consume a gradual fiber with impunity because you will not have the process of fermentation going on in your gut. Secondly, some people who have already digestive autoimmune disorders, such as sensitivity to gluten select disease, or they already have some preconditions or they are former, you know, they have IBS and this and that, they will be very sensitive to even very small amounts of fiber. Also, it depends on the type of fiber. Some fibers are more violent to people than others. For example, people think that soluble fiber is more benign than insoluble, but it's in reverse because actually bacteria will consume soluble fiber much faster. It will reach the large intestine undigested, and it actually will undergo through this process of very intense fermentation. And so you'll have a little small beer producing factor inside your gut. So it depends. There isn't really any answer. And my guidelines to everybody, if it is processed, if it is added, don't touch it at all. And if you don't feel bloated, if you don't feel flatulent, if you don't have IBS or God forbid, IBD or Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis, then you're fine. It's just like, you know, people ask me, how much water do I have to drink? I said, well, if you drink, you know, a glass of water every hour and use run to urinate 10, 20 times a day, and you get up twice at night to urinate, then you drink too much and they say, well, how little I should drink. I said, well, it's very simple. If you don't feel thirsty, don't drink. Drink only when you feel thirsty. Same thing with fiber. So it's not like we are not robots. We are not sewing machines, we are not car carburetors, we are not engines that can, you know, you feed a specific measured amount of oil or gas. We are human beings. We are all different. We have different ethnic background, different physical profile, different style of work, different stress level, different conditions that were accumulated from our early childhood that may impact us more or less. There isn't really an answer, but if you feel wrong, it means that you're overdoing it.

Is there a certain number of grams that you recommend as a range?

No, not really. For as long as it's natural. Meaning that whatever you get from again, natural. I mean, if you look at the statistics, every article says Americans don't consume enough fiber. Americans consume on average 10 to 15 grams, but they need 30, 40. Well, if you can and if you consume on average 10 to 15 grams and they don't cause you any problems, that's enough. And also if you go to those books that promote fiber as a health food, they say, well, if you start eating fiber, it's actually not easy. You have to adapt your body to it. Meaning that you will have some side effects. You may feel bloated of flatulence. I mean, this is stupid. I mean, think about why would a normal human being, a healthy human being will start to eat essentially the same thing as paper and will experience side effects and will have to adapt his or her body to it. I mean, if I'll tell you, Ben, you have two beautiful children, but they don't really consume enough fiber. You have to give them more fiber. But you know, they will be uncomfortable, they will be cranky, they may be flatulent, they may cry, they may have like, you know, difficult is moving bubbles because they'll have large tools. But it's okay. Don't worry, Ben, it will go away. It's very healthy for your children. And you will look at me and you say, Konstantin, you are an idiot. And it's exactly what people who pedal fiber, they are idiots. And they don't do it. It's mostly hearsay. They don't even know why they're saying it. They read it somewhere, they heard it on television. And ignorance is so prevalent. And people who are ignorant, they also have another very obnoxious quality. There's. They have this enormous confidence of saying things that they don't know. And when you kind of, you know, go on and start discussing this with them, they don't want. They don't want to hear it. They don't want to hear it. They always say, well, every doctor is saying that fiber is good. Or I read it in, you know, New York Times. They provide those kind of arguments and say, well, come on, be serious. Come go back to academic sources. Now a lot of people think that, you know, that I'm not and my work has no influence, but my work has a huge influence. The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy. This arch conservative primary text and a reference bible of every American doctors. And guess what? Just few months ago they finally changed their section on constipation. And they wrote there explicitly that fiber is not effective for people with chronic constipation. It only works for people who are healthy. They didn't use the exact same words, but that's what they're saying. So it's not like I am alone is going on, but my book is already 80 years old. So kind of this message is taking hold. And the reason it's taking hold because people like you who run into the problems, they come across my book, they read it, they go to their doctors, they stick it in front of their faces, and they say, look, doctor, here is this Mr. Monastirski, and that's what he wrote. And Dr. Is saying, well, he's a stupid, idiot Russian. He's crazy. Fiber is good for you. So these people go back home, they follow their doctor advice, they still feel terrible. They read my book again, they stop eating fibers, they suddenly feel better. And you know what they think? They think, my doctor is an idiot. I need another doctor. That's what's happening. So that's how it happens. But it just takes a lot of time, A lot of time. And that's a problem. But it's not me who is wrong. It's actually people who are promoting this who are wrong.

So I want to talk about some of these laxatives that are out there. You know, we've got metamucil and psyllium seed and any number of different compounds. I was actually trying out a few of these when I stumbled across your book and website as I was going through my own little bout with constipation. Tell me about why some of these are not all that great for your body.

Well, psyllium laxatives like Metamucil, I mean, it's really funny if you go on and you read a label on Metamucil and it just cite the. And it's like very profound. It says bloating, flatulence, obstruction. So it has a great number of side effects. And you have to be very careful when taking them. And the reason they work, there are two reasons for them working. One is insoluble component of psyllium is a bulking laxative, meaning it will reach your large intestine. And because even bacteria cannot act on it, it will absorb water about 10 times its volume. And so it will increase the size of your stool. And basically gravitations will start to work. I mean, you know, it's just heavy stools, they will go out faster. That's first reason. The second reason, they contain a great deal of insoluble fiber. And what insoluble fiber does it blocks assimilation of fluids inside the small intestine and inside the large intestine, and so you kind of create pseudo diarrhea. And so you combine this, essentially fluids moving into the large intestine to kind of create that. And by the way, a lot of people, when they start taking fiber laxatives, they do experience diarrhea. Not everybody, but some. It depends on the dosage and depends on person's sensitivity. So that's a dual action. And so now let me go back to you and ask you a question. If you are an athlete, if you are a breastfeeding mother, if you are just a person who wants to be healthy, would you willingly, knowingly, take a substance which actually inhibits assimilation of fluids inside your small intestine, which will mean that you will not digest proteins, you will not digest carbohydrates, you will not digest vitamins, you will not digest microelements? You said, no, of course not. I will not do anything. But that's exactly what the slacks are doing.

Right, Right, gotcha. What about additives? Like, you know, I noticed an article, I think it was by you that recently came out, talking about additives in Metamucil. I think it was. Was it ethylene glycol or something of that nature?

No, it's polyethylene glyco. How do you pronounce polyethylene?

Was it polyethylene glycol?

Glycol, Exactly. And you see, I can read more words than I can print out. That's one of the problem, actually, being a writer. When I was working with patients, my English dictionary was much better. But now I'm mostly writing. There is this famous laxative called Miralax, and there's a whole bunch of other laxatives which are similar to Miralax, and they are used essentially as very powerful Miralax. The foundation of Miralax is polyethylene glycol. It is made essentially by stringing together molecules of ethylene glycol. And ethylene glycol is a substance which you can find in brake fluids and antifreeze. And if you go to a store and buy antifreeze or brake fluid, you will see, like, a big skull with bones and saying, poison. Don't take it. 30 milliliters will kill you. And that's what this laxative is made from.

Wow.

Interesting. And the reason it. Yeah, exactly. Exciting, right?

So basically, you know, one of the things. And I think this was something that you told to me when I was having difficulty and was Taking a lot of fiber to try and cleanse myself, to try and push stuff out. It almost creates this backing up effect. Can you explain how that happens exactly?

When people have constipation already, meaning they have what is called a motility disorder, meaning they are not able to move bowels naturally. And when we talk about moving, what does it mean to move bowels naturally? Well, in general, humans, children and adults supposed to move bowels at least twice a day as a minimum, or at least after every major meal. It has to do with the way human physiology works. And when we were not as sophisticated as we are today, meaning when we lived a la natural in natural environment and we were not wearing any clothes, essentially anytime we sensed the urge to defecate, children or adults, they would just step away from the place they were sitting and they would just move their bowels without any inhibitions. The same way as your dog is doing, by the way. A lot of dogs are getting constipated also because they are not allowed to be. They're not kind of quote unquote free range. And they also consume foods that contain a great deal of fiber. And so people never had this problem with constipation. I mean, how come, I mean, human physiology is so sophisticated. There were so many years of evolution, I mean, millions of years, hundreds of thousands of generations. And this problem really became, this only came about when we started to urbanize. When you move to live in an apartment or in a house and you depend on having clean toilet, and you know your mommy's telling you don't use a toilet in school because it's dirty, and you learn to suppress modification urge. And when you earn that, you miss one single stool. What happens? The large intestine, its function is actually to remove excess fluids and sodium to recover sodium from the remnants of digestive process. And if you just, if you don't move your stool once stool becomes drier and larger and it starts to impact, and our anus, I mean anal canal is very tiny. It's only. It can stretch maximum 2.4 inches, I'm sorry, 1.4 inches to about 35 millimeters. And so when stools impact, for them to go out naturally without you feeling it, you actually have to start to strain. And when you start to strain, it can either cause trauma to fissure or some other abrasion or, or it will actually eventually 5, 10 years of straining and you will develop a hemorrhoidal disease, enlarged hemorrhoids. And so when you start straining and.

You'Re supposed to, so you might not notice any bad things right away. This could basically mess you up down the road by using high fiber supplements. Even though in the short term you might notice a little bit of relief.

Exactly. It takes five. I mean, depending on your age, it takes years and years and years to develop damage. Now, it doesn't apply to children. Children develop damage and fiber very, very fast simply because their digestive organs are so small relative to the size of adults, number one. Number two, because children cannot communicate their feelings the way adults can, so we may not know that they're having problems. And because they're growing also. And so when you associate all those things, growth and they're growing up and this kind of component that causes damage, it's just very difficult to notice when the damage starts to appear. And if you read statistics right now, hemorrhoids become fairly prominent among very young children, as young as five years old. And it's just bizarre. And so you want to keep children away. Now, if you start high fiber regimen when you are 40 and your digestive organs are no longer as supple as they are when you are 20 and 25 and 30 and so forth and so on, of course you will develop damages much faster. But in general, if you started when you are 20 and you know everything is going well, you may not notice anything. But by the time you're 35, 40, and especially for women, you will probably already will have hemorrhoidal disease. And what hemorrhoidal disease does, it actually constrains your anal canal even more. So next time around, you actually have to strain even more. So you keep straining and then internal hemorrhoids developed and then external hemorrhoids develop. And so you kind of cause yourself more and more problems. And then by the age 50, 50% of Americans have hemorrhoidal disease already. And by the age 60, it's about 80%. By age 70, it's about 90%. And then by age 60, about 50% of Americans also develop diverticular disease, meaning they have pathological enlargements inside their colon. So that's what happens. And the primary reason behind it is again, overconsumption of fiber.

Man, it's scary. It's scary.

It is.

So I don't want to leave people hanging, basically, you know, constipated, just in case we do have any listeners unfortunate enough to be out there listening. Constipated. I do know that's an issue, though, with people. What are some of the things that people could do if they don't want to use a high fiber supplement or don't want to go, you know, eat a bag of spinach or, you know, five apples or something like that. But they're trying to clear up constipation.

Well, there isn't really any simple way. Constipation, Ben, is a very complex syndrome. It's not a binary condition where on and off, you cannot really turn it off because lots and lots of things are involved. It's partially psychosomatic, it's partially microbiological, meaning related to bacteria. There is an endocrinological component. There is a neurological component. There is also muscular components. So you have so many components in this condition. So if, let's say you went to your honeymoon and you suddenly develop constipation because you're embarrassed to go to the bathroom in front of your future wife, I mean, from your wife or husband in the beginning of that period, it may clear up very fast and you may not have it. But if you already have it for some time and you were taking laxatives, most likely you developed a lot of those damages, psychological, psychosomatic damage, meaning that you are an expert. You are an expert in suppressing stools in the wrong moment. And you may have dysbacteriosis, meaning insufficient amount of bacteria inside your gut to maintain normal stools. You may also have large stools. You may also have hemorrhoidal disease, nerve damage inside your anus. So you don't have a perception of urge and you miss it. So there are all those factors. So what I suggest to all of people who are listening or who are listening to us now or will be listening to this podcast later, to go to my site, actually. Well, first go to Ben's site and read this article on 12 myths about fiber. So to understand, because we are, I'll.

Link to that article for people so they can read it.

We're touching only the surface of it. And that article on Ben's side is a very good kind of summation of everything. What's wrong? And I know you will question it and you know, will say, well, maybe it's wrong, but read it first and try to assess, see and try to understand it. Not viscerally, not from like, you know, the guy is wrong, but logically, it's a very, very simple logic. I mean, if you eat something and it causes you harm, then something must be wrong with it. It's not something is wrong with you, it's something wrong with the substance. So that's what that article talks about. And then from that article it will link to my site and go to my site and start reading the materials. Actually my site has my second book which is called God Sense how to Relieve Constipation in Children and Adult Constipation Irregularity in Children and Adult. And my entire book is published there completely free of charge. You can read the book there and it talks about all kinds. There isn't like one type of constipation. There is pediatric constipation, geriatric constipation, travel related constipation, alcohol related constipation, hemorrhoid and so forth. There are about 15 types of constipation described there for every contingency, every gender and every group age. So I'm kind of the world's leading doctor of cropology.

Get into I want to hear you talk a little bit about supplements because I know that there are things like minerals and vitamin C and things of that nature that can help with constipation. Can you talk a little bit about that? About the type of compounds you can put into your body that aren't fat fiber, but that would still be classified as like a dietary supplement that can help out with this kind of stuff?

Well, again, let's distinguish between so called functional constipation, meaning you suddenly became constipated and then you can take some substance, laxative or palliative to help. And then there is a chronic constipation. And again, they're all very different and they require very different approaches. And people ask me this question quite often, Can I help with a diet to relieve constipation? I said no, you can't because again, it's a complex syndrome. If you want to fix constipation permanently and don't depend on anything, you have to restore your intestinal flora, you have to restore your anorectal sensitivity. You need to overcome fiber dependence. This requires some effort and some time and again a functional early stage, very, very easy. Like the first substance that you need to put in your mouth to actually overcome constipation is salt. A lot of people are on low salt diet and low salt diet causes harden up dried stool. So that's the first thing. Second things that you need to do, you actually, if you have been on fiber for some time and you have developed constipation, you need to reduce fiber. Why? Well, because fiber causes large stools and large stools tend to stack up very fast and require from you more straining. And if this is not enough to actually help, well another thing that you need to do. You always have to watch follow your body, meaning if you feel an urge to defecate, you have to run to the bathroom immediately. That's where it happens naturally. Otherwise it just doesn't happen. And if those things will not help again through bandside, you can access my site and I have a supplement on it called Hydra C colonic moisturizer which I developed. And essentially it is a substance which combines vitamin C with magnesium, calcium and potassium, three mineral ascorbates. And when you take this stuff after the threshold, it works very fast, kind of floods your large intestine with fluids and it stimulates normal defecation. And so people.

How is that any different than just using magnesium? Because magnesium is something I know that's one of those things that folks will take to improve a bowel movement.

Absolutely. Magnesium is toxic substance. It is not intended for long term use and it's also quite violent. So it's very difficult to control. If you don't take enough, it doesn't work. If you take too much, it works too well and so you develop a diarrhea. But in general, if you read a label on any magnesium supplement because the dosage is so high, like milk of magnesia, it's toxic. You shouldn't take it for extended doses because it may cause a lot of other problems. So that's a primary difference. Hydro C is easier to dose. Magnesium, calcium and potassium, they're in a synergistic amount. It is not as obnoxious tasting as, let's say, milk of magnesia. And it's more effective, it works faster and it doesn't really cause any painful side effects.

Okay, gotcha. Just curious, are there any other things that you recommend besides the vitamin C and the mix of minerals and anything.

Of that nature for constipation, fat diet?

What about flora? What about like you know, just taking probiotics or something like that?

Flora is important for lots of reasons. Just, you know, not only constipation, but unfortunately, unfortunately, the flora that we are buying in stores all kinds of flora. It is not the same flora as used to be and endogenous flora that used to be in your body, you know, from, from, from the get go, it does serve its purpose. It works as a filler, essentially. It fills up stools with those bacterial cells, life and dead, and they retain water and they do soften up stools and they do. And some of them actually also, there are some strains that are beneficial. They will also produce vitamins and this and that. But in, in Most cases, this flora does not become part of your kind of, you know, it doesn't really take. It doesn't really survive in the environment of the large intestines. So the only reliable way to restore flora after taking antibiotics is what's called fecal bacteriotherapy. It's a very popular subject nowadays. There are lots and lots of articles on it. And I think I was.

That's like the poop transplants, basically.

That is correct. Exactly. You just have to make sure that you find a healthy donor. Yeah.

Seriously. Seriously. Well, it's been a fascinating discussion and I know we probably just kind of opened up another can of worms because when I published your article on my site, people had a lot of things to say about that. And I'm sure that people are going to have some things to say about what you just talked about. So what I will do for people who are listening in, in the show notes, I'll put a link to Konstantin's book. I will put a link over to his website for you to check out some of his articles over there. I'll put a link to the article that he published on BenGreenfieldFitness.com about fiber myths. And that one's not on his website, but it is at Bengreenfield Fitness. And then you can explore this topic for yourself. Just kind of in closing here, since I've kind of stumbled upon what Konstantin has to say for me, I'm probably not as. As extreme as him to the point where I'm peeling my vegetables and avoiding the skins of fruits and stuff like that. But I certainly have a whole new perspective when it comes to a lot of the things that get pushed on us in the supplement industry and the pharmaceutical industry when it comes to laxatives and high fiber compounds and kind of the whole strategy behind getting everything down there moving along properly. And I definitely owe Konstantin a thanks for saving my butt, literally, when I found some of his stuff. So check it out. Read the book. I do highly recommend you read the book before you start to make too many judgments. It won't take you too long. And it makes really good sense going through the book too, because maybe it's better for you to or easier for you to understand than consent and stuff. Accent, right.

Everybody's saying, well, you're difficult to listen to, but we kind of assimilate what you're saying better because we have to work harder to listen to you.

There you go. All right, folks, so this is Ben Greenfield and Constantin signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com. It.