Nutrition and dietary fiber
1984
Rusoff, Irving
The changing trend towards viewing fiber as an important component of human nutrition, and the characteristics and physiological effects of fiber are briefly reviewed and discussed. Dietary fiber (unlike crude fiber, used to define the fiber content of foods) comprises a heterogeneous group of non-digestible carbohydrates (pectins, gums, cellulose, hemicelluloses) and the non-carbohydrate, lignin. Dietary fiber influences functions in all stages of the alimentary tract, stimulating chewing and saliva flow, delaying gastric emptying of nutrients, slowing small intestinal absorption, providing food and energy to certain colon bacteria, and softening and enlargening stool composition, enhancing fecal product elimination. (wz)
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