The Alberta FYBER (Feed Your Gut Bacteria morE fibeR) Study

Too much body-fat has been linked to a low-grade inflammation throughout the body. This inflammation is thought to then cause different diseases, like heart disease and diabetes. A lower amount of inflammation is usually seen in people that follow a high fiber diet. A reason for this is the microbes that live in our gut. Fiber is a main food source for these microbes. This allows fiber to actually change the type of microbes that live in our gut. Also, when fiber gets fermented by these microbes, health-promoting waste products get released. We aim to determine how exactly our gut microbes contribute to the health properties of fiber. We hypothesize that fiber's health properties depend on how the gut microbes respond to the fiber. To test this, we plan to add three different fibers to the diets of healthy overweight and obese individuals for six weeks. We then will determine how the different fibers affect an individuals' health by looking at how established markers of health change from adding the fiber. Following this, we will see how an individual's gut microbes respond to the added fiber. The response will be decided by looking at changes to the microbe community, as well as their ability to ferment the fibers. By connecting health outcomes to the gut microbes' response, we can test if the gut microbes' response to the fiber determines the fiber's ability to effect health. If we can understand how our gut microbes respond to different fibers and the importance of that response. Then we could personalize diets to have a greater impact on improving health.