--- title: Heart Attack Survivors Who Eat the Most Fiber Live Longer description: Not just for constipation any more, fiber can help heart patients to live longer. canonical: https://time.com/80693/fiber-isnt-just-good-for-the-colon-anymore/ author: TIME Staff article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-04-29T22:30:33.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T07:33:01.392Z article:section: Health og:title: Heart Attack Survivors Who Eat the Most Fiber Live Longer og:description: Not just for constipation any more, fiber can help heart patients to live longer. og:url: https://time.com/80693/fiber-isnt-just-good-for-the-colon-anymore/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Heart Attack Survivors Who Eat the Most Fiber Live Longer twitter:description: Not just for constipation any more, fiber can help heart patients to live longer. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Fiber Isn't Just Good for the Colon Anymore > Sponsored content. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Apr 29, 2014 10:30 PM UTC by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Apr 29, 2014 10:30 PM UTC It’s gone by rather unappealing monikers such as bulk or roughage, but humble fiber is one of the good guys when it comes to building a healthy diet — and a healthy heart. The latest study of heart attack survivors shows that people who ate the most fiber had a 25% lower chance of dying nine years later from any cause compared to people who consumed less. Every increase of 10g of fiber each day was on average linked to a 15% lower risk of dying over the study period. It’s the first study to suggest that heart attack patients benefited from adding fiber (found in whole grains, nuts, fruits and vegetables) to their daily diet. An earlier study found that people at risk of heart disease, but who hadn’t yet experienced some kind of a heart event, could lower their chances of having a heart attack by eating more high fiber foods. Studies show that fiber-rich foods can combat inflammation, a potential trigger for heart attacks, as well as keep levels of LDL cholesterol, which can build up in heart arteries, down. But the findings, published in BMJ.com, hint that fiber may be helping more than the heart, since those eating higher amounts were able to lower their risk of dying from _any_ cause, not just heart disease. It may also help to lower risk of colon cancer by reducing the time that potentially cancer-causing toxins spend in the intestines, and regulate blood sugar levels by slowing the absorption of sugar in diabetics, reducing their risk of complications. Fiber also plays an important role in fighting obesity and its unhealthy consequences. The time it takes to chew fiber makes the body feel less hungry, and its bulk also makes meals feel bigger, which cuts down on overeating. 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