Eating Enough Fiber is Important For Your Menstrual Cycle
The Agenda. Team
March 14, 2024
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A little bit about fiber

There is a lot of information out there about the benefits of getting enough fiber. Studies have shown eating enough fiber is good for your gut health and is linked to lower instances of cardiovascular disease, breast cancer and diabetes. Eating enough fiber is also really important for your menstrual cycle.

According to the Mayo Clinic “dietary fiber includes the parts of plant foods that your body can’t digest or absorb.” Fiber “passes relatively intact through your stomach, small intestine and colon and out of your body.”

The recommended daily amount of fiber for women is somewhere in the range of 22 – 28 grams (g) a day. With a good target being 25 (g). The trouble is, many people struggle to get even half of the recommended daily amount.

Why is fiber important for your menstrual cycle?

The health of your gut is linked to your hormone health.

Did you know there is a specific set of bacteria in your gut called the estrobolome that’s responsible for metabolizing and eliminating estrogen from your body? It’s true! It’s also true that the health of your microbiome is tightly correlated to your overall hormone health. Fiber, particularly prebiotic fiber is important for feeding the good bacteria in your gut.

Including fiber in your meals can help keep your blood sugar steady.

Many hormone health practitioners (myself included) recommend building meals that include protein, healthy fat and fiber. (The fiber ideally comes mostly from vegetables.) Fiber slows down the rate you digest food. This helps lessen a spike in blood sugar after eating and because the food is moving slower gives your body more time to extract the nutrients from whatever it is you ate. Keeping blood sugar steady (aka eating regular meals) is important for anyone who wants to have really humming hormones, but it’s particularly important for those with PCOS as blood sugar dysregulation is pretty common for those with the condition.

Fiber helps your liver and large intestine process excess estrogen.

Estrogen is one of the main three sex hormones that create our monthly cycle. It causes cells to grow and during your menstrual cycle it is responsible for thickening the uterine lining that would support an egg in the event you became pregnant. The catch is you don’t want too much estrogen, especially between ovulation and menstruation. If estrogen goes unchecked it can cause that uterine lining to grow extra thick. When that lining begins to break down, prostaglandins are released (prostaglandins are compounds in the body made of fats that have hormone-like effects) and one of those prostaglandins, PgE2, causes uterine contractions. The more PgE2 that gets released, the more severe your menstrual cramps are going to be. The good news is there are actually two other prostaglandins, PgE1 and PgE3 are actually antispasmodic, meaning they naturally relax the uterus.1

(You can also use food to decrease your PgE2 and increase PgE1/PgE3. For example, flaxseeds are high in fiber and omega-3 fatty acids, which can help with excess estrogen, AND linoleic acid, which has been shown to help to increase PgE1/PgE3.)1

Fiber rich foods help to fight inflammation in your body.

Inflammation is a normal part of your body’s defense mechanism. As part of your body’s immune response, inflammation is what happens when your body is fighting off something foreign or responding to an injury. Long term or chronic inflammation is what you want to avoid. There are a lot of factors that can create excessive inflammation in your body including your diet, your sleep habits and exposure to toxic substances among other things. In terms of your cycle, too much inflammation can make your period pains really severe. By including more high fiber foods into your diet, you feed the good bacteria in your gut which have been shown to release a compound called butyrate into our bloodstream. Butyrate has been shown to have anti-inflammatory and other positive effects.

Additional Notes on Fiber and Your Menstrual Cycle

I feel like it’s important to state that estrogen is important for your cycle. What I hope this information highlights is the importance of balance. Too much estrogen can cause issues, too much fiber can also cause issues. Too much fiber doesn’t seem to be an issue for many people these days as the standard American diet makes it difficult for people to even get half of the recommended daily amount. Estrogen dominance however, is a common cause of hormonal imbalance. Not getting enough fiber from quality, real food sources, being exposed to toxic substances that can mimic estrogen in our bodies, and chronic stress are just some of the things that can lead to estrogen dominance. It is possible to find that balance. It may not happen overnight but having support can help you reach it faster.

There was a 2009 study that suggested a high-fiber diet (which they deemed as more than 22 (g) a day) could make a menstruator three times as likely to miss ovulating, however as this post from The Nutrition Diva discusses, the results of that study were fairly questionable. There is a lot more research to suggest getting the recommended amount of fiber each day is positive for your hormonal and overall health.

Ways to incorporate more fiber into your diet:

  • Chia seeds
  • Beans/legumes
  • Fruits & vegetables
  • Whole grains

A few other tips

If you currently don’t get the recommended amount of fiber or include a lot of fiber-rich foods in your diet, it is recommended to gradually increase your fiber intake. This gives your gut time to acclimate.

Stay hydrated. Drinking enough water is important for a lot of reasons, but in this instance it’s good to know that fiber can do more when it has absorbed water.

Sources

Photo of grocery store produce section by nrd on Unsplash
Photo of oats, seeds, cucumber and lemons by Alexandra Stefanova on Unsplash