An interesting water soluble fiber is guar gum. It is a tasteless white powder from the guar bean, and is used in a lot of processed dry foods to keep them from clumping. However, it has an interesting secret.
Guar gum binds to bile. When the stomach produces acid, bile is used to neutralize the acid. Then later, in the small intestines, much of the bile is reabsorbed and recycled. Unless it is bound up with something that prevents its reabsorption.
So why would somebody want to bind up their bile so that it is flushed out of their system? Two reasons.
The first is that one of the primary components of bile is cholesterol. The body produces most of the cholesterol we use, and we get extra in our diets. But it is common that we have too much, for which many people take statin drugs, such as Lipitor and Crestor.
If you flush it out of your body, however, your body has to use up its extra cholesterol to replace its store of bile. Over a short period of time, just once a week or so for a month, blood cholesterol levels can be dropped a lot.
The other reason is that as the body recycles the bile, it also recycles some contaminants, such as some metals, that it would be much better to flush out of our bodies. So even taking one dose of Guar Gum might make up for years of slowly absorbing some real nasty contaminants.
Guar gum can be purchased on the Internet, but not as a supplement, only as a food additive.
I’ve no idea if it has any other effect on the immune system.
It gave me the runs. :-(
Back to the drawing board.
Cheers!
Studies involving rats have found that the amount of fiber (both insoluble fiber and pectin) found in almost two medium sized apples (about 6 ounces a piece) is able to lower total cholesterol by up to 10% and raise HDL cholesterol by about 10%.
http://cholesterol.about.com/od/cholesterolloweringfoods/a/apples.htm