My insides were not smiling (Fibersure)

Member Name: Tracy_1127

Product:	Fibersure
Date:	25/10/08 (1627 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: convenient if it suits your body

Disadvantages: can cause bloating and pain, soluble fibre so doesn't speed up transit time

The current trend is to eat a high fibre diet. The recommended dose seems to vary where you look but seems to be about 18-26g which is quite a lot of fibre even with a healthy diet that includes wholewheat options and plenty of fruit and vegetables. So Proctor and Gamble came up with Fibresure. I eat the wholewheat option for most things, fruit, vegetables and salad regularly and drink lots of water but wanted to try this "new-fashioned fibre".

Fibresure is apparently 100% natural vegetable fibre, it tells us this on the tub. It's available in 195g tubs and in sticks. The active ingredient is Inulin from Chicory which is a naturally occuring ingredient in some vegetables and basically a group of simple sugars. It is soluble fibre which is the type that helps lower cholesterol and slows digestive transit which is not something I knew before I bought this.

The tub is available for £5.99 in some places online but the recommended price is £7.99. The sticks are little packets of powder and retail at £3.49 for 15 or £6.49 for 30.

1 teaspoon of fibresure equals 5g of fibre and has 25 calories and a tiny amount of protein, fat, carbohydrates and sodium. The claim is it doesn't taste or smell of anything and you can mix it into food or warm drinks and get extra fibre in your diet.

It sounded like an excellent idea so without any research I purchased some, I found an online chemist selling 3 tubs for the price of 2 and bought 3 tubs for £12.

When the product arrived I immediately opened a tub and had a look. It is very fine, white powder. The tub is mostly blue with a silhouette of a person leaping on the front and the top has a pour function and a sprinkle function.

I sniffed the powder and found it does indeed have a smell, it's like a faint sweet smell coupled with a slight sour milk smell. It's not very strong so I knew this wouldn't be a problem for me.

On the back it tells you to start with 1 teaspoon a day and as your body grows accustomed to this to gradually increase the dose to 3 teaspoons a day. I decided to add a teaspoon to my coffee in the mornings.

I could actually taste a difference in my coffee with this in it. It was like someone had added a small amount of powdered milk to my drink but it wasn't unpleasant.

A couple of hours later I had a slight cramp in my stomach but nothing else. I continued for a few more days with just 1 teaspoon a day and each day I found the cramping was getting slightly worse and lasting longer. I wasn't unduly worried, I just thought I needed to adjust to the fibresure.

I have to say although I had cramping I had no change in digestion, no alterations to transit time.

I kept going for 2 weeks with the fibresure but as the time went on I found my stomach was getting more and more uncomfortable. The cramping turned into bloating and constant pain in my stomach but again with no change to transit time etc.

After 2 weeks I was so uncomfortable and felt like I swallowed a balloon. When I put on a pair of jeans that are normally loose I could hardly fasten them and when I looked in the mirror my usually flat stomach was so bloated I looked 4 months pregnant and in fact exactly as if I'd swallowed a balloon!

I stopped taking it at that point realising I was not getting any benefit from it nor was I getting used to taking it. At this point I decided to do some research.

I found online many people got on fine with it and it did what it was supposed to do but many had similar symptoms to me. One woman described the sensation as feeling like she'd had "a helium enema" and that's exactly as I felt! Many others had the bloating and discomfort and no positive effects. It seems if you get the bloating you don't reap the rewards.

I should have done research first really, I have low blood sugar so soluble fibre has to be kept to a minimum for me (it lowers blood sugar and therefore is suitable for diabetics who have the opposite problem to me) and I don't really understand how this product is helpful from a fibre standpoint as soluble fibre slows down transit time and I'm sure most people would buy this in the hope it would speed things up. It won't! That's the job of insoluble fibre like bran.

If you do think this product is for you it cannot be added to cold drinks or it turns into lots of small white clumps. It must be kept out of the reach of children, stored in a cool dark place with the lid firmly closed and kept away from damp or it will solidify. You can add it to hot drinks or cook and bake with it.

Personally I won't be taking this again, I've binned the powder I had left and sold the unopened tubs on ebay. It was a throughly uncomfortable 2 weeks. It took 2 days for my stomach to return to normal size and for the pain to go. On the advert it claims fibresure will "make you smile on the inside". It didn't.

Not recommended.

Summary: Not recommended.