Dietary fibre made of guar gum - a fibre-rich extract of a legume plant grown in India- have been found to be able to flush artery-clogging cholesterol from the body and lower the risk of heart disease.

Such were the findings of a research team from University of Guelph which conducted the study on pigs and theorizes that the results would most likely be the same on humans.

They found that pigs eating guar gum show increased amounts of a protein regulating how the liver removes cholesterol from the blood.

Overall, pigs that were fed diets containing 10-per-cent guar gum for four weeks showed a 27-per-cent drop in total blood cholesterol. LDL ("bad") cholesterol dropped by 37 per cent.

Study results have been reported in the March issue of the Journal of Nutrition.

Read the full report.

[Photo Credit: offshore-technology]

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