Knowledge about the benefits associated with the ingestion of dietary fibre: Comparison between Mediterranean and Non-Mediterranean Countries

It is well known that dietary fibre (DF) is recognized as very important to maintain health and prevent some chronic diseases. Therefore, the objective of the present study was to evaluate the level of knowledge about the effect for the human body derived from ingesting DF. For that purpose, a descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out on a sample of 6010 participants, from 10 countries. The results obtained were compiled into a variable that accounted for the general level of knowledge, and this showed that globally the level of information about the benefits of DF was acceptable (average score of 3.54±0.5, on a scale from 1 to 5). Some of the variables considered for the study were gender, level of education, living environment and country, for which significant differences were found between groups. The highest level of knowledge was found for women, with university degree, from Portugal and living in urban areas. As a conclusion, it was possible to see that, in general, the participants in the study were quite well informed about the benefits of DF for the improvement of human health.