Fibre and vitamins

Fiber, particularly the soluble variety in oats and psyllium, prevents these vitamins from assimilating in the first place because it blocks the absorption of fat and bile in the intestines.

In clinical terms, this outcome is called fat malabsorption, and, this is, in fact, fiber's principal mechanism of action for reducing blood cholesterol.

Unfortunately, fat malabsorption also blocks the assimilation of fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K. In this case, even supplements are useless, because the blocking mechanism is exactly the same as with food sources.

According to The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, a deficiency of these vitamins may cause the following pathologies:

Lets start with Vitamin A: "Vitamin A deficiency can result from [...] fat malabsorption. Deficiency impairs immunity and hematopoiesis", which is the blood's ability to form new blood cells. [13]

I hope you don't need me to tell you that the impaired immunity and the failure to form new blood cells may kill you much, much sooner than high cholesterol...

Next, is vitamin D:"[Fat] Malabsorption can deprive the body of dietary vitamin D... Vitamin D deficiency can cause muscle aches, muscle weakness, and bone pain at any age." [14]

 Do you need me to remind you that your heart is made from muscle tissue too, and the same aches and weakness that may affect your feet or back, will affect your heart just as bad?...

I bet you can find a vitamin D deficiency in practically all of the 300,000 hearts which suddenly stop beating each year in the United States... [15, pdf]

The outcome of vitamin E deficiency is equally disturbing. According to Merk, it is: "Usually due to fat malabsorption... Vitamin E deficiency causes fragility of RBCs..." [16]

The RBCs is doctor-speak for red blood cells, the same cells that carry oxygen from your lungs to your heart, and from your heart to everywhere else... When red blood cells become fragile, the heart begins to work extra hard to pump oxygen until one day it simply stops beating because it doesn't have enough oxygen to feed even itself...

The last troublemaker is Vitamin K, and for exactly the same reasons: deficiency: "Results from fat malabsorption [...] decreases levels of prothrombin and other vitamin K-dependent coagulation factors, causing defective coagulation and, potentially, bleeding." [17]

When all this happens, you heart may still be okay, but you may bleed to death from any internal bleeding, due to, for example tooth extraction, stomach ulcers, hemorrhoids, trauma from a fall or car accident, blood vessel rupture, or minor stroke..

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