There are times when the Church comes under fire for claiming to be God’s true Church.
This came to mind recently when I was researching psyllium, the ground husks of plantain seeds (in this case, plantain, the flowering plant). I had bought some psyllium for a gluten-free bread recipe and was intrigued by uses indicated by the packaging.
Curious, I found NIH articles titled “Evidence-Based Approach to Fiber Supplements and Clinically Meaningful Health Benefits” Part 1 and Part 2.
Bottom line, psyllium is by far the only supplement that actually provably delivers benefits across the board:
- reduces cholesterol
- mitigates glycemic spikes
- improves satiety
- mitigates constipation
- helps mitigate diarrhea
- reduces irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)
- helps achieve weight loss[ref]The NIH literature survey required two peer-reviewed studies to make a finding of unequivocal benefit, so only gave psyllium a +/- for this. [/ref]
Here’s the summary chart from the second of the NIH reports, which makes it obvious that psyllium really is head and shoulders above other supplementary fiber sources (click on the chart to open the table in a separate window):
Now, if we were going to provide a “benefit” chart for religions, what would we list as the benefits we seek from religion? Several come to mind for me, but I’m interested to hear what you have to say.