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People who eat diets that are high in fiber have lower risk of death and chronic diseases such as stroke or cancer compared with people with low fiber intake, a new analysis found. Dietary fiber includes plant-based carbohydrates such as whole-grain cereal, seeds and some legumes. Fiber's health benefits have been recorded "by over 100 years of research," Andrew Reynolds, a researcher at the University of Otago in New Zealand, wrote in an email. He is co-author of the new meta-analysis of existing research, which was published Thursday in the journal The Lancet. (Avramova, 1/11)

Big waist, small brain? If you're too heavy, especially around your middle, you probably have shrunken gray matter volume in your brain, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Neurology. Gray matter contains most of your brain's 100 billion nerve cells, while white matter is filled with nerve fibers that connect the brain regions. "Previous studies have shown associations between gray matter atrophy and risk of developing dementia," study author Mark Hamer, a professor of exercise as medicine at Loughborough University in England, wrote in an email. (Scutti, 1/9)

Why do some people not respond to exercise? A new $170 million study funded by the National Institutes of Health will attempt to answer that question. The Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity in Humans project will study up to 2,000 participants nationwide over the next three years. Locally, the Translational Research Institute at AdventHealth Orlando – formerly Florida Hospital — will study 150 to 200 people. (Aboraya, 1/10)