- ♥ Modern Western diets high in fat, meat, dairy and salt are found to destroy our valuable gut bacteria.
- ♥ Restoring our gut flora and fauna helps us to recover our capacity for dealing with chronic diseases such as colon cancer.
- ♥ Eating 55g of dietary fibre of any sort can bridge the ‘fibre gap’ and replenish our intestinal flora and fauna.
The common Western-style diet which is high in meat, fat, salt and dairy is said to be destroying all our good bacteria which normally reside quite happily in our guts and intestines. In fact some nutritionists think that we eat a certain portion of food simply to support these gut bacteria who in turn then provide us with a number of health benefits. The population of bacteria, yeasts and other micro-organisms forms the microbiome which is an ecologically important part of a human.
Unfortunately, our Western type of diet literally strips the bacteria out of our guts and without them we are more prone to chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, colon cancer, various immune related conditions including allergies, autoimmune disease and asthma. If however we move back to a diet containing plenty of fibre which normally comes from grains, lentils, beans, fruit and vegetables then the microbial species which were lost start to come back, our gut biodiversity is restored and the benefits that it brings are returned.
The recommended daily allowance (RDA) for fibre is between 18 and 30 grams per day depending on gender and age but some researchers think this is inadequate given what we used to consume. A new study conducted by the University of Alberta believes that taking 55 grams or about 2 ounces of fibre could restore our lost gut microbiome diversity. Generally, the authors of the research believe we work with fibre amounts which are far below their suggested levels – usually between 5 and 15 grams per day when they should be higher. This amount simply isn’t high enough to promote good microbial support. In their study, they looked at African Americans who were started on a traditional high fibre diet that most South Africans would consume. This consisted of 55g of dietary fibre and they looked at various biomarkers associated with colon cancer in a two week period to see if there were any changes. As expected, there were improvements in the range and diversity of bacteria in the gut.
The idea that fibre benefits our gut flora is well known. The prevalence of the Western diet has led to a substantial depletion in the human gut microbiome. According to Associate Professor Jens Walter at the Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science in Alberta there has been a
“rampant increase of chronic diseases, providing an incentive to fundamentally transform human nutrition towards being more holistic and microbiome-focused.”
“The depletion of the gut microbiome might well be one of the twenty-first century challenges to modern society as it is likely to contribute to growing disease pandemics, with clear implications for public health, clinical practices, and human nutrition.
“We argue here that we already have avenues available to enrich the food supply with dietary fibre in an attempt to restore composition and function of the gut microbiome.”
“However, their successful implementation will require a society-wide effort and essentially a transformation of human nutrition away from a discipline that focuses merely on meeting the nutritional needs of the human host to one that is concerned with also nourishing the symbiotic microbial communities that are so essential in health.”
The gut bacteria for example produce SCFAs which are short-chain fatty acids that have been implicated in keeping the intestinal cells healthy. The authors suggest that subsidising foods with recognised health benefits would help us develop a more healthy diet so that we might allow our gut bacteria to return.
Deehan, E., Walter, J. (2016) The Fiber Gap and the Disappearing Gut Microbiome: Implications for Human Nutrition. Trends Endocrinol. Metab. 27 (5) pp. 239-242 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tem.2016.03.001
Leave a Reply