How the Western Diet Has Derailed Our Evolution
Burgers and fries have nearly killed our ancestral microbiome.
http://nautil.us/issue/30/identity/how-the-western-diet-has-derailed-our-evolution
"A group of Italian microbiologists had compared the intestinal microbes of young villagers in Burkina Faso with those of children in Florence, Italy. The villagers, who subsisted on a diet of mostly millet and sorghum, harbored far more microbial diversity than the Florentines, who ate a variant of the refined, Western diet. Where the Florentine microbial community was adapted to protein, fats, and simple sugars, the Burkina Faso microbiome was oriented toward degrading the complex plant carbohydrates we call fiber.
Scientists suspect our intestinal community of microbes, the human microbiota, calibrates our immune and metabolic function, and that its corruption or depletion can increase the risk of chronic diseases, ranging from asthma to obesity. One might think that if we coevolved with our microbes, they’d be more or less the same in healthy humans everywhere. But that’s not what the scientists observed."
"HUNGRY MICROBES: A healthy gut hosts a number of microenvironments. A fatty diet lacking in fiber causes some of our internal, ancestral microbes to devour a mucus lining, potentially leading to inflammatory bowel disease."
Burgers and fries have nearly killed our ancestral microbiome.
http://nautil.us/issue/30/identity/how-the-western-diet-has-derailed-our-evolution
"A group of Italian microbiologists had compared the intestinal microbes of young villagers in Burkina Faso with those of children in Florence, Italy. The villagers, who subsisted on a diet of mostly millet and sorghum, harbored far more microbial diversity than the Florentines, who ate a variant of the refined, Western diet. Where the Florentine microbial community was adapted to protein, fats, and simple sugars, the Burkina Faso microbiome was oriented toward degrading the complex plant carbohydrates we call fiber.
Scientists suspect our intestinal community of microbes, the human microbiota, calibrates our immune and metabolic function, and that its corruption or depletion can increase the risk of chronic diseases, ranging from asthma to obesity. One might think that if we coevolved with our microbes, they’d be more or less the same in healthy humans everywhere. But that’s not what the scientists observed."
"HUNGRY MICROBES: A healthy gut hosts a number of microenvironments. A fatty diet lacking in fiber causes some of our internal, ancestral microbes to devour a mucus lining, potentially leading to inflammatory bowel disease."
