Refined foods and antibiotics help keep people in the industrialized world fed and well but they've also taken a toll on the human gut, wiping out microbes that may influence good health.
Now, by mimicking a traditional, non-industrialized diet, an international study involving researchers from the University of Alberta shows it's possible to restore damage to the gut and more importantly, improve health.
Anissa Armet serves a meal with recipes from the NiMe diet cookbook to study participants. (Photo: Supplied)
"We've been able to come up with a dietary intervention that makes significant improvements to the gut microbiome and lessens the risk of diabetes and heart disease," says Anissa Armet, who co-led the study to earn a PhD in nutrition and metabolism from the Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences (ALES).
Industrialized diets, which are high in processed foods and low in fibre, don't provide the gut microbiome with proper nutritional support, predisposing people to those chronic diseases.
The researchers focused on re-establishing Limosilactobacillus reuteri, a beneficial bacterium, in the industrialized gut. To achieve this, they created the Non-Industrialized Microbiome Restore (NiMe ) diet, using information on what non-industrialized populations, including people indigenous to rural Papua New Guinea, eat regularly.
"Our previous research has shown that they have a much more diverse microbiome, enriched in bacteria that thrive from dietary fibre, and with lower levels of pro-inflammatory bacteria linked to the western diet," notes Jens Walter, a principal investigator on the study, professor at University College Cork and adjunct professor in ALES.
The diet also included fibre-rich foods including beans, sweet potatoes, rice, cucumbers and cabbage, as well as peas and onions, which aid L. reuteri growth in the gut. It contained one small daily portion of chicken, salmon or pork, and no wheat, dairy or beef.
To test its effects, 30 healthy Canadian adults were put on the NiMe diet over three weeks through a randomized controlled trial at the U of A's Human Nutrition Research Unit.
The diet successfully repaired aspects of the gut microbiome that play an important role in disease development, including reducing pro-inflammatory bacteria, results showed.
As well, after just three weeks, the NiMe diet had reduced "bad" cholesterol levels in the blood by an average of 17 per cent and blood sugar levels by almost seven per cent. Levels of C-reactive protein, a marker for inflammation and heart disease, dropped by 14 per cent.
And though participants didn't consume fewer calories on the eating plan, they also had some beneficial weight loss, the study showed.
"Together, these changes would likely reduce the risk of heart disease and diabetes, which have now become epidemics in developed countries like Canada," Armet says, adding that further planned research could reveal whether the diet can benefit people already grappling with chronic diseases such as diabetes.
Recipes from the NiMe diet are posted on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and in a free online cookbook. High in vegetables, legumes and fruit, with small amounts of animal protein and limited highly processed foods, the widely accessible diet "offers a practical roadmap for improving gut health," Walter notes.
"This study shows that we should always consider that we are eating for two: our body and its community of microbes," Walter adds. "It can have a profound effect on our health."
U of A collaborators on the study included co-lead author Fuyong Li, co-principal investigator Carla Prado and Catherine Field from ALES, Liang Li and Russ Greiner from the Faculty of Science and Jeffrey Bakal, Laurie Mereu and Andrea Haqq from the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry.
The study was funded by the Weston Family Microbiome Initiative. Prado, Field and Haqq are members of the Women and Children's Health Research Institute.
