We all know the dangers of a ‘typical’ Western diet, high in poor quality fats and processed foods, on our waistlines and hearts but new research highlights how damaging it is for our bowel health.
A small scale study asking 20 American and rural African volunteers to swop diets for two weeks has shown how our food choices can affect the health of our guts.
Diet swops
The Americans were told to eat a diet higher in dietary fibre including pulses and beans and lower in fats, while the native Africans switched their diets to one of burgers and fries.
Both sets of volunteers underwent extensive medical testing before experiment.
The Americans experienced less inflammation while the Africans’ bowel health deteriorated. It was found that the diet swops appeared to cause changes to the cells that line the gut as well as the bacteria that live in the bowel.
Bowel Cancer risk
The Americans benefited from the change in diet which is significant because experts believe that up to a third of bowel cancer cases could be avoided by eating more healthily.
Lead researcher Dr Stephen O’Keefe, from the University of Pittsburgh, said: “In just two weeks, a change in diet from a Westernised composition to a traditional African high-fibre, low-fat diet reduced these biomarkers of cancer risk, indicating that it is likely never too late to modify the risk of colon cancer.”
A spokesperson for Cancer Research UK cautioned that more tests were needed and that the dietary swops in the experiment were ‘fairly drastic’ which may make it difficult for people to stick with long term.
Foods to swop
However, making small changes to the diet, swopping refined and processed foods for more nutrient dense alternatives, can be easier to maintain.
Read my blog on making healthy foods swops to find out how you can make your diet healthier:
