Category Archives: Diet And Food

Going hungry for 5 days a month may improve your health.

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By Mitch LeslieFeb. 15, 2017 , 2:00 PM

Fasting is all the rage. Self-help books promise it will incinerate excess fat, spruce up your DNA, and prolong your life. A new scientific study has backed up some health claims about eating less. The clinical trial reveals that cutting back on food for just 5 days a month could help prevent or treat age-related illnesses like diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Its not trivial to do this kind of study, says circadian biologist Satchidananda Panda of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, California, who wasnt connected to the research. What they have done is commendable.

Previous studies in rodents and humans have suggested that periodic fasting can reduce body fat, cut insulin levels, and provide other benefits. But there are many ways to fast. One of the best known programs, the 5:2 diet, allows you to eat normally for 5 days a week. On each of the other 2 days, you restrict yourself to 500 to 600 calories, about one-fourth of what the average American consumes.

An alternative is the so-called fasting-mimicking diet, devised by biochemist Valter Longo of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and colleagues. For most of the month, participants eat as much of whatever they want. Then for five consecutive days they stick to a menu that includes chips, energy bars, and soups, consuming about 700 to 1100 calories a day.

The food, produced by a company that Longo helped found (but from which he receives no financial benefit), is high in unsaturated fats but low in carbohydrates and proteins, a combination that may spur the body to restore itself and burn stored fat. Two years ago, Longos team reported that mice on the rodent version of the diet lived longer and exhibited other positive effects, such as lowered blood sugar and fewer tumors. They also presented preliminary data suggesting health benefits in humans.

Now, the researchers have completed a randomized clinical trial in which 71 people followed the fasting-mimicking diet for 3 months, while volunteers in the control group didnt change their eating habits. Overall, the dieters lost an average of 2.6 kilograms (5.7 pounds), whereas the control group remained at the same weight, the scientists report online today in Science Translational Medicine. The calorie cutters also saw reductions in blood pressure, body fat, and waist size.

A 3-month trial cant determine whether the diet increases longevity in people like it did in mice, which rarely survive beyond a couple years. But Longo notes that levels of insulin-like growth factor 1, a hormone that promotes aging in rodents and other lab animals, plunged in the low-cal group. And subjects who were at the highest risk for age-related illnesses also saw other indicators of malfunctioning metabolism go down, such as blood glucose levels and total cholesterol.

Longo says that this diet treats aging, the most important risk factor for killers like diabetes and cardiovascular disease. It looks like you can go at the underlying problem rather than just putting a Band-Aid on it, he says. In a follow-up trial, the team hopes to determine whether the diet helps people who already have an age-related diseaseprobably diabetesor are susceptible to one.

Dieting is often hard, but 75% of the low-cal participants managed to complete thetrial, notes gerontologist Rafael de Cabo of the U.S. National Institute on Aging in Baltimore, Maryland, who wasnt involved with the work. The next step, saysphysiologist Eric Ravussin of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, is todetermine whether the dietalsoworks in people who are not as healthy as they used in this study.

Research dietitian Michelle Harvie of the University Hospital of South Manchester in the United Kingdom adds that she wants to see longer studies confirm that the benefits persist and that people remain on the regimen. We need to help a lot of people, but what if only 2% of them are willing to do this?

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Five-day fasting diet could fight disease, slow aging - Science Magazine

Jake Edmiston, For the Sun-News, LCPS Health 2:04 p.m. MT Feb. 15, 2017

Jake Edmiston(Photo: Darren Phillips)

With a multitude of diets on the market how is one supposed to know which diets are legit?

Today, popular diets are all around us: Paleo (restricts dairy, legumes, grains and oils), vegan (no animal products), vegetarian (allows eggs and dairy, no animal meat), Zone (counts calories and macronutrient percentages), South Beach (carbohydrates initially restricted then gradually added back in, focus on lean meat and vegetables), Weight Watchers (group setting where food is tracked by points), and Atkins (high fat, low carbohydrate diet). If your goal is to lose weight any diet can help in the short term. However, the problem is that people do not often make permanent lifestyle changes with these diets. Instead, people lose a little weight then quit the diet and typically put on more weight than they originally lost.

What is a person to do? What is the secret to picking a diet that will help you lose weight and be healthy? Fortunately, everyone already knows the secret. The secret is eat more fruits and vegetables, choose whole grains (brown rice instead of white), eats nuts and legumes (walnuts, almonds/beans, lentils), avoid processed sugary foods and beverages (candy bars, sodas, snack cakes), and consume less animal products.

Following these steps leads to successful weight loss. When whole foods, vegetables, fruits, legumes, and whole grains are the star of your plate there is not a lot of room left for unhealthier options.

If youre the type of person who needs a plan to follow, then it is okay to follow a diet. However, there is one key question to ask yourself, Can I implement this change for the rest of my life? Because in truth diets do not work, rather, healthy lifestyle changes will literally change your life. Changes need to be sustainable and easy to incorporate into your everyday routine.

A major barrier people face when looking to make positive lifestyle changes in their diet is the idea certain foods are off limits. For example, I could never give up macaroni and cheese. Thats my favorite. Or, I love my moms homemade apple pie. I cant go on a diet because I know I cant give up eating that. This does not have to be the case, however. Lifestyle changes dont have to mean giving up your favorite comfort foods or treats. Dont give up eating the foods you love because that is not sustainable. Instead, focus on eating whole, less processed foods, vegetables, fruits, legumes, and whole grains most of the time and allow yourself to enjoy the foods you love periodically so you never feel deprived. Just be sure treats do not become a daily occurrence. Above all, dont let perfection stand in the way of positive lifestyle changes.

Some suggestions for lifestyle changes can be:

1. Drink water instead of sodas/sugary beverages.

2. Eat a piece of fruit like an apple for an afternoon snack daily.

3. Incorporate more salads into your meals, but limit creamy dressings.

4. Try one new vegetable a week.

5. Look up recipes and cook at home using whole foods a few nights a week.

6. Check ingredient lists, looking for fewer listed ingredients and for ingredient names you are familiar with.

Talking to a dietitian can help you come up with some personalized lifestyle changes meeting your individual needs.

Making sustainable changes is hard. Some people do better with making several changes at once, and some do better slowly implementing changes. Think about what strategy works for you. Make goals today to add more whole foods, including vegetables and fruits, to your meals. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that a person who increases his or her fruit and vegetable intake has lower risks for chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, stroke and others.

So, the next time you are hungry, remember: dont let perfection be the enemy of the good. Make sustainable lifestyle diet choices by adding more whole foods to your meals.

Jake Edmiston is an NMSU dietetic intern working with LCPS Nutrition Services. He can be reached at hwedmist@nmsu.edu

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A new study suggests that a gluten-free diet may pose serious health risks, after finding that the eating pattern may raise the risk of exposure to arsenic and mercury.

Study co-author Maria Argos, assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), and colleagues recently reported their findings in the journal Epidemiology.

A gluten-free diet excludes foods that contain gluten - a protein found in wheat, barley, and rye, as well as the byproducts of these grains.

For people with celiac disease - an autoimmune condition whereby gluten intake leads to intestinal damage - a gluten-free diet is the only treatment for the condition.

However, according to a 2012 survey, around 28-30 percent of us restrict our gluten intake or avoid consuming the protein completely, even in the absence of gluten sensitivities.

Rice flour is a common substitute for gluten in many gluten-free products. Argos and colleagues point out that rice can bioaccumulate arsenic, mercury, and other potentially harmful toxic metals from water, soil, or fertilizers.

Exposure to these metals has been associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and other diseases.

"Despite such a dramatic shift in the diet of many Americans, little is known about how gluten-free diets might affect exposure to toxic metals found in certain foods," note the authors.

With the aim of investigating the link between gluten-free diets and toxic metal exposure, Argos and team analyzed the data of 7,471 individuals who were a part of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 2009 and 2014.

The researchers identified 73 participants aged between 6 and 80 who reported following a gluten-free diet.

Blood and urine samples were taken from all participants and assessed for levels of arsenic and mercury.

The researchers found that levels of each toxic metal were much higher among subjects who followed a gluten-free diet than those who did not eat gluten-free products; mercury levels were 70 percent higher in the blood of gluten-free subjects, while arsenic levels in urine were almost twice as high.

According to Argos, these findings suggest that there may be "unintended consequences of eating a gluten-free diet," though further studies are needed to confirm whether this is the case.

The researchers add that:

"With the increasing popularity of gluten-free diets, these findings may have important health implications since the health effects of low-level arsenic and mercury exposure from food sources are uncertain but may increase the risk for cancer and other chronic diseases.

Although we can only speculate, rice may be contributing to the observed higher concentrations of metal biomarkers among those on a gluten-free diet as the primary substitute grain in gluten-free products."

Argos points out that there are regulations in Europe that limit arsenic levels in food products, and he suggests that the United States might benefit from similar regulations.

"We regulate levels of arsenic in water, but if rice flour consumption increases the risk for exposure to arsenic, it would make sense to regulate the metal in foods as well," he adds.

Learn how a gluten-free diet has gained popularity in the U.S.

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Gluten-free diet may have 'unintended consequences' for health - Medical News Today

Professional athletes dont get to the top by accident. It takes superhuman levels of time, dedication, and focusand that includes paying attention to what they put in their bellies. In this series, GQ takes a look at what athletes in different sports eat on a daily basis to perform at their best. Heres a look at the daily diet of former NFL star Tim Tebow.

The Friday before the Super Bowl, we chatted with Tim Tebow (who was on Houston's Radio Row as a brand ambassador for Avocados from Mexico) for about eleven minutes, the first seven of which were dedicated to avocados: how many he could eat; how far he could throw one; how much Tim Tebow loves them. Hours later, a photo of him eating guacamole with a spoon created a not-insignificant ripple in the Twitter pond. Clearly, he wasn't lying about the importance of that creamy green fruit in his daily regimen. Of course, it's only one small part of the extensive diet of this former NFL quarterback, current MLB minor leaguer, and potential future...President? (What.)

GQ: Most of these athlete endorsements smell like bullshit, but you seem like a man who loves a good avocado. Tim Tebow: 100 percent. I'm on something called a ketogenic diet which is high fat, moderate protein, low carb, low sugar. So I have to take in a lot of fat, and the number one fat comes from avocados. It's incredible. It's a super food. And even if that's not your diet, it's incredible food for you. I put them in my smoothies, guacamole, a bunch of different things. For me it's more than just trying to stay in shape for sports, it's a way of life, of trying to be healthy. Also when so many of our next generation kids are just having sugar and carbs all the time, well, can we moderate that just a little bit? Pull that back a little bit? And one of the great alternatives can be avocados.

What's in Tim Tebow's smoothie? Avocados, spinach, lemon, ginger, sometimes Cayenne, protein power, sometimes Stevia. And a little bit of crushed ice.

How many avocados are you eating a week? A lot. My avocado bill is high.

So, like, more than fifteen? Honestly, probably four a day.

Four a day? Think about it: If you have two in your smoothies for breakfast, one at lunch, one at dinner, that's four.

Here's the thing about buying avocados, though: it's difficult to tell if it's ripe. It's not easy. And it'stotallya feel thing.Can't be too early, too late. Just right.

Two-part question: one, can you describe what a perfectly ripe avocado feels like?Andtwo, can you describe how to squeeze an avocado at the grocery store without bruising it? First of all, I can't do either one of those because that would be super weird. But I will say that I have, even when some of them have gone slightly bad, I'll still put it in my smoothie because you can't even tell.

I do that with bananas. Except bananas have so much sugar.

How far do you think you could throw an avocado? I don't know. We'll go with about 53 yards.

Outside of avocados, what are your desert island foods? Eggs would definitely be one. Love eggs. Scrambled. Chilean sea bass. Steak. And asparagus. I have my fat, I have my protein, I have my greens. You see how we do that? It's a well-balanced meal. And I got a little flavor with the sea bass.

Don't you ever get a hankering for dessert? Not really. And one of the reasons is [that] you can make some things that taste really sweet. Avocado is actually something that really helps with that. There's avocado ice cream. Being able to mix things. Being able to use Stevia. And I think another one of the keys is continuing to eat on a regular basis, so your metabolism continues to work and burn, so that you're not hungry. A lot of the time, when people make bad [food] decisions it's because they're hungry. So they're going to make a decision to go eat an entire pizza or something. By themselves.

How many times a day are you eating? Seven or eight. But it doesn't have to be big meals! Constantly keep that engine burning, keep that metabolism going. That can be easy. One avocado. Boom. That's a meal replacement. Now I can get to the next one. And I'll add some more greens to it. Add a little more protein. It doesn't have to be: sit down and have these big meals America has become so accustomed to. Are there times when you want to do that? Of course. But you can also just do it where it's to go. It's nice and easy. I throw [something] in [a] smoothie and I just drink it really quick. And so it's not about consuming 1,500 calories at one time. It's about finding something that can sustain you, give you fuel, and then keep your metabolism burning because the ultimate goal is to be as healthy and satisfied as you can.

When is your first meal? Right when I wake up. It totally depends where I am, but let's just say I wake up at 7:00, [then] I will eat at 7:10. As fast as I can. And then I eat every couple of hours. It doesn't mean it's a meal. But if I eat at 7:00, it'll be 9:00, then it'll be 11:00, then 1:00, and so on and so forth. It's not always on the time, but I feel like it's made me way leaner, it's made my metabolism burn and I think it also gives me more energy throughout the day. Because you're not weighted down by having three huge meals and nothing in between. So you're on a huge roller coaster.

You are relentlessly positive. Do you ever get mad? I get mad, disappointed, frustrated, all those things. But it's not about things that happen. It's about: how do you deal with it when it happens? It's about not letting it fester, not letting it grow, not letting it build into bitterness. We all go through those emotions, highs and lows. But it's: what is our foundation? And how are we able to handle that? If you're able to handle that with faith in your family, and love for people, then you can bounce back from it. Life's not always going to be easy but when you're trying to live for a purpose, it can definitely be worth it every time. And so instead of focusing on the disappointment, focus on: how can I learn from this? How can I not let this happen again? How can I grow?

Back in October, during the Arizona League, there was a man who had a seizure in the stands. And Twitter sort of blew up because you leaned over and consoled him. What happened there? I was signing autographs for some fans and one of the young men that I just signed for, he went into a seizure. And then he was unconscious. I tried to lean over and pray for him. And he came back to. I still try to keep in contact with him. [I] was just texting with him the other day. Very special young man. Just tried to hang with him in a moment of need. And hopefully that's what he would do for me, or what a lot of people would do. And so I think it's about just trying to be there for people.

What are you trying to do next with your career? I'm getting ready for spring training here in a couple of weeks. But I think my biggest passion is what we're doing at the Tim Tebow Foundation. We have a hospital we take care of over 2000 orphans in four different countries. A week from tonight we have something called A Night to Shine every year it's a worldwide prom for people with special needs and we'll have over 380 proms on one night around the world, in all 50 states and 11 countries, celebrating people with special needs.

Is the NFL in that future? Right now I'm just so focused on baseball and Night to Shine, that that's my focus and that's what I want to do. So that's my future.

Okay, but how about a Tim Tebow presidency in 2020? [laughs] I don't know. When I've been asked about it, it's not something that's out of the realm. Right now, other things are my focus. If one day I feel like that's the greatest way I can help people, then that's what I'll do. But that's not yet. Not this day.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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The Real-Life Diet of Tim Tebow, Lover of Avocados - GQ Magazine

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Father's diet impacts on son's ability to reproduce, study in flies suggests Science Daily "Our study found that males that were raised on either high or low protein diets, but spent their adulthood on an intermediate diet, produced sons that had large differences in gene expression, which most likely contributed to the resulting differences ...

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Father's diet impacts on son's ability to reproduce, study in flies suggests - Science Daily

If America could be defined by what it likes on social media, you might as well call us the United States of Pizza-Eating and TV-Watching. At least, thats according to research the University of Vermont recently published in the journal PLOS One.

Co-authors Dr. Peter Dodds and Dr. Chris Danforth didnt go around surveying Americans about their leisure-time activities or compiling data based on the total dollar amount spent on different types of foods. They turned to Twitter, and with a tool called the Lexicocalorimeter, they scoured roughly 50 million tweets sent between 2011 and 2012, seeking out terms associated with foods or activities. It turns out Americas tweets read like a middle-school sleepover. The dominant words that feed into our scores are pizza and watching TV, Dodds says. Those are really the dominant terms across the board.

Fun? Yes. Healthy? Debatable.

Heres how the Lexicocalorimeter works: Every time one of the thousands of identified foods or activities popped up in a tweet, itd be assigned an associated caloric value. For instance, if you tweeted, Capped off a training run with a steak dinner, the Lexicocalorimeter would tag run with the average number of calories burned for an hour-long workout, and steak with the number of calories associated with a single serving.

Clearly, its not an exact science, but getting exact, individual numbers wasnt the point. Identifying state-based trends and providing a broader, health-related correlation, was.

Were interested in large-scale problems where theres something really important about humanity thats hard to measure, Danforth says. Quantifying how well were functioning as a society is a multi-dimensional process. A lot of the data traditionally is based on economics, diseases, emergency-room visits, and healthcare costs. It takes time and money to compile these stats. But using the Lexicocalorimeter, Danforth and Dodds were able to show a strong correlation between geographical location, how people tweet, and common diseases or risk-factors, such as diabetes and obesity.

This is a proof of concept to quantify behavior in shorter time periods, Danforth says. People near you use the same words you use. People near you exercise the same way you do. Weve shown that the behaviors of those who tweet reflect those of the people who dont tweet. Theres a strong correlation between the calories we consume and the foods we talk about, the exercise we engage in, and the balance between the two.

While fascinating and entertaining at the individual level Texas, why is eating one of your biggest activities? Michigan, why do you talk about lying down so much? the end-game of this new technology is broad in scale. Its big picture, public health, public policy stuff, Dodds says. The tool is complementary to other data, such as surveys. Its a real-time way of looking at what people are talking about and how their health might be changing improving or declining over time.

While real-time stats wont be available until the project is fully funded, for now you can check out the data from 2011 to 2012 to see how your states doing, and whether you fit in or stand out from the crowd. You can say, "Hey look, theres a culture of activity in my state that Im engaging in or not engaging in, Dodds says. Its helpful to get a bigger picture, another lens into what your cultures like.

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Scientists Can Now Judge Your Diet by Your Twitter Feed - Men's Journal

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Emails between Dr. Luke and Keshas manager that were filed in court this week detail how the music producer berated the pop star about her weight, citing it in one instance as the reason top songwriters and producers didnt want to work with her.

Dr. Luke aka Lukasz Gottwald and Kesha have been in an ongoing legal fight since October 2014, when they filed dueling lawsuits against each other. Kesha sued the music producer in California for sexual assault and battery, sexual harassment, unfair business practices, and infliction of emotional distress. Dr. Luke then filed a lawsuit against Kesha in New York claiming breach of contract and defamation.

Dr. Luke. Richard Shotwell / AP

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In her lawsuit, Kesha accused Dr. Luke of verbally and physically abusing her while they worked together, as well as raping her when she was unconscious. She also alleges that Dr. Luke repeatedly harassed her about her weight, calling her a fat fucking refrigerator. Dr. Luke has denied the claims.

Kesha later checked into a rehabilitation treatment facility for bulimia, severe depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and panic attacks, according to court documents.

Keshas California case was put on hold in June 2015 after a judge ruled that the New York case takes precedent. Kesha has since dropped the case to concentrate on defending herself in New York.

Last year, a Manhattan judge denied Keshas request to get out of her exclusive contract with Dr. Luke. In her ongoing quest to be freed from the contract, Keshas lawyers this week released emails that show Dr. Luke criticizing the pop star over her weight.

Kesha wants to be freed from her abuser and rebuild her physical, emotional, and mental health, her lawyers stated in court documents filed Tuesday in a Manhattan court.

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We have seen it happen multiple times almost every day. It is also double concerning when the A list songwriters and producers are reluctant to give kesha their songs because of her weight.

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Keshas manager, Monica Cornia, responded saying that the singer was working really hard and that shes a human and not a machine.

And to get in trouble for drinking a Diet Coke and called out in front of the whole room when shes not there is not okay, Cornia wrote. If she were gaining weight or not losing I would totally get it. Everyone wants her to be the best she can be. But she is still a human being who has feelings and major insecurities and she is doing her very best and I would hope you could be support of that.

Dr. Lukes attorney, Christine Lepera, accused Kesha and her attorneys of cherry-picking the evidence to mislead the public.

Rather than agree to a thorough disclosure, Kesha and her representatives improperly publicized, without court permission, three out-of-context emails, which do not present the full picture regarding the events they concern, Lepera said. For example, these emails do not show that the lyrics of Crazy Kids were, in fact, rewritten at Keshas request. Any claim by Kesha to the contrary is deceiving the public, just like her other meritless claims of wrongdoing by Dr. Luke.

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Dr. Luke Slammed Kesha In An Email For Breaking Her Diet By Drinking A Diet Coke - BuzzFeed News

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All cholesterol is not equal. It comes in healthy and unhealthy forms, and doctors have long advised people to cut back on the bad cholesterol, LDL , found in red meats and fried foods. The good kind, HDL, pulls out the LDL that builds up on blood vessel walls and raises risk for a heart attack. Upping levels of HDL may therefore protect the heart from damage.

That's the theory, but studies looking at HDL levels and heart disease events haven't always shown that higher HDL levels lead to lower risk of disease. Scientists may finally know why. In a new study of nearly 300 people at high risk of heart disease, published in the journal Circulation , researchers found that just having high levels of HDL may not be enough to make a heart healthy. But the Mediterranean diet may help HDL to work more effectively.

The people in the yearlong study were randomly assigned to eat either a low-fat diet with little red meat and plenty of fruits and vegetables, or one of two versions of the Mediterranean diet : one enriched with olive oil and the other with nuts. After the year, the researchers compared the blood cholesterol levels of the participants to their starting levels. They found that only the people who ate the low-fat, non-Mediterranean diet lowered their total and LDL cholesterol levels, but that the people eating the two Mediterranean diets had better-working HDL.

The scientists, led by Montserrat Fito from the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute in Barcelona, knew this because they took other measurements of how well HDL was working. The group that ate the diet higher in olive oil showed the most improvement in HDL function; their HDL was better able to pluck out LDL from heart vessel walls and shunt them to the liver for removal, and it was better able to work as an antioxidant, protecting against the inflammation-related damage that can weaken blood vessels and make them more vulnerable to heart attack-triggering plaques. The HDL in this group was also better able to keep the blood vessels elastic and pliableimportant, since hardened arteries are more susceptible to damage.

Our hypothesis is that all the antioxidant compounds in olive oil bind to the HDL particle and preserve [it] from oxidative stress, says Fito. And that maintains the HDL in better quality.

The people eating the Mediterranean diet enriched with nuts also had some increase in HDL function, but the olive oil seemed to outwork even the nuts.

Its important to note that none of the three diets boosted the amounts of HDL considerably. While diets rich in fruits, vegetables and antioxidants, like the Mediterranean diet, can increase levels of HDL, experts say that other methods, including regular exercise, may be better. Scientists at drugs companies still havent found a drug that can increase HDL levels, either. Based on these new results, they may have to focus not just on increasing amounts of HDL, but also on making sure that HDL is working optimallyan effect olive oil seems to have naturally.

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Why Olive Oil Is So Good for the Heart - TIME

Weve long known that what we eat affects the microbes in our bodies. Right now, hundreds of different species of bacteria are churning in our stomachs, working to protect us as well as survive within us. New research is showing that the bacterial microbiota of the gut could place chemical tags on our DNA and influence gene expression, potentially impacting our health and many aspects of our lives.

Researchers have found that these microbes send out metabolites that impact epigenetic marks on histones, or the proteins that DNA is wrapped around, in order to communicate with the host. Their actions can not only adjust gene expression in the stomach and colon, but also in tissues from numerous other parts of the body.

This is the first of what we hope is a long, fruitful set of studies to understand the connection between the microbiome in the gut and its influence on host health, said one of the senior authors of the study, John Denu, Professor of Biomolecular Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. We wanted to look at whether the gut microbiota affect epigenetic programming in a variety of different tissues in the host.

In the study, the researchers assessed colon, liver, and fat tissue and compared mice that were germ-free versus those whose gut microbes were active. They discovered that the epigenome of numerous tissues in the mice was altered depending on the community of gut microbes.

Then they investigated whether two diets impacted the gut microbiota. Some mice were fed a normal, healthy chow diet and others were fed a Western-type diet that was low in fiber and carbohydrates and contained high amounts of simple sugars and fat. The results indicated that the diets did indeed alter the collection of bacteria in the gut in distinct ways.

Assistant Professor of Bacteriology and senior author from UW-Madison, Federico Rey, explained, When the host consumes a diet thats rich in complex plant polysaccharides (such as fiber), theres more food available for microbes in the gut, because unlike simple sugars, our human cells cannot use them.

The gut microbiota produces a myriad of metabolites that affect host physiology and susceptibility to disease; however, the underlying molecular events remain largely unknown, the researchers reported.

The mice on the Western diet produced less of particular metabolites short-chain fatty acids acetate, butyrate, and propionate than mice on the regular diet. Denu believes some of these metabolites, which are produced by microbial fermentation of fiber, might be crucial to causing these epigenetic effects spread throughout various mouse tissues.

SEE ALSO: 4 Ways Epigenetics May Explain Why Love is Not So Crazy

Lastly, they began to elucidate the link between metabolite production and epigenetic adjustments. Global histone acetylation and histone methylation levels differed depending on the mices diet. These epigenetic histone modifications can impact chromatin structure, thereby opening or closing access to certain genes during transcription. This can dictate whether some genes are expressed and some are not.

Our findings suggest a fairly profound effect on the host at the level of chromatin alteration, Denu explains. This mechanism affects host health through differential gene expression.

The team wanted to verify whether the metabolites produced were leading to the epigenetic change so they looked more closely at the germ-free mice. They put three short-chain fatty acids in their drinking water and found that the same epigenetic changes occurred as the mice on the regular, healthy diet. Specifically, they assessed the mices tissues and the epigenetic signatures mimicked each other.

Although further work needs to be carried out to translate these findings to humans, there is still significant evidence which speaks to the influence that gut microbiota has on our health and potentially our epigenome.

In those with diabetes and cardiovascular disease, Rey indicates that there is less bacteria that produces butyrate and that this short-chain fatty acid may reduce inflammation in the intestine.

However, the researchers dont suggest simply adding short-chain fatty acids to ones diet as a way to avoid eating healthy. Fruits and vegetables are a lot more than complex polysaccharides, Rey commented. They have many other components, including polyphenols, that are also metabolized in the gut and can potentially affect chromatin in the host in ways that we dont yet understand. Short-chain fatty acids are the tip of the iceberg, but theyre not the whole story.

Source: Krautkramer, et al. (2016). Diet-microbiota interactions mediate global epigenetic programming in multiple host tissues. Molecular Cell, 64(5):982-992.

Reference: Cell Press. Changes in the diet affect epigenetics via the microbiota. EurekAlert. 23 Nov 2016. Web.

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What You Eat Adjusts Your Gut Microbiota and Epigenetic Marks - WhatIsEpigenetics.com (blog)

Yo-yo dieting: What it is and how it can wreck your body Men's Fitness ... for weight loss is to take it steady," Higginson says. "Our work suggests that eating only slightly less than you should, all the time, and doing physical exercise is much more likely to help you reach a healthy weight than going on low-calorie ...

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Yo-yo dieting: What it is and how it can wreck your body - Men's Fitness