September 2nd, 2011

University of Pennsylvania scientists reported Thursday that long-term diet is connected to what kind of bacteria live inside the gut.

An excerpt from the Philadelphia Inquirer reads:

Here’s some new dietary research, if you have the stomach for it: Your choice of foods may affect the kinds of bugs that live in your intestines.

In a study of 98 people and their poop, University of Pennsylvania scientists reported Thursday that a person’s long-term diet is connected to what kinds of bacteria live inside the gut.

The intestinal tracts of folks who typically ate a high-fat, high-protein diet tended to be dominated by one kind of bacteria, whereas those who favored carbohydrates and vegetables had more of another type. Moreover, a short-term alteration in diet yielded small changes in the person’s bacterial community within just 24 hours.

The findings are part of a growing body of research into how the teeming tide of microbes inside the body plays an essential role in human health, and how it might be tweaked to address such ills as obesity, diabetes, and inflammatory bowel disease.

Some researchers have explored the use of probiotics, the dietary supplements that contain benign bacteria. For certain severe bowel disorders, physicians have even tried something called a fecal transplant – putting healthier poop into the colon.

The Penn study, published online by the journal Science, looks at a much simpler idea: eating different foods.

It drew praise from George Weinstock, who is a genetics professor at Washington University in St. Louis and a leader of the ongoing Human Microbiome Project – a microbial genome-sequencing project akin to the landmark government effort that sequenced the human genome.

Read more here.