I have to be honest with you — sometimes I find the simple act of eating overwhelming, especially when I’m swamped (which is often). If I want to stay healthy, there are a lot of questions to answer and decisions to be made.
And that’s not even mentioning the number of diets out there. Mediterranean, green Mediterranean, keto, vegan, paleo, DASH… each has benefits and downsides. How am I supposed to choose?
I guess it all depends on what health impact I’m looking for. My goal is to choose a style of eating that minimizes my risk of chronic disease, so any diet that can help with that is one I’m interested in.
That’s why a recent study exploring a new eating style caught my attention. Yes, it’s yet another diet to add to the pile — but this one has some exciting benefits that can happen fast….
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The benefits of the NiMe diet
One thing most healthy diets have in common is their emphasis on avoiding “industrialized” or processed foods that are associated with bad health and early death.
Industrialized diets have contributed to a significant rise in chronic diseases like obesity, diabetes and heart disease in Westernized countries.
An international team of researchers decided to develop a diet based on the eating habits of non-industrialized societies. They focused on members of rural Papua New Guinea communities because they have a specific gut bacteria, L. reuteri, that people from industrialized societies lack.
In the study, participants followed the NiMe (Non-industrialised Microbiome Restore) diet and supplemented L. reuteri.
NiMe has a plant-based focus, primarily comprised of vegetables, legumes and other whole-plant foods. However, it is not vegetarian, as it includes one small serving of animal protein daily: salmon, chicken or pork. NiMe excludes dairy, beef and wheat because they aren’t part of the traditional foods consumed by rural Papua New Guineans.
NiMe was also very low in processed foods, which are high in sugar and saturated fat, and very high in fiber. In fact, fiber content was 22 grams per 1,000 calories, which exceeds current dietary recommendations.
The findings were impressive. In just three weeks, the diet slashed conditions you may recognize as symptoms of metabolic syndrome:
- Promoted weight loss;
- Lowered bad cholesterol by 17 percent;
- Reduced blood sugar by 6 percent;
- Slashed C-reactive protein by 14 percent (a marker of inflammation and heart disease).
These improvements were linked to beneficial changes in the gut microbiome. Specifically, the NiMe diet enhanced the short-term persistence of L. reuteri in the gut and reduced pro-inflammatory bacteria and bacterial genes that degrade the gut’s mucus layer.
Even though participants did not consume fewer calories on the NiMe diet, they still lost weight, and the diet alone led to considerable cardiometabolic benefits.
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“Industrialization has drastically impacted our gut microbiome, likely increasing the risk of chronic diseases,” says Jens Walter, a professor and leading scientist at University College Cork in Ireland. “To counter this, we developed a diet that mimics traditional, non-industrialized dietary habits and is compatible with our understanding on diet-microbiome interactions.”
In previous research, Walter’s team found that people in rural Papua New Guinea have a much more diverse microbiome rich in bacteria that thrive from dietary fiber and low in levels of pro-inflammatory bacteria linked to a Western diet. The researchers used this information to design the NiMe diet.
Recipes for a better gut microbiome
According to Paul Ross, a professor and director of APC Microbiome Ireland, the study illustrates how the gut microbiome can be targeted through specific diets to improve health and reduce disease risk. “These findings could shape future dietary guidelines and inspire the development of new food products and ingredients, as well as therapeutics, which target the microbiome,” Ross says.
The NiMe diet, with its plant-based focus, is surprisingly simple, and researchers have made recipes available on their Instagram (@nimediet) and Facebook pages. They also plan to make an online cookbook available as well. Most of the recipes use ingredients that are readily found in Western grocery stores.
If you’re looking to boost your gut levels of L. reuteri, consider adding probiotic supplements containing the bacterium to your diet. Combining that with the NiMe diet could be a powerful step towards protecting your body from chronic disease.