I found a startling article a couple of weeks ago I have been meaning to write about. Apparently junk food can alter gut microbes faster than previously thought (or at least faster than I thought). Having healthy gut flora is important, and between poor diets and antibiotic usage, I would say that people have a more difficult time keeping their gut flora in proper balance. This article especially spoke to me because my guts seems to react poorly to flora disturbances (maybe my flora is weak, I need to look more into this). A moderate influx in alcohol or grains (or a bunch of sugar) will send my guts into a tizzy for a month. *Things will go in, but things won’t come out….often….    O_o *

I don’t have direct access to the scientific paper, so I am just going to reference the article discussing the results of the paper.

In order to study the effect of diet on gut flora and obesity, researchers observed what happened to mice (with humanized gut flora) after switching from a low-fat, plant based diet to a diet hit in fat and sugar – a junk food diet per se.

One group of mice was fed a “junk food” diet; they not only (and predictably) became obese, but their weight gain was consistent with the shifts in their gut flora compared to the low-fat diet mice.

When the mice on the low-fat “healhty” diet were suddenly switched to the junk food diet, their gut flora begin to change within 24hrs to look more like the flora in the obese junk food mice.

Surprisingly, the researchers discovered if they transplanted flora from the obese mice into the healthy mice, the healthy mice gained fat even though they continued their “healthy diet”! Also, the researchers found that gut flora could pass on to future generations of mice. This research study suggests that a significant link exists not only between diet and gut flora (that seems obvious), but also between gut flora from a poor diet and the mismanagement of nutrients and changes in how the body stores fat.

Mind Blown. However, I’m not all that surprised.

Note To Self: If you really really want that chocolate (or what ever junky food item), limit the damn serving and don’t go crazy. It’s really tempting to allow yourself to get stupid sometimes (hey, we all have vices…lol), but remember that the consequences may be more than just extra calories or AGE formation.