The Western Diet–Microbiome-Host Interaction and Its Role in Metabolic Disease

By M. Zinöcker, Inge A Lindseth. Nutrients, 2018

646 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The dietary pattern that characterizes the Western diet is strongly associated with obesity and related metabolic diseases, but biological mechanisms supporting these associations remain largely unknown. We argue that the Western diet promotes inflammation that arises from both structural and behavioral changes in the resident microbiome. The environment created in the gut by ultra-processed foods, a hallmark of the Western diet, is an evolutionarily unique selection ground for microbes that can promote diverse forms of inflammatory disease. Recognizing the importance of the microbiome in the development of diet-related disease has implications for future research, public dietary advice as well as food production practices. Research into food patterns suggests that whole foods are a common denominator of diets associated with a low level of diet-related disease. Hence, by studying how ultra-processing changes the properties of whole foods and how these foods affect the gut microbiome, more useful dietary guidelines can be made. Innovations in food production should be focusing on enabling health in the super-organism of man and microbe, and stronger regulation of potentially hazardous components of food products is warranted.

Subfields: Molecular Biology, Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/43780c3ab4aa5dd6ea5351f3e475c5ae691b5381

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Molecular Biology

1. M. Zinöcker
2. Tim D. Spector

In Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

1. M. Zinöcker
2. J. Moubarac
3. M. Lawrence
4. P. Baker
5. P. Machado
6. Leonie Elizabeth
7. C. Monteiro
8. F. Sofi

Citations in the corpus

• Ultra-Processed Foods and Health Outcomes: A Narrative Review (2020, background): “The study also showed a reduction in the inflammatory bio-marker hs-CRP (highly sensitive CRP) with the unprocessed diet, and inflammation has been demonstrated to be coupled with satiety signals in animal studies [98].”
• Ultra-processed food intake and risk of cardiovascular disease: prospective cohort study (NutriNet-Santé) (2019, background): “27 Beyond nutritional composition, several compounds of ultra-processed foods that are neoformed during processing could also play a role in cardiovascular health.”
• Effect of Diet on the Gut Microbiota: Rethinking Intervention Duration (2019, background): “The Western diet has been strongly associated with obesity and metabolic diseases, though the biological mechanisms remain unknown [97].”
• Consumption of ultra-processed foods and health status: a systematic review and meta-analysis (2020, background): “In addition, it was also hypothesised that UPF can adversely affect health by modifying the gut microbiome in such away that it disturbs the energy balance and promotes the selection of microbes that promote inflammation-related diseases such as CVD and metabolic diseases and even depression(48,49).”
• Ultra-processed foods: what they are and how to identify them (2019, background): “Experimental studies indicate that ultraprocessed foods induce high glycaemic responses and have low satiety potential((14)), and create a gut environment that selects microbes that promote diverse forms of inflammatory disease((15)).”
• Global Impacts of Western Diet and Its Effects on Metabolism and Health: A Narrative Review (2023, neutral): “In this regard, it is well acknowledged that different dietary fat sources have distinct effects on the dynamics and bioenergetics of the mitochondria, including mitophagy (Figure 3) [6].”