Forget calories: Smarter way to lose weight

May 20, 2015

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Your gut contains a unique fingerprint of trillions of microbes. Source: istock

COULD eating the same food in a compressed amount of time make you slimmer and healthier?

Groundbreaking research suggests we can eat the same number of calories and still lose weight, if we start paying attention to part of our body we usually ignore: the gut.

Our intestines influence which foods we like and which we thrive on. Not looking after the gut can have damaging effects on your immune system, make you fatter and more sluggish and increase your susceptibility to allergies.

Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College, London, says it’s crucial we start paying attention to this vital organ and its diverse population of microbes to reverse a global health crisis.

“Microbes are incredibly important; we couldn’t live without them,” he told news.com.au. “Our microbes give us a unique fingerprint. They explain strange associations between food and health, and why some diets don’t work.”

Forget calories, this is how to lose weight

A diverse population of microbes is crucial for weight loss and health. Source: Supplied

We share very few of the same ones with family members, and our individual makeup explains why we all react differently to different foods. Microbes even prevent the urge to eat more.

In Professor Spector’s new book, The Diet Myth, the British-Australian scientist says we have been overlooking the trillions of microbes, bacteria or fungi that digest our food and keep us healthy.

There are 6000 species of microbes, and the more diversity, the better. But in recent years, our increasingly restricted diet and use of antibiotics has left us with just a fraction of what we had in the past.

“Processed foods that just contain four or five ingredients drive down the diversity of species,” said Prof Spector. “The number of fat people has trebled and allergies have increased — we’re creating long-term health problems by having the wrong combination of microbes.

“We’re ignoring a big organ that produces important vitamins, minerals and chemicals in the blood.”

Prof Spector and his team tried out all sorts of popular diets for his book, and made some fascinating discoveries.

A diet high in cheese and yoghurt slightly improved microbial diversity, as did a prebiotic diet (based on indigestible fibres). A colonoscopy left exactly the same diversity of bugs behind, while intermittent fasting actually increased diversity.

“Some species increased tenfold, because they live off the lining of the gut,” said Prof Spector of the fast diet. “Try to have long periods between meals. Eat the same food in a compressed amount of time.”

A junk-food diet kills important bacteria. Source: istock

Professor Tim Spector. Source: Supplied

Skipping breakfast, often seen as a no-no, can be a useful healthy strategy for some people, he added.

In the most alarming experiment of all, Prof Spector arranged for his 23-year-old son Tom to eat only McDonald’s nuggets, fries, burgers and Coca-Colas for ten days. After just three or four days, there was a 40 per cent drop in the diversity of species in his gut.

Two weeks later, that had only returned to two-thirds of what it had been.

When you eat junk food, said the professor, your microbes are deprived of fibre and die off because everything is “absorbed higher up”.

Prof Spector believes a healthy diet is not about excluding fat and sugar but about diversity. Cubans, despite eating on average twice as much sugar as Americans, are far healthier, his book reveals. French people consume more alcohol and fat than the British, yet are far healthier — perhaps thanks to having longer, more varied meals involving less “hygenic” food, like undercooked meat and unpasteurised cheese.

Surprisingly, fatty cheese, yoghurt, Belgian beer, coffee, red wine and dark chocolate can all help keep us slim.

He also recommends eating more root vegetables, Jerusalem artichokes, onions, celery, leeks and garlic, which are hard to digest and contain chemicals microbes love. Sprinkle nuts and seeds on salads and eat bananas in moderation.

Much of our food is contaminated with low levels of antibiotics used in farming, making us fat. And it’s not just our diet that’s a problem. The average 20-year-old today will have had 18 courses of antibiotics, leaving them with abnormal microbes and increasing the risk of obesity.

Meanwhile, living on a dirty farm or having pets helps microbes and protects you against allergies. The wrong combinations even affect the brain and mental health, contributing to autism and depression.

So forget faddy diets, start taking heed of your gut’s highly individual needs and turn your health around.

Find out more about Tim Spector’s research on microbes and his book, The Diet Myth, at tim-spector.co.uk.