Two Weeks On The Western Diet Can Cause Worrisome Health Issues, And This Is What Happened When People Made The Switch
Living off of burgers and fries can do more damage to your body than you think. A new study shows that just two weeks on a Western diet can cause inflammation, weaken immune responses, and activate processes associated with lifestyle diseases, even in healthy young adults.
Across Africa, lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular problems, and chronic inflammatory conditions are becoming more and more common.
They are thought to be driven by urbanization, increasing economic development, and wider availability of processed foods, accelerating the adoption of Western eating habits.
In the study, researchers from Kilimanjaro Christian Medical University College gathered 77 healthy men from both urban and rural parts of northern Tanzania.
Some participants from rural areas ate traditional African diets, while others from urban areas consumed more Western-style foods.
For two weeks, the rural participants switched to a Western diet, and the urban participants switched to a traditional African diet. A third group maintained their Western diet but drank a fermented banana beverage every day for one week.
The researchers analyzed immune system function, blood inflammation markers, and metabolic processes at baseline after the two-week period and again four weeks later.
The men who switched to a Western diet gained an average of about 5.7 pounds. They also exhibited an increase in inflammatory proteins in their blood and metabolic changes related to disease risk. In addition, their immune cells became less responsive to pathogens.
Many of these effects persisted even four weeks after returning to their regular diets, indicating that even short-term dietary changes can have lasting effects.
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Meanwhile, those who adopted a traditional African diet or consumed the fermented drink experienced more positive changes.
Their blood showed a reduction in inflammatory protein levels. It is the first time that a study has mapped out the health effects of a traditional African diet.
“Previous research has focused on other traditional diets, such as the Japanese or Mediterranean diet,” said Quirijn de Mast, one of the study authors.
“However, there is just as much to learn from traditional African diets, especially now, as lifestyles in many African regions are rapidly changing and lifestyle diseases are increasing. Africa’s rich diversity in traditional diets offers unique opportunities to gain valuable insights into how food influences health.”
A traditional African diet typically includes plenty of green vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole grains, and fermented foods. These foods provide abundant fiber and beneficial plant compounds.
The Western diet consists of processed and high-calorie foods with refined sugars, saturated fats, and excessive salt, such as beef sausage, French fries, white bread with margarine, chicken stew with white rice, and processed maize porridge with added sugar.
The shift to Western-style eating habits is happening all over the globe, so it’s important to investigate how these dietary changes affect people outside of the Western world. The rapid shift could explain why rates of lifestyle diseases are rising worldwide.
The study was published in the journal Nature Medicine.
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