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High fibre vegan diet may improve diabetes risk factors via the microbiome

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DCUK NewsBot

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A vegan diet that is high in fibre may cause beneficial changes to the microbiome, the bacteria in our gut, according to US researchers. The gut, and the bacteria living in it, can play a vital role in overall health and wellbeing as it helps control everything from the weight to inflammation. A team from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), Washington, DC, randomised 147 participants (86% of whom were female) into two groups. One group made no changes to their usual diet and the other followed a 16-week plant-based diet. The researchers measured differences in weight, body fat, gut bacteria and insulin sensitivity before and after the intervention. They found that those who had been eating the plant-based diet lost an average of 5.8kg (13 lbs), which was mostly due to reductions in fat mass, including the particularly problematic visceral fat. This group had also experienced a significant improvement in insulin sensitivity. The authors concluded: "A 16-week low-fat vegan dietary intervention induced changes in gut microbiota that were related to changes in weight, body composition and insulin sensitivity in overweight adults." Despite the findings, the researchers said more work needs to be done to further explore benefits a vegan diet may have on obesity and have high glucose levels. Their next step is to investigate how a plant-based diet might aid people with type 2 diabetes, when compared to a standard portion-controlled diet. From their assessment, the research team said the gut changes were largely down to an increased amount of a 'good bacteria', including a species known as Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, that feed on dietary fibre and produce short-chain fatty acids. The authors concluded that "high dietary fibre content seems to be essential for the changes observed in our study". The study was unveiled at the 55th Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) which is currently taking place in Barcelona.

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What was the control diet, I wonder? Almost certainly S.A.D. (Standard American Diet). Eating rocks is healthier. Of course any intervention will be beneficial.
 
And the PCRM sound so reliable... if only they admitted they were a pro vegan organisation on the front page...
 
It is possible that a plant based diet does all those things. Unfortunately, it says nothing about whether or not the participants are type 2 diabetics. I suspect that, if they are type 2 diabetics, the results would be different.
 
bulkbiker said:
And the PCRM sound so reliable... if only they admitted they were a pro vegan organisation on the front page...
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Wait. Are you proposing that these guys cannot be trusted to publish impartial, objective, scientific research studies on human nutrition? :shifty:

 
I have a couple of thoughts on this:

(1) Were the diets isocaloric? It seems hard to see how you can consume lots of calories eating exclusively plants and hardly any fat. Maybe the effect is mostly calorie-restriction rather than fiber. We've seen similar or better effects with the Newcastle approach. (Guess I could look at the original study, but don't really feel motivated given it is from PCRM).

(2) Is fiber maybe only beneficial in the context of high carb diet? I'm not very knowledgeable on the research on incretin effects of GIP versus GLP-1, but it might have something to do with this.

(3) Probably anything is better than SAD (as already mentioned by @Jim Lahey). I would really love to see WFPB pitched against LCHF/Keto, Carnivory and Newcastle. The comparison to SAD really isn't very informative IMO.
 
The science in the field of the microbiome is very young. Identical twins (research is ongoing there) can have very different biomes with all other factors being similar. As with all emerging 'facts' there are those who will avail themselves of evidence that lends itself to their confirmation bias. I am not saying that this is the case with this particular evidence but the details are so scant that one does wonder.
 
no mention of what and how many antibiotic treatments participant had either. That massively affects gut biome.
 
Guzzler said:
The science in the field of the microbiome is very young. Identical twins (research is ongoing there) can have very different biomes with all other factors being similar. As with all emerging 'facts' there are those who will avail themselves of evidence that lends itself to their confirmation bias. I am not saying that this is the case with this particular evidence but the details are so scant that one does wonder.
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As a species we are still unable to settle disputes between the CICO and insulin/obesity hypotheses. I don't think we will learn much about the microbiome any time soon :nurse:
 
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