United States: The latest study found an interesting link between high-fiber foods such as Wholegrain bread, vegetables, and beans with the reduction of the risk of severe cases of food poisoning, according to British research.
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Foods rich in fiber are good for helping feed the friendly bugs that are naturally present in our stomachs and defending us against those that get into our system through food that nasty bugs have contaminated, the University of Cambridge researchers noted.
They arrived at this after analyzing the microbiome – which describes the collection of bacteria, viruses, and other micro-organisms in our gut – of 12,000 individuals across 45 countries.
Specifically, the scientists said that whether or not a person got food poisoning depended on the Faecalibacterium they had in their gut.
These friendly bugs helped eradicate some of the usual causes of abominable food poisoning symptoms, such as Enterobacteriaceae bugs that include Shigella and E.coli, among others.
What more have the experts told?
High-fiber diets target the bacterium Faecalibacterium, which, according to experts in Nature Microbiology, feeds on fiber and produces short-chain fatty acids.
It is said that these acids help organizations guard against a hostile takeover by the bug that results in food poisoning.
Veterinary medicine expert Dr Alexandre Almeida, an author of the paper, said the results underscore the relevance of the foods that are ingested.
According to him, “‘By eating fiber in foods like vegetables, beans, and whole grains, we can provide the raw material for our gut bacteria to produce short chain fatty acids — compounds that can protect us from these pathogenic bugs,” US News reported.
Enterobacteriaceae is most often introduced through the consumption of contaminated fruit and vegetables as well as undercooked meat.
Although infection by food poisoning is usually an easily treatable illness, some members of the Enterobacteriaceae family can lead to severe diseases such as pneumonia and meningitis.
And a number are beginning to mutate, becoming less sensitive to the drugs prescribed to them.
Dr Almeida, this was another reason for maintaining the microbiome healthy so that it could function as a barrier.
He added, “With higher rates of antibiotic resistance, there are fewer treatment options available to us,” US News reported.
Moreover, “The best approach now is to prevent infections occurring in the first place, and we can do this by reducing the opportunities for these disease-causing bacteria to thrive in our gut,” he continued.
According to Dr Qi Yin, a fellow author and expert in veterinary medicine, “This study highlights the importance of studying pathogens not as isolated entities, but in the context of their surrounding gut microbiome.”
The disease of food poisoning is well known in Britain, and research shows that about 2.5 million people in the UK are affected each year by the disease.