Especially in the elderly is a varied and high-fiber nutrition has a positive effect on the intestinal flora.
Bon appetit - and ask a lot of variety on the plate. This affects the health and fitness at the age
DUBLIN. Older people who eat varied promote the diversity of bacteria in their intestines. This makes them probably less fragile and prone to obesity and inflammation than their peers who eat on one side and therefore have a less diverse flora. This connection is at least see Irish microbiologists and physicians according to a study with 178 men, average age of 78. "Our findings suggest that we can improve the health of older people, if we change their diet and thus alter their intestinal flora," said Dr. Paul O'Toole, of University College Cork, the result of yesterday with his colleagues on the European Science Conference presented in Dublin.
For their study, published in the journal "Nature", the researchers had interviewed people age 64 to 102 years after their nutrition habits. Furthermore, they had analyzed the chair of the participants, to detect the existing intestinal bacteria. Because many of these bacteria can not cultivate, the researchers deciphered the genome of the bacteria. So they came in their samples up to 5000 different types of bacteria. She also recorded values in the stool and blood that indicate infection. A number of respondents was housed in nursing homes, rehabilitation clinics and hospitals, the rest lived at home.
+ + + Old and sick? How to get back on their feet + + +
First, it was found that the long term, such as in nursing homes housed people a more fat-and sugar-rich diet with a relatively large amount of meat to be increased, while living at home group, more bread, fruit and vegetables, ate, then ate more fiber. Dietary fiber, carbohydrates, found mainly in plant foods. Humans can not digest fiber, but researchers writing them to play an important role, because the substances likely to contribute to a controlled digestion. In addition: nutrition high in fiber contain less energy than the same volume low-fiber foods, so they help to keep the weight off.
That diet is not always optimal in some nursing homes and hospitals so that was probably expected. The researchers had not expected, however, the second finding: that the apparently strong effect of different diets on the composition of the intestinal flora and thus on health. In the long run have accommodated students with an unbalanced diet in the chair has a much lower diversity of intestinal bacteria as shown by the participants with a varied diet, said Paul O'Toole. In addition to the first group of several inflammatory markers were increased.
The researchers had studied for comparison, 13 people with an average age of 36 years. This showed a lesser influence of diet on the composition of the intestinal flora. "The gut bacteria vary among the elderly than in younger stronger overall, depending on what they eat," said O'Toole.
+ + + Fruit instead of dumbbells: Peach and Co. make men attractive + + +
"Means to have a diverse flora that there are many different types of bacteria, probably take a corresponding number of functions," explained Dr Ian Jeffery. The nutrition will effectively be split into its component parts, the body will be fed to a larger number of different nutrients than is possible with a less diverse flora is. Older people are frail, among other things, because their muscles schwänden and take off my muscle tone, said the physician Prof. Fergus Shanahan. In this respect a diverse flora is enormously important for protein and calcium from the diet to make available to the body.
The researchers admit, however, that their conclusions are based only on circumstantial evidence. They have identified ten to 15 major groups of bacteria, whose presence is strongly differs in the two study groups. What are the duties and assume certain bacterial species which are particularly important for health, they do not know, said Paul O'Toole. "Of this we have removed a number of years." It is still unclear whether the microorganisms can even assign unique functions, because a major obstacle to microbiologists and physicians to be: You can use the billions of bacteria in the gut to watch live. Therefore, they are to rely on indirect methods such as on further analysis of the chair, to learn more about the tiny creatures.
