Health Update: Ultra-Processed Foods Are Killing Us!

Hello again: This article is very important and straightforward, plus it is a really great summary of what low-grade chronic inflammation is all about and how harmful it is…and considering that in the U.S., more than 60% of daily calories by all ages and genders are from UPFs, it is an important and timely topic…so let’s get right into it. “Low-grade inflammation alters the homeostasis of the organism and favors the onset of many chronic diseases. The global growth in the prevalence of noncommunicable diseases in recent years has been accompanied by an increase in the consumption of ultra-processed foods (UPF). Known to be hyperpalatable, economic and ready-to-eat, increased consumption of UPF has already been recognized as a risk factor for several chronic diseases. Current evidence highlights the adverse health effects of UPF characteristics, not only due to the nutrients provided by a diet rich in UPF, but also due to the non-nutritive components present in UPF and the effect they may have on gut health. This review aims to summarize the available evidence on the possible relationship between excessive UPF consumption and modulation of low-grade inflammation, as potential promoters of chronic disease. Inflammation is an immunosurveillance response essential for host defense, which serves to repair damaged tissues and eliminate toxic agents [ 1 ]. However, when this response becomes chronic, it results in the presence of immune system cells for an increasing period of time. This state of low-grade inflammation can lead to dysmetabolic conditions that disrupt homeostasis, favoring the development of a wide range of noncommunicable diseases such as cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases [ 2 ]. Among the environmental and lifestyle factors that can promote or intensify inflammation, increasing scientific evidence supports the role of diet. Potential nutritional compounds influencing inflammation processes include macro- and micronutrients, bioactive molecules such as polyphenols and specific food components [ 19 ]. Overall, plant-based dietary patterns with a high consumption of vegetables, fruits and whole grains, a moderate consumption of legumes and fish and a low consumption of red meat have been associated with a greater anti-inflammatory potential ( Figure 1 ). These include several traditional healthy diets, such as the Mediterranean or the Nordic diet, which are usually based on minimally processed or unprocessed foods [ 20 , 21 ]. A meta-analysis that evaluated a total of 2300 subjects from 17 clinical trials showed that greater adherence to the Mediterranean diet was associated with lower levels of inflammatory biomarkers, particularly CRP and interleukin-6 (IL-6) [ 22 ]. These findings were confirmed in a recent meta-analysis assessing the effect of multiple dietary patterns on inflammatory biomarkers [ 23 ].” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10058108/ Bottom Line: Now it becomes more obvious why I am always saying inflammation will cause, perpetuate, and/or aggravate chronic illness of ALL types, and please note that this includes aging. It also becomes apparent as to why a plant-based, whole-food, minimally processed food plan is the best way to go. I urge you to read or review this paper and it will hopefully raise your motivation to fully dedicate yourself, and those you care about, to consume an optimal dietary lifestyle. What you eat will determine to a large extent on how long you live a healthy life (healthspan) as well as how long you live. In the article, there are several good charts (Figure 1 & 2) and information on what UPFs are and the chemicals and toxins in them, so check Section 3 & 4 when you get a chance. It is this kind of information that helps us make informed decisions that can dramatically improve our health and lower our risk for diseases (prevention) as well as promote recovery and resilience if we do become ill. Please, avoid UPFs for your health’s sake and eat foods that love you back!

Hello again everyone: We commonly think about cancer as a genetic disease, and while some are mostly genetically based, most are actually a combination of multiple factors…and one of the clearly identified drivers of cancer happens to be food choices. In this recent study, the following points summarize their findings: “More than 1 in 5 of new gastrointestinal (GI) cancer cases globally were attributable to suboptimal dietary intake, according to a recent study. Writing in Gastroenterology, researchers…reported that excessive consumption of processed meats (the biggest culprit), insufficient fruit intake, and insufficient whole grain intake were the leading dietary risk factors. In addition, the number of diet-related cases doubled from 1990 to 2018.  The study also: “…observed that two regional groups, Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean, as well as high-income countries, bore the top three diet-attributable burdens worldwide in 2018, all driven mostly by an upward-trending excess of processed meat.” “As for the impact of the SDI (Socio-Demographic Index), the authors explained that diet-attributable GI cancer burden was higher among adults with higher education and living in urban areas than among those with lower education and rural residency. “Some dietary habits tended to be worse in higher-SDI countries, specifically, higher consumption of processed meats,” they wrote. https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/suboptimal-diets-tied-global-doubling-gi-cancer-cases-public-2025a100026y?ecd=WNL_mdpls_250131_mscpedit_gast_etid7197796&uac=428598BV&spon=20&impID=7197796 https://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085(24)05212-0/abstract Bottom Line: Proposed mechanisms for this cancer link were multiple including gut microbiome changes associated with processed meats and other processed foods, a lack of fiber and phytonutrients known to be protective. To reduce your risk, increase your whole-foods, plant based, unprocessed foods and reduce processed meats of any kind. If you choose to eat any other types of animal products, please make sure that they are organic, unprocessed, and constitute about 10% of your daily calories. Current flexitarian guidelines consider that to mean you would consume animal-based products 2 to 4 x per week…but just reducing by 50% is enough to make a real and significant difference in your health as well as that of the planet according to the EAT Lancet Commission. More specifically, the EAT Commission recommends 3 to 26 ounces of meat, poultry, and eggs per week and dairy at about 8 to 17 ounces per day. To read more about this important topic look at this link: https://foodinsight.org/eat-lancet-commission-study-diet-sustainable-red-meat/ You certainly need to figure out what works for you; however, you need to know that there is a burgeoning health based scientific foundation for recommending lowering animal-based food products in favor of an unprocessed, whole-foods plant-based lifestyle. Please refer to my 3/10/25 blog for more exact details and references. What you eat is the primary driver of all of your biochemistry…you can eat to create illness or health…it is your choice. I hope this info helps you make informed decisions.

Hello again, everyone: As you know, I am always looking for foundational lifestyle upgrades that advantage us to lower our inflammatory burden and promote a longer healthspan and lifespan. Because we are all born with genetic ‘clocks’ that coordinate and control all of our biochemical functions, having lifestyle activities (such as when we eat) that align with our clocks turns out to boost health significantly. Here are the main takeaways: “Research from animal models suggested that aligning food intake with rhythms could enhance metabolic efficiency and improve health outcomes,” Ruiz explained. “We wanted to investigate whether these findings translate to humans and how the timing of the eating window — early, late, or self-selected — affects weight loss, fat distribution, and cardiometabolic health in men and women with overweight or obesity,” he said. All participants were randomly assigned to one of four time-restricted fasting groups: early fasting (food consumed between a median of 9:45 a.m.-5:30 p.m.), late fasting (food consumed between a median of 2:20 p.m.-9:30 p.m.), self-selected fasting, or treatment as usual. Study participants also received nutrition education on the Mediterranean diet and healthy lifestyles. “The greater reduction in abdominal subcutaneous fat observed in the early fasting group highlights the potential metabolic advantages of aligning food intake with the body’s natural circadian rhythms. This finding suggests that early time-restricted eating could be particularly beneficial for improving fat distribution and reducing obesity-related risks.” — Jonatan R. Ruiz, PhD https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/intermittent-fasting-earlier-day-help-reduce-more-abdominal-fat-blood-sugar?slot_pos=article_2&utm_source=Sailthru%20Email&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=MNT%20Daily%20News&utm_content=2025-01-24&apid=41304130&rvid=a32216b5e1c0c5df3c84080e2b2e161318206dbce6fd663dd747aa557a4753cd#Early-fasting-reduces-amount-of-abdominal-fat Bottom Line: This is a good study for several reasons: · They compared 4 types of food timing. · They instructed people on improved food choices and lifestyle activities. · They found that all types of time restricted eating worked, but early feeding worked the best. · Loss of body fat and improved cardiometabolic health will equate with lowered body inflammation. · Early eating is easy to do, costs nothing, and works the best. Early fasting (described above) probably worked best because it is the only one that aligned with our natural circadian clock rhythms. While it is the best one and the one that I most highly recommend, sometimes jobs or other life situations will not allow early fasting. This paper showed that all types of time restricted eating are beneficial, but the early eating approach had the best results. There are lots of people that do not have any appetite in the morning, and unfortunately, that is problematic as it distorts your biology and can have serious health implications as it will allow the continuation of a large inflammatory burden among other issues. There are a couple of fixes for that: 1. Start a late fasting protocol…once you have that down, try #2. 2. To re-align your circadian clocks, you will need to start eating some kind of breakfast. If you have ANY chronic health issue and do not eat breakfast, it means your circadian clocks need to be reset. To do this, one way to get your clocks aligned and improve your health is to have your regular dinner but only eat half of it and have the other half for breakfast. This works better than you might think. The long-term goal for successful early fasting is to: a. Have a breakfast. b. Consume 80% of your total caloric intake before 2 PM. c. Dinner is the lightest meal of the day, typically 20% or less of your daily food and caloric intake. Give yourself 3 to 6 weeks to get used to this. d. Consume all of your food/calories within a 10-hour window and have 14 hours per day without any calories but stay well hydrated. e. Shift your food choices to an unprocessed, whole-foods plant-based plan where 10% or less of your calories come from animal sources. This is the plan that I follow and highly recommend as it is where I see people make the greatest health improvements. When you eat and what you eat are foundational. In other words, nutrition is the priority simply because the nutrition that you get from your food is what determines your biochemistry, which is what determines how each and every cell functions (physiology), which is what is the main determinant or consequence of how sick or healthy you will be…now and in your future. Because most of us are lifelong learners in different fields, my goal is to pass along what I am learning that has truly foundational and long-term application and importance for all of us. That is why I write these blogs…to pass along this vital information. Our bodies are miraculous Temples so we should honor and treat them as such, and we all can learn how to do this better and better as part of our shared responsibility. Thanks for reading this and all the best to you and yours.

Hello everyone: Here is some good news coming from our government, and it is about the updated guidelines from the U.S.D.A. and H.H.S. The link below will take you to the entire document that is available for download at no cost. Basically, this is the document that the Scientific Report of the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee has submitted as the basis for updating the U.S. dietary pattern that best supports our health. It has changed in interesting ways. “The scientific report that offers evidence-based guidance for the next iteration of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans has been submitted to federal agencies, and the document — which already has generated controversy due to its emphasis on plant-based foods — is now open for public comment. The advisory committee that developed the report examined the scientific evidence on specific nutrition and public health topics using data analysis, systematic reviews, and food modeling.” “We saw something over and over again — when you look at a population level, diets for which the predominant composition was plants performed better when it came to health outcomes,” advisory committee member Cheryl Anderson, PhD, MPH, who is a professor and dean of the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at the University of California San Diego, told Medscape Medical News. “There’s a pretty consistent body of literature showing benefits of fruits, vegetables, and legumes and reductions in salt, added sugars, and saturated fats.” https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/plant-based-food-prioritized-over-meat-dietary-guidelines-2024a1000p2f?ecd=wnl_dne2_241231_MSCPEDIT_etid7133902&uac=428598BV&impID=7133902 https://www.dietaryguidelines.gov/2025-advisory-committee-report Bottom Line: What this means to you and I is that the data continues to show that reducing animal based foods, added sugars, processed foods (and the chemical additives in them), salt, saturated fats, total fat and increasing vegetables, fruits, beans and legumes, nuts, seeds, whole grains and mostly unprocessed or minimally processed (home cooking) foods is what leads to better health for nearly everyone. It could go further in regard to lowering toxic burdens by avoiding plastics, frying, going mostly organic, etc. and hopefully that will come sooner than later. In previous blogs I have put some links to help you get started going plant-based, and here they are again. Making this move can add years to your life and life to those years. Doing this is the best long-term investment you can make…you will never regret feeling healthy and living longer and better by making this upgrade a priority. If you find a guide that you find is better than these, please let me know…thank you! 1. https://simplyplantbasedkitchen.com/ 2. https://thriving.foodrevolution.org/join/?frn_source=blog&frn_medium=link&frn_campaign=ppt&frn_content=menu 3. https://hellonutritarian.com/nutritarian-power-prep-program/ 4. https://cookingcourse.forksoverknives.com/ 5. https://www.drfuhrman.com/blog/210/beginners-guide PS: For most of us, there are just four things that can significantly upgrade & maintain your health: 1. What you eat. 2. When you eat. 3. How much you move/exercise. 4. How you handle stress/sleep. The benefits that you get from all of them depend entirely upon what and when you eat, so always start there and as you master one aspect, move on to the next. Take your time, don’t rush, do it right and reap the benefits. In my clinical experience, those who make proper food a priority are the ones that get the best results.

Hello again friends: I thought it would be helpful to focus on some information about eating to lower inflammation. As you already are aware, inflammation is the final common pathway down which all chronic illness goes…stop or slow inflammation and you stop or slow many ailments including aging. Yes, aging is a risk factor for chronic illness, so de-flammerate yourself and feel your best, look your best, and age optimally. Read these articles to help you get motivated, get started or refine your food plan even more. Please ignore the annoying commercials on some of these links. https://www.eatingwell.com/what-is-an-anti-inflammatory-diet-8764103 https://healthguides.cnn.com/taking-charge-of-your-health/anti-inflammatory-diet?did=t1_rss5 https://lifestylemedicine.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ACLM-Benefits-of-Plant-based-Nutrition-White-Paper.pdf (Amazing stuff!) https://lifestylemedicine.org/project/benefits-of-plant-based-nutrition-white-paper/ https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Wellness/eating-plant-based-diet-add-years-life-study/story?id=82769627 Please ignore the annoying commercials. https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/979992?form=fpf (this is a good one on protein) https://plantbasedrds.com/blog/anti-inflammatory-vegan-diet/ (this is a good one!) https://foodrevolution.org/about/ (a great organization with many helpful classes!) Bottom Line: After seeing enough of these links, you may be moved to make some shifts in your food plan. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of papers revealing that a wholefoods, unprocessed plant-based food plan is the optimal way to go. Because of the many diet plans out there for weight loss, it may look confusing as to what to eat…however, behind the scenes there exists a strong consensus of what constitutes the healthiest food plan. This food plan goes directly against the billion-dollar food and pharmaceutical industry and is not given the credit and place in our lives that it is due. Remember, an unprocessed, wholefood, plant-based food plan is NOT a diet…it is part of a LIFESTYLE upgrade that offers more benefits than any diet. We are in a marathon (lifestyle) and not a sprint (diet) so please choose the foods that support health and reap the rewards. Invest in yourself, and please do not give your health away to the people that sell you ultra-processed things that masquerade as food. Start slow, choose reasonable goals…get it done!

Hello again everyone: Some of you may know that I am writing a book about how inflammation will cause, perpetuate, and/or aggravate every known human ailment, including aging (also known as ‘inflammaging’). Here is a sentence from my book that explains why I am so focused on the proper type of food plan: “I have not yet seen a satisfactory and stable resolution of a chronic health condition without a clean food plan.” This is why I am always recommending an unprocessed, whole-food, plant-based dietary pattern. Investing your time and effort towards a gradual or comfortable shift to this type of food plan will offer the greatest improvements in health and optimal aging no matter what shape you are in. Refer to my last blog (2.17.25) for help and resources to move into a better approach to food. Additionally, when we live a lifestyle that goes against our inborn circadian clocks, we distort our biology and cause problems with our ability to be healthy and function well. There are two things that really set off our normal/optimal circadian rhythms: When we sleep . To fix this, go to bed before 10 pm and get at least 7.5 hours of sleep. There can be a lot more to this, such as blocking blue light and avoiding screens at night, turning off WiFi at night…however, often fixing when and what we eat makes your sleep way better so start there and see what happens. When we eat. To fix the eat part, I strongly recommend eTRF, or early Time Restricted Feeding. Basically, you consume 80% of your total daily calories by 2 pm, but you always have some type of breakfast before 10 am or within 2 hours of waking. Lunch is your main meal of the day, and you then have a very light dinner, only 20% of your total daily calories, and you consume all of your calories for the entire day within a 10-to-12-hour window. Breakfast like a princess/prince, lunch like a Queen/King, dinner like a pauper… This form of intermittent fasting has many benefits, and one of the greatest ones is that is facilitates autophagy. Autophagy is an essential anti-inflammatory life process that utilizes the immune system to keep your entire body cleaned out of infections, tumors, inflammation, toxins, debris, gunk and more. Autophagy happens primarily at night, during sleep, in the absence of calories. Without autophagy we would die quickly, it is that important. However, effective autophagy needs at least 12 to 14 hours WITHOUT CALORIES OF ANY TYPE. This is why eTRF is so critical to long term health. Imagine that your custodial crew (autophagy) is unable to complete its job, which means that when you wake up in the morning, the place (your body) is only partially cleaned out. You are now living in a hoarder’s house, full of gunk that blocks essential life functions and leads to an accumulation of debris and inflammation. By going to eTRF with an unprocessed, whole-foods plant-based food plan, you can reasonably expect to feel a lot better because you will have lowered your inflammatory burden and realigned your body chemistry via better circadian rhythms. For example, our circadian rhythms cause our body to be insulin sensitive in the morning and have a full digestive crew in the kitchen. By late afternoon, that same meal that we had in the morning will take two to three times as long to process, plus we will be insulin resistant and our blood sugar will stay elevated longer…thus eating heavier dinners can cause indigestion, elevated blood sugar, weight gain, unprocessed foods that alter the microbiome, more inflammation, more cravings, tendency to eat more at night because we cannot feel as full as fast…all because we went against our natural body clocks that say eat less at night and most of your food before 2 pm. We are made that way…why fight it? https://scitechdaily.com/how-intermittent-fasting-extends-life-spans-time-restricted-eating-reshapes-gene-expression-throughout-the-body/ Bottom Line: Combining an unprocessed, whole-food, plant-based food plan with eTRF makes sense if you are looking to avoid or overcome any chronic health issue. This is the foundation your body needs to repair, heal, and revive. It is also a gentle and doable approach that most of us can do without any worries. Give it a try and let me know how it goes, please. (Please note: If you have any diagnosed health condition, clear this with your health care practitioner or do this under some medical supervision. While this approach is extremely safe and most of us can undertake this, it may not be appropriate for some such as those with diabetes.)

Hello everyone: Thanks for taking your valuable time to stay informed. Here is an interesting paper that revealed that a better dietary food quality was associated with less body pain. Well, duh. We all know that some foods are a major source of inflammation, such as the Standard American Diet (SAD), and higher consumption of an unprocessed, whole-food plant-based patterns tends to significantly lower inflammation. “Better diet quality is associated with lower bodily pain, irrespective of adiposity. Findings highlight the potential role of diet quality in pain management and function, particularly in women.” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027153172400109X “After an exhaustive bibliography search, we designed a 13-item anti-inflammatory dietary guide based on a Mediterranean diet without red meat, gluten, or cow’s milk (the AnMeD-S). We then conducted a pilot study to evaluate the efficacy of this anti-inflammatory diet in patients with CP (Chronic Pain). We found a correlation between increased anti-inflammatory food intake and improved physical characteristics, stress, and pain in the patients we assessed. Moreover, decreased consumption of pro-inflammatory foods was positively correlated with sleep satisfaction. Following the AnMeD-S was associated with improved physical characteristics and quality-of-life in patients with CP.” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10381948/ Bottom Line: By combining an anti-inflammatory food plan with eTRF (see last week’s blog) you can seriously lower your inflammatory burden, ease pain, slow aging, improve immune function, feel and look better plus more. Check out this link for some ideas of where to start. It is easier than you might imagine! https://www.healthcentral.com/pain-management/anti-inflammatory-diets-for-pain

Hello everyone: Here are a bunch of papers that show that those with Rheumatoid Arthritis can significantly benefit from fasting followed by a vegetarian dietary plan. When it comes to the benefits of fasting, autoimmune disorders have a good deal of evidence backing up the efficacy. Other disorders related to lifestyle factors, such as overweight, obesity, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and digestive issues also tend to show benefits, i.e., anyone with excess inflammation will probably benefit a lot. “There is clear experimental evidence of a significant anti-inflammatory effect of prolonged fasting. Several clinical studies demonstrated a symptomatic benefit of prolonged modified fasting (therapeutic fasting) in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). If fasting is followed by a vegan and vegetarian diet, lasting effects of up to 1 year have been documented. Cardiometabolic but not antirheumatic effects have been proven for intermittent fasting. Nutrition and fasting can be classified as a possible useful addition to conventional treatment but are currently only rarely taken into account in practice.” https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7747149/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1681264/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7835013/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11252685/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39271484/ Bottom Line: The absolute most critical part of this literature is that the positive effects of fasting were only maintained when the post-fasting diet is vegan or vegetarian. This appears to be related in part to different aspects of an omnivorous food plan that alter essential fatty acid imbalances and gut microbiome changes that foster inflammation. There are many different ways to fast, and I always recommend that you start with eTRF (early Time Restricted Feeding) to re-set and normalize your circadian rhythms before moving on to any type of fasting that may be more demanding or rigorous or require medical monitoring. The benefit of eTRF is that you can move into a vegetarian or vegan diet at the same time as you fast daily. Most of the time, consuming your vegetarian/vegan food plan (or even the Flexitarian food plan from Dr. Joel Furhman) in an eTRF pattern is enough to shift your health where you want it to go. “Here we show that eTRF was more effective than mTRF (mid-day) at improving insulin sensitivity. Furthermore, eTRF, but not mTRF, improved fasting glucose, reduced total body mass and adiposity, ameliorated inflammation, and increased gut microbial diversity. No serious adverse events were reported during the trial. In conclusion, eTRF showed greater benefits for insulin resistance and related metabolic parameters compared with mTRF.” https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35194047/ Essentially, eTRF is having some type of breakfast before 10:00 am and a lunch before 2 pm, and lunch is essentially the largest meal of the day. The main point is to consume 80% of your total daily calories by 2 pm, and dinner is very light and taken early such that you consume all of your daily calories within 10 hours. Eating this way will correct any abnormal circadian rhythm functions (such as blood sugar control, fat burning, digestive issues, and more) and it can take up to 3 to 4 months to reset your internal clocks. If you have not felt better or lost weight, the next step would be to go Flexitarian or Vegan/Vegetarian with eTRF. These food plans are essentially unprocessed, whole-food, plant-based, lower fat, no sugar, no processed grains or foods. In an earlier blog I addressed resources to assist in this amazing transformation so here they are again! 1. https://simplyplantbasedkitchen.com/ 2. https://thriving.foodrevolution.org/join/?frn_source=blog&frn_medium=link&frn_campaign=ppt&frn_content=menu 3. https://hellonutritarian.com/nutritarian-power-prep-program/ 4. https://cookingcourse.forksoverknives.com/ 5. https://www.drfuhrman.com/blog/210/beginners-guide

Hello friends: Here is some more interesting news that helps us understand how to construct the best food plan for ourselves. Most are aware that the gut houses an incredibly large number of different micro-organisms that are called the microbiome. These gut inhabitants can produce many beneficial health promoting chemicals including vitamins, assist immune function, modulate inflammation, and more. However, the type of chemicals that they produce can be either good or bad, and it depends almost entirely on what they are fed. This means that our diet shapes our health in important ways we might not be thinking about. The study found that the health of the microbiome is influenced by diet, and that the composition of the microbiome influences the risk of health outcomes. The results showed that specific gut microbes were associated with specific nutrients, foods, food groups, and overall diet composition. Health conditions such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and general inflammation appeared to be most impacted by diet-influenced changes to the microbiome. For example, less healthy dietary patterns (dairy desserts, unhealthy meats, processed foods) supported gut species that were associated with measures of blood sugar, cholesterol, and inflammation that are significantly associated with higher risk of cardiac events, strokes, and type 2 diabetes. In contrast, a more diverse gut microbiome was tied to healthy dietary patterns (high-fiber vegetables like spinach and broccoli, nuts, and heathy animal foods such as fish and eggs) and was linked to measurements tied to lower risk of certain chronic diseases. In addition, the study found that polyunsaturated fats (found in fish, walnuts, pumpkin, flax and chia seeds, sunflower, safflower, and un-hydrogenated soybean oils) produce healthy gut species linked to a reduced risk of chronic disease. https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/diet-disease-and-the-microbiome-2021042122400 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33432175/ Bottom Line: The authors say it best: So, what do these findings mean for us? First, the study showed that eating more unprocessed plant foods — fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and whole grains — allows the gut microbiome to thrive. Some animal foods, such as fish and eggs, are also favorable. Avoiding certain animal foods, such as red meat and bacon, dairy foods, and highly processed foods (even processed plant foods such as sauces, baked beans, juices, or sugar-sweetened drinks and desserts) prevents less-healthy gut species from colonizing the gut. It is important to note that food quality matters; processed or ultra-processed plant-based foods were not associated with heathy clusters of gut microbes. When choosing foods, consider whether they are processed or unprocessed, in addition to whether they are a plant or animal food. Meal patterns that emphasize foods beneficial to the microbiome are the whole-food, plant-based dietary patterns. These include vegan (no animal products) and ovo-vegetarian (vegetarian plus eggs) diets. The pescatarian eating pattern, in which oily and white fish are the meats of choice, is also good for the microbiome. Emphasizing minimally processed plant foods allows the gut microbiome to thrive, providing protection against, or decreasing the risk of, chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, metabolic disease, and obesity.