A traditional diet of the Mount Kilimanjaro region in Africa caused much healthier effects than western diet, as a study conducted by the medical center of Radbard University and KCMC University of Tanzania.
The survey published on Thursday (3) in the magazine Nature Medicine It points out that the western diet increases inflammation, reduces body response to pathogens and activates signs linked to cardiovascular disease and diabetes. On the other hand, those who maintain a diet rich in vegetables, fibers and fermented considerably reduce inflammatory substances.
The study, which claims to have been the first to analyze the impacts of a traditional African health diet, brought together 77 healthy men from Tanzania urban and rural areas divided into three groups:
- The first one ate the Kilimanjaro diet and then changed western food for two weeks;
- The second ate the western diet and then exchanged for traditional diet for two weeks;
- The third drank a fermented drink made of banana, the MBege, daily.
- The four, a control group, kept their normal eating habits.
“Research has been done earlier on other traditional diets, such as Japanese or Mediterranean,” says the clinician Quirijn de Mast of the medical center of Radbard University. “But we can also learn a lot from African food, especially now that lifestyle is changing rapidly and lifestyle -related diseases are rapidly increasing. Africa also has a great diversity of traditional diets, which offers unique opportunities to better understand how nutrition affects our health.”
What’s in the traditional Kilimanjaro diet?
In the study two menus were compared. To represent the western diet, the researchers set up a diet with meat (daily), pizza, white rice, pasta, chips, eggs, white bread, pancakes and few vegetables and fruits. The traditional diet of the Kilimanjaro region in northern Tanzania, in turn, was rich in vegetables and fruits, beans, brown rice, limited meat (twice a week) and fermented products.
“The African diet is rich in vegetables, fruits, beans, grains and fermented products. We now show how these traditional food products are beneficial for inflammation and the body’s metabolic processes,” said Masta.
“At the same time, we show how unfavorable is an unhealthy western diet. It contains mainly processed and highly caloric products such as chips and white bread, with a lot of salt, fast sugars and saturated fat. Inflammation is at the root of many chronic diseases and that is why this study is also important for western countries.”
See also: Doctors warn of miraculous diets against cancer
Mediterranean diet combined with exercises improves intestinal health
This content was originally published in Kilimanjaro’s diet is healthier than western food, says study on CNN Brazil.
Source: CNN Brasil
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