[yeppels]

A great article, linked below, explaining that due to our modern Western diets high in fat, simple sugars, and protein, the diversity of microbes in our digestives systems is greatly reduced and is a possible cause of diseases such as asthma and colon cancer.

TLDR: Eat your goddamn fiber

One point that applies to us:

Quote:

When we pass through the birth canal, we are slathered in our mother’s microbes, a kind of starter culture for our own community. In this case, though, pups born to mice on American-type diets—no fiber, lots of sugar—failed to acquire the full endowment of their mothers’ microbes. Entire groups of bacteria were lost during transmission. When Sonnenburg put these second-generation mice on a fiber-rich diet, their microbes failed to recover. The mice couldn’t regrow what they’d never inherited. And when these second-generation animals went on a fiberless diet in turn, their offspring inherited even fewer microbes. The microbial die-outs compounded across generations.

While later in the article the author mentions anecdotally that a good diet can improve the diversity in humans, it is of point that the mother's microbial ecosystem is passed on to the offspring. If you want have kids, make sure your woman is on a healthy diet!

Other key points:

Quote:

• People who eat plenty of fiber seem to have a lower risk of many diseases, including heart disease and diabetes.
• Rodent studies suggest that as they [digested fiber acid byproducts] diffuse into circulation, they stimulate the anti-inflammatory arm of the immune system—cells that help you not attack tree pollen and other harmless proteins—preventing allergies and other inflammatory diseases.
• But an even more drastic shift occurred quite recently, with the advent and widespread adoption of refined foods. As a result, westernized populations, the Sonnenburgs think, have lost healthful, fiber-fermenting microbes. And we suffer from a kind of fermentation byproduct deficiency.
• Sonnenburg discovered that something very odd occurs when those MAC-loving [MAC = modern microbes] microbes go hungry. They start eating mucus. “This is the stage where you say, ‘Oh my God. They’re eating me.’ ” Sonnenburg said. “You can see it.”
• One of the more striking discoveries in recent years is that you can see this stuff, called endotoxin, increase in the bloodstream immediately after feeding people a sugary, greasy, fast-food meal. The immune system responds as if under threat, leading to the “simmering inflammation” the Sonnenburgs think drives so many Western diseases.
• Inflammation of the colon, which increases the risk of cancer, decreased in the African-Americans on the African diet; and it increased in the Africans on the American diet. Production of the fermentation by-product butyrate, thought to prevent colon cancer, increased in those eating African fare, and declined in those eating American-style. And here’s what struck me: In the fiber-poor, meat- and fat-fed microbiome, O’Keefe saw a “loosening” of those tight-knit communities oriented toward fermenting fiber. He’d done in people what Sonnenburg had done in rodents—rattled the ecosystem—and it took just two weeks on an American-type diet. He also demonstrated that regardless of the microbes you may not have inherited, what you feed the microbes you have can make a big difference in how they behave.
  

Full article: http://nautil.us/issue/30/identity/how-t...-evolution