Who could have thought that one’s chocolate preference along with wine would affect your gut bugs? Researchers from Belgium and Netherlands have presented one of the most impressive work on the human microbiome till date.
In two different studies done by two different organisation, they have not only identified these elements but have come up with factors such as diversity, the amount of sleep, etc. which can affect your gut.
The Study done by Jeroen Raes at the University of Leuven in Belgium is connected with the Flemish Gut Flora Project, which collected stool from 3500 volunteers.
Out of the 35,500 stools, they have been able to analyse 1,100 samples so far. These study gave out some of the most shocking results while there were some already known factors like eating fruit and consumption of fibre can affect your gut.
At the same time out of the 68 different factor, there were some shocking finding like consuming antihistamines, hormonal contraceptives, and anti-inflammatory drugs can also affect the poop. Whereas one’s preference of white or dark chocolate could also dramatically influence the human microbiome.
To make their study more relevant Jeroen Raes cross-checked his study with a Dutch Health monitoring program called lifelines. This program has played a significant role in the analysis for the source of other research that was led by the University of Groningen’s Cisca Wijmenga.
Jeroen Raes also believes not only will it give us a clear picture of the different human consumption and its effect on our body but will also help in understanding what can be the different elements that can be picked from this to treat the disease.
But the surprising part of the study was the fact that early life events such as birth mode or whether or not volunteers were birth-fed as babies did not make any difference to the education.
One factor that played a significant role in the gut composition was the diversity in the population. Countries which are also just as far as New York and DC have found the gut composition with marked differences.
For examples if one compares the Dutch and Belgium dietary consumption with Belgium more inclined towards chocolate and the Dutch favoring their milk more. These nature of human consumption can also lead to very significant dietary distinction.
Even though chocolate and wine did play a prominent factor in the dietary consumption but this factor only accounted for a minuscule variation. Factors such as lifestyle and genetics can also play a very prominent role in it. But this has not been covered in the study so far.
To understand the complete gut composition of a human being and what elements can effect it, Jeroen Raes estimates that around 40,000 human samples are required to understand the gut flora biodiversity.
But as of now one can indulge in the sweet bite of chocolate with a glass of wine.
