In a time where ephemeral diet advice bombards us from every Instagrammer and morning show, it’s tempting to ignore the latest scientific report claiming to have a helpful idea about obesity.
In a new review, researchers suggest that the consumption of ultra-processed foods could cause obesity and related health problems because of the way the foods feed our gut microbes.
This isn’t the first time we’ve heard about processed foods, nor the first time we’ve heard about gut microbes. There’s research that supports and refutes the impact of both on our health.
But rather than try to home in on a single component of the obesity-prone Western diet – carbohydrates, or fats, or overconsumption – the new report takes aim at a bigger picture, formulating a hypothesis that allows for messy contributions from “all of the above.” The mechanism that underlies it all, they say, is the bacteria that live in our gut, helping us digest the food we eat.
