Today I want to point out an interesting study , which was also attended the University of Florence, who compared the gut flora of African children in Burkina Faso with the Florentines of children the same age, to assess possible consequences composition of the intestinal bacterial population due to very different diets. The children of Burkina Faso were selected as typical consumers in a rural African diet: their food contains a low content of protein and animal fats and is instead rich in starch, fiber, and plant polysaccharides, and mostly vegetarian. The diet of these children consists mainly of cereals, legumes and vegetables. Although the intake of animal protein is very low, sometimes these children eat a small amount of meat (chicken) and termites
Italian children instead, eat a typical Western diet, rich in animal protein, sugar, starch and fat and poor instead of fibers. The details of Western Power we know them well, so I will not dwell further.
In terms of intestinal flora, children of Burkina Faso showed a significant enrichment of bacteria of the genus Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes impoverishment rather than the kind with a unique abundance of bacteria from the genus Prevotella and Xylanibacter completely Florentine and absent in children known to contain a set of genes for the digestion of cellulose and hydrolysis of xylan (both non-digestible in the digestive tract human). The intestine of Italian children was richer instead of pathogenic bacteria such as those of the genus Enterobacteriaceae (Escherichia coli and Shigella). Finally, the intestine of African children contained many more short-chain fatty acids compared to the Italians, another fact that suggests a greater digestion of the polysaccharides mentioned above.
A very interesting question stressed by the authors of this study is the fact that the relationship between bacteria of the genus Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes bacteria of the genus is different if you comparing individuals of normal weight and obese individuals, and this difference is reduced with weight loss and a low-calorie diet. It is therefore reasonable to assume that the increase in the ratio F / B in the Italian children, probably driven by their high-calorie diet, could be a step in the development of obesity in the future, but this is still speculation. One interesting hypothesis is also that the particular intestinal microflora is associated with a diet rich in polysaccharides, enabling them to maximize energy intake from fibers on the one hand, but also to protect them from infectious and inflammatory diseases of the colon.
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