Friendly foods

| 3 June 2013
minute reading time

We all know that fibre is good for us and we should eat plenty of fibre-rich foods every day but a new study shows it’s even more beneficial than we thought! Six meat-eating obese people with type 2 diabetes and/or high blood pressure were assigned to a strict vegetarian, high-fibre, low-fat diet for one month. At the end of the month, the diet had not only achieved weight loss but just about every marker of previous bad health – cholesterol, fats and blood sugar – was improved. Two people’s results showed they could no longer be diagnosed as diabetics. The diet also positively altered the ratio of gut bacteria – it encouraged the ‘good’ bacteria and decreased the numbers of ‘bad’ bacteria contributing to gut inflammation. Viva!Health conducted an in-depth research on diet and diabetes and produced materials to help you understand and defeat diabetes – go to Diabetes to find out more.

Kim, M.S. et al., 2013. Strict vegetarian diet improves the risk factors associated with metabolic diseases by modulating gut microbiota and reducing intestinal inflammation. Environmental Microbiology Reports. 5 (5) 765-775.

About the author
Dr. Justine Butler
I joined Viva! as a health campaigner in 2005 after graduating from Bristol University with a PhD in molecular biology. My scientific training helped me research and write numerous reports, guides and fact sheets for Viva! including Meat the Truth, Fish-Free for Life, One in Nine (breast cancer and diet) and the substantial report on the detrimental health effects of consuming dairy; White Lies. This accompanied Viva!’s report The Dark Side of Dairy which spelt out the inherent cruelty of dairy farming. We were the first UK group to take on the dairy industry in this way, and many of our supporters go vegan after reading these reports.

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