It seems like Southern European countries such as Greece, Spain and Italy have long held he secrets to good eating, as every few months there are new studies showing different Mediterranean diet benefits, ranging from cancer and diabetes prevention to even keeping a healthy heart - and now, new research says it might also help with stomach health.
In the latest discovery regarding the Mediterranean diet's benefits, a team of Italian researchers found that people following this eating plan had higher level of short chain fatty acids (SCFAs), believed to provide a large number of health benefits such as lowering inflammatory diseases as well as lowering the risk of diabetes and heart disease.
As Medical News Today reports, these SCFAs include propionate, butyrate and acetate, and some of the properties of these different fatty acids include anti-inflammatory ones.
According to Web MD, the new Mediterranean diet benefits study was concocted by researchers in one of the countries that traditionally follows the diet plan the most, Italy, as it researched the eating habits of 153 adults in the country.
Of the people researched for the study, it was found that there were three groups that excelled in the presence of SCFAs: vegetarians, vegans and those reaping the various Mediterranean diet benefits.
"We provide tangible evidence of the impact of a healthy diet and a Mediterranean dietary pattern on gut microbiota and on the beneficial regulation of microbial metabolism towards health maintenance in the host," wrote the authors of the most recent Mediterranean diet benefits paper in the Gut journal, according to India Economic Times.
The Mediterranean diet consists of high consumption of foods such as olive oil, legumes, fruits, vegetables and unrefined cereals, as well as moderate consumption of fish, dairy products and wine, as well as low consumption of meat products other than fish.
It seems like there are newly discovered Mediterranean diet benefits every month!
