VIDEO: How Mediterranean-style diets can help combat inflammation

CHICAGO — In this video, an expert at NUTRITION discusses ongoing research investigating the role of the gut microbiota in nutrition and inflammation.

“Our focus is looking at how, if we know that you can’t really pinpoint what’s a healthy microbiota, we can say, ‘but this particular biota is not producing things that are going to improve inflammation,’” Mary C. Andreae, PhD, RD, LDN, an assistant professor at East Tennessee State University, told Healio.

According to Andreae, the question then comes back to what supports butyrate-producing microbiota.

Ultimately, these can include fruits, vegetables and polyphenols, “that Mediterranean-style type of diet,” she said.

“It’s interesting, in nutrition, you can go into what’s interacting with cells and it all comes back to these vegetable-based diets being more anti-inflammatory,” Andreae said. “It changes the microbiome. It changes what they produce.”