Mediterranean Diet and Health: Food Effects on Gut Microbiota and Disease Control

Abstract

The Mediterranean diet (MD) is considered one of the healthiest dietary models. Many of the characteristic components of the MD have functional features with positive effects on health and wellness. The MD adherence, calculated through various computational scores, can lead to a reduction of the incidence of major diseases (e.g., cancers, metabolic and cardiovascular syndromes, neurodegenerative diseases, type 2 diabetes and allergy). Furthermore, eating habits are the main significant determinants of the microbial multiplicity of the gut, and dietary components influence both microbial populations and their metabolic activities from the early stages of life. For this purpose, we present a study proposal relying on the generation of individual gut microbiota maps from MD-aware children/adolescents. The maps, based on meta-omics approaches, may be considered as new tools, acting as a systems biology-based proof of evidence to evaluate MD effects on gut microbiota homeostasis. Data integration of food metabotypes and gut microbiota “enterotypes” may allow one to interpret MD adherence and its effects on health in a new way, employable for the design of targeted diets and nutraceutical interventions in childcare and clinical management of food-related diseases, whose onset has been significantly shifted early in life.

Alzheimer’s disease and gut microbiota

“…Marlow et al showed that the Mediterranean diet appeared to benefit the health of Crohn's disease patients, reflected by a trend for reduced inflammation biomarkers and normalization of the gut microbiota with increasing Bacteroidetes and Clostridium and decreasing Proteobacteria and Bacillaceae (Marlow et al, 2013). This also suggests that the Mediterranean diet may play important roles in disease control including AD through balancing the gut microbiota (Del Chierico et al, 2014).…”

Med Diet 4.0: the Mediterranean diet with four sustainable benefits

“…The Mediterranean diet may positively influence the ageing process (70) by delaying the evolution of cognitive decline linked to Alzheimer's disease (71) and vascular dementia, which is often documented a long time before the clinical diagnosis of dementia (72) . The Mediterranean diet appears to have numerous other health advantages that are still under study, such as lower peripheral artery disease (73) , decreased inflammation and improved endothelial function (74) , improved respiratory fitness (75) and immunity (76) , decreased mental disorders such as depression (77) , as well as improved quality of life (78) . This substantial body of scientific evidence links the Mediterranean diet to the prevention of the main chronic non-communicable diseases.…”

Effects of Walnut Consumption on Colon Carcinogenesis and Microbial Community Structure

“…These whole foods contain a variety of polyphenols and plant bioactive compounds that have modifying activities against inflammation, tumorigenesis, and atherogenesis (6). While dietary patterns undoubtedly exert a powerful effect on the gut microbiome (7), there is accumulating evidence that among the beneficial effects of the Mediterranean diet is the ability to positively impact the composition of the gut microbiota (7,8).…”