Have you ever wondered if there's a natural way to lower your high blood pressure,

guard against Alzheimer's, lose weight, feel better?

Well, it turns out there is.

Welcome to the Nutrition Facts podcast.

I'm your host, Dr. Michael Greger.

Did you know that eating a diet filled with animal products can disrupt your microbiome

faster than taking an antibiotic?

Here's our first story.

If you go online and search for Crohn's disease in diet or ulster of colitis in diet,

the top results are a hodgepods of conflicting advice.

What does the science say? If you do a systematic review

of the medical literature on dietary intake and the risk of developing inflammatory bowel disease,

Crohn's disease is associated with the intake of fat and meat, whereas dietary fiber

and fruits appear protected. The same foods are associated with the other major inflammatory bowel

disease, ulcerative colitis, fat and meat, and with a protective association found for vegetable

intake. Why, according to this meta-analysis of nine separate studies, do meat consumers

have about a 50% greater risk for inflammatory bowel disease?

Well, one possibility is that meat be a vehicle for bacteria that play a role in the development of such diseases.

Meat contains huge amounts of ursinia.

For example, yes, maybe antibiotic residues in the meat could be theoretically kind of mucking

with our microbiome, but

Yersinia are so-called psychotropic bacteria, meaning they're able to grow at fridge temperatures,

...