Swiss doctors have discovered a startling fact: the amount of fruits and vegetables consumed in food is directly proportional to strengthening the immune system and, in particular, reducing the disease of allergic asthma.
According to Science Daily magazine, a significant medical discovery has recently been made. Physicians from the National Science Foundation of Switzerland (Swiss National Science Foundation, SNSF) have established the cause of the increased incidence of allergic asthma in Europe in recent years.
The problem of increasing cases of allergic asthma has been observed for the past 50 years, but recent years in Europe have been especially difficult. More and more people are getting sick. The yellow press even dubbed this phenomenon the “Asthma Epidemic in Europe” – although from a strictly medical point of view, the epidemic has not yet been observed.
Now, thanks to the efforts of a group of Swiss researchers, doctors have found the cause of the disease and the right way to prevent it. It turned out that the problem is just the wrong diet, which is followed by most Europeans. The food of the average inhabitant of the subcontinent contains no more than 0.6% of dietary fiber, which, according to the study, is not enough to maintain immunity at a sufficient level, including ensuring lung health.
Particularly susceptible to the consequences of a drop in immunity are the lungs, which get a large number of microscopic mites living in house dust (even the dust itself is almost invisible to the eye, because it has a size of no more than 0,1 mm). In urban conditions, each apartment contains a large amount of such dust, and the so-called “house dust mites”, therefore, the doctors found out that literally every city dweller who consumes an insufficient amount of dietary fiber is at an increased risk – and above all, can get allergic asthma.
Doctors unequivocally answered the question why allergic asthma has been “raging” for the last 50 years: simply because Europeans used to consume on average much more plant foods, and now they prefer high-calorie meat foods and fast food. It is clear that vegans and vegetarians can be excluded from the risk group, while the risk of disease among non-vegetarians is inversely proportional to the amount of plant food that still ends up on their table. The more fruits and vegetables we eat, the results of the study say, the stronger the immune system.
Swiss doctors have accurately established the mechanism by which the body creates an immune response necessary to prevent allergic asthma. Plant foods, they found, contain dietary fiber, which undergoes a fermentation process (fermentation) under the influence of bacteria contained in the intestine, and turns into short-chain fatty acids. These acids are carried in the blood stream and cause an increase in the number of immune cells in the bone marrow. These cells – when exposed to ticks on the body – are sent by the body to the lungs, which facilitates an allergic reaction. Thus, the more dietary fiber the body receives, the better the immune response, and the less the risk of allergic diseases, including asthma.
The experiments were carried out on mice, because The immune system of these rodents is almost identical to the human one. This makes this experiment especially significant from a scientific point of view.
The mice were divided into three groups: the first was given food with a low content of dietary fiber – about 0,3%: this is the amount that corresponds to the diet of the average European, who consumes no more than 0,6%. The second group was given food with a normal, “sufficient” according to modern dietary standards, dietary fiber content: 4%. The third group was given food with a high content of dietary fiber (the exact amount is not reported). Mice in all groups were then exposed to house dust mites.
The results confirmed the doctors’ guesses: many mice from the first group (“average Europeans”) had a strong allergic reaction, they had a large amount of mucus in their lungs; the second group (“good nutrition”) had fewer problems; and in the third group (“vegans”), the result was even much better than even mice from the middle group – and incomparably better than the “European meat-eating” mice. Thus, it turned out that in order to be healthy, one should not even consume “sufficient”, from the point of view of modern nutrition, the amount of fruits and vegetables, but an increased amount!
The head of the research team, Benjamin Marshland, recalled that today’s medicine has previously proven a link between a lack of dietary fiber intake and the prognosis of bowel cancer. Now, he said, it was medically confirmed that bacterial processes in the intestines affect other organs – in this case, the lungs. It turns out that the consumption of plant foods is even more important than previously thought!
“We plan to continue clinical studies to find out exactly how a diet, especially a diet rich in dietary fiber, helps the body fight allergies and inflammation,” Marshland said.
But today it is clear that you need to consume more fruits and vegetables if you want to be healthy.