Appolonia Adeyemi 
A new Northwestern University study has suggested that a vegetable and fruit juice-only diet—even for just three days—can trigger shifts in gut and oral bacteria linked to inflammation and cognitive decline.
The study was recently published in ‘Nutrients’ Northwestern University scientists studied three groups of healthy adults.
One group consumed only juice, another had juice with whole foods and a third ate only whole plant-based foods.
The juice-only group showed the most significant increase in bacteria associated with inflammation and gut permeability, while the plant-based whole food group saw more favourable microbial changes.
The juice plus food group had some bacterial shifts but less severe than the juiceonly group. These findings suggest that juicing without fibre may disrupt the microbiome, potentially leading to long-term health consequences, reported the ‘Medical Xpress’.
Fibre are dietary material containing substances such as cellulose, lignin, and pectin, that are resistant to the action of digestive enzymes.
On its part, the microbiome is the collection of all microbes, such as bacteria, fungi, viruses, and their genes, that naturally live on on and inside the human body.
