Men in Tanzania switched from an African diet to a Western one heres what happened to their bodies

We’ve all heard how Mediterranean, Japanese and other traditional diets can work wonders for our health, but what if the tables were turned? In a bold new experiment, researchers asked Tanzanian men to swap their plant-based, fiber-rich diets for a Western-style regimen filled with calorie-dense, processed foods.It took just two weeks for the shocking effects to show up in their bodies — and the consequences lingered after they returned to their normal ways of life. For the study, researchers from Radboud University and KCMC University in Tanzania joined forces to investigate the effects of a diet swap on 77 healthy young men from rural and urban Tanzania. Participants who regularly ate traditional Kilimanjaro diets were instructed to switch to a Western diet, which included foods like beef sausage, fried chicken, pizza, potato chips, white rice, macaroni, eggs and very few fruits or vegetables.The results were alarming: after just two weeks, the men gained an average of 5.7 pounds.Their blood also showed an increase in inflammatory proteins, as well as metabolic changes linked to chronic conditions like heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Worse still, their immune cells became less effective at fighting off dangerous pathogens, making them more vulnerable to infections.Even after the participants returned to their usual diets, some of the negative effects lingered for up to four weeks, highlighting how short-term dietary changes can have lasting consequences, the study authors noted. The study didn’t end there.Researchers also tested what would happen if participants who typically followed a Western diet switched to a traditional African one. These men followed a traditional Kilimanjaro diet for two weeks, which was packed with vegetables, fruits, legumes, brown rice, whole grains, roots and tubers, as well as fermented foods.

Meat consumption, typically limited to once or twice a week, primarily involved local free-range chicken and fish. Researchers ...