What is the Western Diet - and why can’t we stop eating it?
Do you love the science - and psychology - behind what we eat and why we eat it? Then this one's for you!
The Western Diet that our society consumes today has had adverse effects on our gut microbiota (organisms in our gut essential for helping absorb nutrients), which in return has resulted in diseases, disorders in the brain, neurodegenerative disorders, and depression. Not good, right? This is because there has been no evolutionary adaptation of commensal microbial species that live in the human gastrointestinal tract. The Western Diet is considered to be disease-causing because of the effect it plays on our immune response in our nervous system tissues. And believe it or not, this plays a significant role in our mood and cognitive function - negatively more than anything.
What is the Western Diet?
The Western Diet, also known as the Standard American Diet, consists of mainly processed, high-sugar, and high-fat foods contributing to chronic diseases. Our ancestors once ate non-processed meats, vegetables, and fruits without the added pesticides. Over 70% of daily energy intake consumed by individuals in the United States now comes from foods that our preagricultural ancestors didn’t use for energy. Even the meat we eat today is very different from the meat our ancestors ate in the past due to it being highly processed. Think bacon, cold cuts, and fast food burgers. The meat we eat today contains a lower value of Omega-3s because of the processing and the way our cattle are fed. Omega-3s are anti-inflammatory and necessary for brain and cell health. With the addition of the Western Diet being engrained so fast into our world, our bodies have not been able to adapt. This has negatively impacted our digestive, nervous, and immune systems.
The gut-brain axis
The food we consume has the ability to directly impact our brain function. This is because of the gut-brain axis. The gut-brain axis is known as a two-way connective street between the central nervous system and enteric nervous system, bringing together emotional and cognitive centers together influencing intestinal functions. There are three modes of communication within the brain-gut axis. The first is neuronal messages carried by vagal afferents (sensory information from the upper gastrointestinal tract to the central nervous system), the second is endocrine messages carried by gut hormones, and the third is immune messages carried by cytokines. It is important to note that our gastrointestinal tract is home to over 500 million neurons and is responsible for producing an abundance of hormones. Among other functions, these hormones are responsible for regulating when we’re hungry and when we’re not.
Why are our microbiota so important anyway?
The role our gut microbiota play is never ending. The microbiota in our gut can transform food components into metabolites. Metabolites have essential metabolic and signaling functions that can regulate blood-brain integrity (helps maintain homeostasis) and maintain proper brain function. Our gut microbiota break down complex molecules into simpler ones, an example of this being amino acids (found in the protein we eat). The breakdown of amino acids influences the balance of neurotransmitters, which is essential for proper brain function. Our gut microbiota also regulates our release of serotonin. Serotonin plays a key role in numerous body functions including mood regulation, sleep, digestion… the list goes on. Without this release of serotonin, things can go downhill pretty quickly. To put into perspective how powerful our gut microbiota is, it is responsible for about 95% of the body’s supply of serotonin. That’s a lot! If we don’t put the right foods into our gut, our guts become unbalanced and unable to do their jobs, which in return affect our moods.
The Western Diet’s impact on the gut-brain axis
The Western Diet has been believed to be a major cause of chronic diseases, anxiety, and depression because of the interconnectedness of the gut-brain axis. What we put in our mouths affects our digestive, immune, and nervous systems. As well as our mood and brain chemistry. It has been shown that individuals with circulating pro-inflammatory markers have shown to have clinical depression. And since the majority of the foods the Western Diet consists of are pro-inflammatory, they’re mainly to blame for this.
Why can’t we stop eating ice cream and donuts? The pleasure trap may be to blame.
So, why is it that we can know that eating refined sugars, processed foods, and additives can have a negative impact on not just our gut, but our mental health too – and yet we still do it? This would be known as the pleasure trap. Humans are historically motivated by three things: pleasure (food and sex), pain avoidance, and energy conservation. We seek out pleasure, avoid anything that’s uncomfortable, and like to be lazy because it means we save our energy. When we eat these ultra high processed foods, they send signals from our gut to our brain that release the pleasure type of hormones that make us feel good; even though we’re doing something that we know isn’t right or best for our well-being. When we eat real whole foods that our ancestors ate, we don’t get those same chemical responses in our brains that make us feel good in the moment; so we just don't eat them in most cases. However, those processed foods are damaging our gut, keeping it from doing its job, and making us in some cases, mentally ill.
So what do we do about it?
Eat real, unprocessed foods the majority of the time. Foods like apples, bananas, broccoli, sweet potatoes, salmon, shellfish…the list goes on. These are the same foods our ancestors ate. And while eating only unprocessed foods is not realistic - and maybe not even preferable - focusing on consuming primarily the foods our ancestors ate have the ability to positively impact our physical, mental, and emotional health.
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