Just a two-week diet swap shows just how bad a Western diet of junk food is for us.
Americans who ate a traditional South African menu for two weeks showed big changes in their digestive system. And, frighteningly, South Africans who ate the foods usually eaten by a group of African-Americans from Pittsburgh showed digestive changes that could, in theory, lead to colon cancer.
It's a small study and covered just a short period of time. But the researchers say they are struck at how clear the changes were and how short a time it took to change the inner workings of the gut with a change of diet.
"It will be important to know whether these types of dietary changes will have a meaningful effect not just on biomarkers but on actual rates of colon cancer over time," said Dr. Andrew Chan, a gastroenterologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, who was not involved in the study.