Led by Hariom Yadav, Ph.D., of the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, NC, the research found that a Mediterranean diet significantly increased the abundance of "good" bacteria in the guts of monkeys, compared with a Western diet.
Yadav and his team recently published their findings in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition.
The Mediterranean diet primarily consists of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, fish, and poultry. It also limits red meat, but the occasional glass of red wine is allowed.
A number of studies have hailed the heath benefits of a Mediterranean diet. A recent study that was reported by Medical News Today, for example, linked the diet to a lower risk of prostate cancer, while other research claims that a Mediterranean diet can protect heart health.
The Mediterranean diet was also ranked as the top diet for diabetes by a panel of health experts earlier this year, and it came in just behind the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) for heart health.
But the benefits of this Mediterranean eating plan do not stop there; the new research from Yadav and colleagues suggests that the Mediterranean diet may also be good for the gut.
Lactobacillus increased in the gut
The researchers came to their conclusion by studying a group of 20 monkeys. For 30 months, the monkeys were randomized to one of two diets: a Mediterranean diet or a Western diet. Both of these diets contained the same number of calories.
The Mediterranean diet included fish oil, olive oil, butter, egg, fish meal, wheat flour, black and garbanzo bean flour, fruit puree, vegetable juice, and sucrose.
The Western diet was made up of lard, butter, cholesterol, eggs, beef tallow, high-fructose corn syrup, and sucrose.