We all know that eating broccoli and vegies is good for us while sugary drinks, burgers and chips are bad. But what we didn’t know is that effects of unhealthy eating from childhood may last for the rest of our lives.

Kids’ diet affects their health later in life

Researchers checked how childhood diet affects the health of gut later in life and discovered there are life-long consequences. A ration containing too much sugar and fat results in less diversity of gut bacteria as well as drop in the total number of intestinal microbes, Science Daily reported.

The study was done on mice, which were fed a ration similar to the typical western diet. The effects of unhealthy eating during childhood were still obvious much later into adulthood, which in human kids would be about 6 years after puberty.

Microbiome includes all the bacteria, fungi, and microorganisms that live inside the intestinal tract and help humans to break down the food, assisting in production of vitamins and enzymes required for the body to function properly.

Healthy microbiome includes both pathogenic and beneficial organisms, which are in balance. But if this balance is disturbed (because of use of antibiotics, sickness, or poor diet), then the organism becomes susceptible to illnesses.

Kids’ diet affects their health later in life

Rats on a wheel

We like talking about a “rat race” but in case of mice access to an exercise wheel helps them to stay fit in captivity.

For this study, young mice were divided into 4 groups:

• Eating healthy diet vs. Western diet.
• With access to an exercise wheel or without it.

After 3 weeks all mice returned to their regular ration with no exercise, which is how they are usually kept in laboratories.

At the 14-week mark scientists checked the quality of microbiome of all 4 groups.

• The rodents who were on Western diet had a substantial decrease in the number of some important bacteria (Muribaculum intestinale) in processing carbohydrates.
• Exercising had proved to be beneficial as well. As compared to the animals who didn’t exercise, the ones with access to the wheel had increased numbers of the important bacteria, if they were on a standard diet. But the ones who ate too much fat and sugar still had a drop in the number of these microbes (regardless of exercising or not).

Scientists believe this bacteria may regulate the amount of energy available to the host and possibly have some other useful functions.

In fact, scientists believe that diet early in life has more impact on developing microbiome than exercise during the same period.

Apparently, not only we are what we eat, but also what we ate as kids!

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