Evolution of human diet and microbiome-driven disease

During hominin history, innovations such as cooking have made a wider selection of dietary sources of energy accessible. In recent times, cooking has moved from the home kitchen to the factory with the diet of many people dominated by commercially prepared foods that are often high in fat and low in fiber content. Cooking has also introduced a variety of flavoring spices and herbs into our diet that have intrinsic anti-microbial properties. In this review, we will focus on a changing diet’s effects on the gut microbiota with particular emphasis on the availability of dietary fiber as a fermentable substrate for the gut microbiota. The connection between the amount of fiber in our diet and chronic inflammation has been long known. Is the link between low fiber intake and inflammation a direct effect resulting from eating more ‘inflammatory food’ or an indirect effect via a diet-induced unhealthy change in the microbiome? Understanding the explanation for food-related inflammation is critical to our ability to develop novel strategies to treat the modern epidemic of obesity and inflammatory diseases.