African Tribal Secret Stops Colon Cancer

Dear Reader,

A few weeks ago, I harvested the pomegranates from one of my trees at my home in Southern Arizona.

This fruit is one of my favorite summertime treats, and it’s not just because they’re dripping with sweet red juice and bursting with flavor (which they are).

It’s because eating fruit that’s in season – called seasonal eating — is especially good for your health.

In fact, according to a recent study on an African tribe, seasonal eating could hold the key to improving your gut health…. and dramatically lowering your risk of colon cancer.

You’d be hard-pressed to find people in the U.S. that practice seasonal eating.

But there are still groups of people in the world that don’t have any other choice. One such group lives in Tanzania. They’re known as the Hazda.

This group of people are essentially one of the last true hunter-gatherer, nomadic groups left on the planet.

This means their diet naturally varies with the seasons, and it consists mainly of meat, tubers, berries, a type of fruit called baobab, and honey.

These people don’t have a way to store food.

Here’s what else they don’t have: chronic diseases.

Conditions that are all too common here in America – things like ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, IBS, and even colon cancer – are unheard of in this society.

While I’m sure there are MANY reasons for this, a group of researchers from Stanford University focused primarily on the impact seasonal eating has on the gut.

Gut health is an often-overlooked factor in our overall health and wellbeing. Millions of bacteria live in your gut and make up your microbiome. They help digest your food, regulate your weight, and they play a large role in moderating your immune system.

In order to do all of these things, your gut needs to have a healthy balance of good bacteria, as well as plenty of diversity. Modern living leads to an imbalance in our microbiome, which opens the door for chronic disease.

When the researchers studied 190 Hazda men and women over a period of 18 months, they found dramatic differences in their microbiome.

Despite the lack of diversity in the diet, the Hazda people had about 30 percent more diversity in the gut microbiome than we do. And as the people varied their diet with the seasons, the types of gut bacteria varied seasonally as well.

This important study is the FIRST to demonstrate a cyclical change in the gut microbiome.

The good news is that incorporating seasonal foods into your diet is one of the easiest ways to improve your gut microbiome – and your overall health.

If you want to find out what’s in season near you, visit www.seasonalfoodguide.org.

To a brighter day,

Dr. Richard Gerhauser, M.D.