What is the underlying theme in your research?
I’m interested in the microbiome from an ecological perspective. I see the microbes in and on our body as an ecosystem, like a rainforest for example, and I try to understand how members within this ecosystem evolved and how do these communities assemble and function.
Once we understand this better, we can look at how to modify these ecosystems to promote health and protect against disease. I am based in the School of Microbiology and the Department of Medicine in UCC, and I’m a Principal Investigator with APC Microbiome Ireland - a Research Ireland centre.
You have developed a diet through your research – what is it?
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The NiMe diet. NiMe means non-industrialised microbiome restore, is based on research we did looking at the gut microbes of traditional populations in Papua New Guinea, who have a much more diverse community of microbes in their guts and far less chronic disease than we see in industrialised communities.
We developed a diet with many of the characteristics of a non-industrialised diet. It is based on eating whole-plant foods like vegetables, fruits and legumes, and small servings of animal protein, but no dairy, beef or wheat, and very few highly processed foods.
What inspired you to do that?
My initial degree in Germany was in food science, and then I became interested in the microbiome through looking at how we might use probiotics and prebiotics to modify these ecosystems.
But very early in my research career, I moved to looking at how what we eat can affect the ecosystem of microbes in our guts.
There has been a three-way relationship between humans, microbiomes and diet over hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, and for many of us our diet has changed radically in the past 10,000 years and even more so in the last two centuries, because of industrialisation. We wanted to see how moving to a more pre-industrial diet could affect the microbiome.
What happens when people switch to this pattern of eating?
One of my collaborators on NiMe, Dr Anissa Armet, did a lot of work on this at the University of Alberta. She prepared the meals for participants on our studies, and we could see that when people ate this way, over time, their blood cholesterol and glucose levels came down to readings more associated with good long-term health, they lost weight, and the markers of damaging inflammation in their bodies reduced.
We saw changes in the bacteria in their intestines too – we particularly saw how the NiMe diet was associated with fewer bacteria that can damage the mucus lining of the gut. We published the findings in the journal Cell, one of the leading scientific journals in the world.
Did you try it yourself?
Yes, I had been eating in a less-than-healthy way, and since I switched to the NiMe diet I have lost weight and my blood tests are coming back with healthier results.
What do you find exciting about research?
I like doing research that can help people. Anissa and I have written a guide to the NiMe diet that you can download for free, and I hope that it can help people to modify their gut ecology and improve their health. We also hope to be able to provide meal kits for people too, to make it easier to eat this way.
[ Make-up of gut microbiome may be linked to long Covid – study findsOpens in new window ]
And what do you do when you have time away from research?
I love cooking. And running. And playing the guitar, when I get the chance. I enjoy playing with my kids, and trying to teach them about bacteria, healthy food and speaking German.
You can find out more about the NiMe Diet at https://www.thenimediet.com/
