STINKY CHEESE HELPS FRENCH LIVE LONGER

SCIENTIFIC knowledge is turning against the message that ‘fats are bad for you’. Instead, research is increasingly showing how eating the right fats can boost your health — and help ‘good’ bacteria to flourish.

Last year, a six-year Spanish study of 8,000 men and women found that they cut their risk of becoming obese by 40 per cent if they ate at least one serving of natural yoghurt daily, says the journal Nutrition, Metabolism and Cardiovascular Diseases.

Tests show yoghurt raises levels of thiamine, a form of vitamin B produced uniquely by human gut microbes, which helps our hearts, brains and nerves by turning food to energy.

Bacteria strains in yoghurt have also been found to boost the immune system and reduce inflammation, a 2013 study in the Journal of Dairy Sciences found. But low-fat versions, especially those with added sugar or puréed fruit, don’t seem to have the same benefit, as sugar stops bacteria growing.

Olive oil appears highly helpful. More than 80 per cent of its healthy fats and nutrients reach the colon. Here, they come into contact with microbes, which feed on antioxidants in the oil, encouraging healthy microbes, such as lactobacilli, to flourish. These help clear fats, such as cholesterol, from our blood and stop infectious microbes colonising our guts.

Diets high in these beneficial fats appear to explain the reasons behind what is called the ‘French paradox’, whereby the French suffer considerably fewer deaths from heart disease and have a longer lifespan than the British.

This is despite the fact they eat lots of foods that, in Britain and the U.S., are regarded as fatty and unhealthy, such as unpasteurised cheese and yoghurt. However, these foods are packed with living microbes that may promote diverse and healthy gut bacteria.

Taking antibiotics can significantly kill off the range and diversity of bacteria in our stomachs. This, in turn, appears to increase our risk of weight gain.

Research from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children — which has followed 12,000 children from birth in Bristol in 1991 and 1992 — shows those who were given antibiotics in their first six months put on 22 per cent more fat than other children, and were significantly more likely to become obese.

But if you have to take antibiotics, trials have suggested cheese may protect the balance of gut bacteria. Unprocessed cheese — especially unpasteurised — may be particularly beneficial, as it contains a wide variety of microbes, including bacteria, yeasts and fungi.

A study in the Journal of Applied Microbiology in 2007 found that people given unpasteurised hard cheese along with antibiotic drugs recovered faster and also had fewer antibioticresistant bugs in their system.