Research
Mixed
Highly processed foods containing 'acellular' nutrients (refined starches/sugars lacking cellular structure) promote obesity by altering gut microbiome composition, increasing host nutrient absorption, and reducing microbiome energy use.
Choose whole, minimally processed foods over refined, 'acellular' carbohydrates (like white flour or sugar). The intact cellular structure of whole foods feeds your gut microbiome, which helps regulate how much energy you extract and store.
ModerateSupportsMEDIUM confidence
Such refined 'acellular' carbohydrates—lacking any natural, intact plant cellular structure—are rapidly and completely digested in the stomach and small intestine, causing a double insult of excess flux of nutrients to the host and insufficient nourishment of the gut microbiome.
Why this rating
Supported by animal models and human observational data, but the paper calls for more rigorous scientific inquiry.
Source
Perspective: Obesity—an unexplained epidemic
Dariush Mozaffarian · American Journal of Clinical Nutrition · 2022
DOI 10.1093/ajcn/nqac075
narrative_reviewCited 104×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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