Nordic-Type Diet Curbs Obesity Trigger

The Nordic-type diet, enjoyed by residents of Norway, Sweden and Denmark, is abundant in berries, vegetables, whole grains, and oily fish.  Marjukka Kolehmainen, from the University of Eastern Finland (Finland), and colleagues assessed a group of obese adults with features of the metabolic syndrome who participated in an 18- to 24-week randomized intervention study comparing the a Nordic diet (consisting of whole grain products, vegetables, root vegetables, berries, fruit, low-fat dairy products, rapeseed oil and three servings of fish per week) with a control diet (low-fiber grain products, butter-based spreads, and limited intake of fish).  Subjects were asked to maintain their body weight unchanged during the intervention, and no significant weight changes occurred during the study period. Samples of the study participants’ adipose tissue were taken at the beginning and end of the study, and a transcriptomics analysis was performed in order to study the expression of genes. The team observed differences in the function of as many as 128 different genes in the adipose tissue of the group consuming the Nordic diet vs. control group. In the Nordic diet group, the expression of several inflammation-associated genes was lower than in the control group.  The study authors report that: “A healthy Nordic diet reduces inflammatory gene expression in [subcutaneous adipose tissue] compared with a control diet independently of body weight change in individuals with features of the metabolic syndrome.”