Questions & Answers

Why Eating Too Much Fruit Isn’t Good For Your Gut

Some patients I see eat way too much fruit. Some people eat ten pieces of fruit per day. I think that’s far too much.

Eating anything in excess is not good for the body. I’ve always maintained that consuming particular foods is fine, like vegetable consumption or meat consumption, but it should be in balance with other kinds of foods.

I’m not here to argue the different merits of diets, you know, whether you are a vegan or whether you are a paleo person. This article is about the downsides of eating too much fruit.
If you eat excessive amounts of fruit, you’re going to be overloaded with fructose. Fructose consumed in abundance can upset intestinal permeability and encourage the growth of harmful bacteria in the gut.

Some studies have shown that large amounts of fructose can cause liver damage. Further, people who eat far too much fruit tend to have lower Bacteroides levels. At the same time, proteobacteria levels tend to go up.

Related articles:

The microbiome often reflects the type of food a person east. For example, Prevotella bacteria thrive in the gut when a person eats a lot of fiber, particularly vegetable fiber.

Bacteroides bacteria prefer a mixed kind of a diet, especially if there’s a bit of meat in the diet. A healthy person will have a balance of different classes of bacteria.

If a person starts overeating one particular food, the result can be a bacterial imbalance in the gut. That’s why my motto is “Everything in moderation, nothing in excess” when it comes to healthy foods.

Of course, this motto doesn’t apply to unhealthy foods like high-fructose corn syrup. Up to 60% of foods now in US supermarkets contain high-fructose corn syrup. Avoid that substance as much as you can.

I am in favor of fruit, but I’m definitely not in favor of ten pieces of fruit a day. Definitely not.

Sources: