Common Beans and Cowpeas for Gut Health in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Stunting affects about 25% of children worldwide, and accounts for 20% of disability adjusted life years in children less than 5 years of age.  The causes of stunting are multifactorial, and one of these is gut health. Gut Health refers to the ability of the gut to absorb adequate amounts of nutrients from the diet, and appropriately modulate inflammation so as to eliminate microbes from the gut tissue, while not promoting a chronic inflammatory state.

Gut health is in large part the consequence of diet.  Diet has 2 components, nutrient content and non-nutritive content.  Our understanding of the role in non-nutritive components of the diet has changed recently with our awareness of the microbiota and microbiome.  

In this talk I will discuss the origins of poor gut health in African children, the nutritive and non-nutritive content of common beans and cowpeas and how these legumes might improve gut health and consequently growth and development in this population.

Understanding this new dimension to nutrition may allow us to make significant inroads on the problem of malnutrition.