Native Africans who eat largely plant-based diets tend to have a Prevotella enterotype, while African Americans eating a typical Western diet tend to be in the Bacteroides camp. This may help explain why African Americans have fifty times more colon cancer, since short-chain fatty acids don’t just protect against obesity but have anticancer properties as well.2094 The question then becomes: How long does it take to shift your gut flora from one enterotype to the other?
