Recent research has shown that fermented foods can not only improve gut microbiome diversity, but lower the inflammatory response in your body that affects conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
While I was still in active practice, I was passionate about helping people with RA.
In fact, I
treated more than 3,000 people with this disease, 80 percent to 85 percent of whom experienced significant recovery, if not remission. One of the hallmark symptoms of RA is pain in the proximal joints of the hands or feet.
These are the joints that are closer to the palm of your hand as opposed to joints further out in your fingers. RA is also often symmetrical, which means it affects the same joints in both hands or feet. The condition is far less common than osteoarthritis.
In joints that are affected by RA, the lining becomes inflamed from an autoimmune and inflammatory response that causes your body’s own immune system to
attack itself. This can trigger chronic pain, loss of balance, and deformities.
Unlike osteoarthritis, which damages the cartilage between the bones
in your joints, RA can also affect other tissues outside of the joints, such as the
eyes, heart, and lungs. Many people with RA experience fatigue, low-grade fever, and symptoms that vary from day to day.
According to
Health Canada, “Approximately 374,000 (1.2 percent) Canadians aged 16 years and older live with diagnosed rheumatoid arthritis.” In the United States, a search of
health care claim databases from 2004 to 2014, researchers found the prevalence of RA in the U.S. population ranged from 0.41 to 0.54 percent. Numbers tend to vary substantially in each year and by gender and age. However, the data also revealed that the rate appeared to increase during that period, which affected a conservative estimate of up to 1.36 million adults by 2014.
A later study in 2019 indicated there has been a global rise in prevalence and incidence of RA. At the regional level, it appeared to be highest in the high-income areas of North America, the Caribbean, and Western Europe.
The lowest rates were found in Western sub-Saharan Africa, southeast Asia, and Oceania. The most recent
2021 study offers an insight into reducing the inflammatory response and, potentially, the damage caused by RA.
Fermented Foods Reduce Inflammatory Proteins
Researchers from Stanford Medicine published their data in the
journal Cell, in which they evaluated 19 inflammatory protein biomarkers from 36 healthy adults who were
randomly assigned to eating either fermented or high-fiber foods over a 10-week intervention period. Both diets have shown an ability to impact gut microbiome in past scientific studies.
In this clinical trial, researchers sought to evaluate how two microbiota-targeted diet interventions could
modulate the gut microbiome. They found the gut microbiome and immune system effects on the participants were
different. The scientists measured stool and blood samples collected during a three-week period before the intervention diet started, during the intervention, and during a four-week period after the diet ended.
In contrast to the reduction of
inflammatory markers in a group eating fermented foods, those eating a high-fiber diet that consisted of legumes, seeds, whole grains, fruits, nuts, and vegetables showed no change in inflammatory markers or microbial diversity. Erica Sonnenburg was on the research team and said in a
press release:
“We expected high fiber to have a more universally beneficial effect and increase microbiota diversity. The data suggest that increased fiber intake alone over a short time period is insufficient to increase microbiota diversity.
“It is possible that a longer intervention would have allowed for the microbiota to adequately adapt to the increase in fiber consumption. Alternatively, the deliberate introduction of fiber-consuming microbes may be required to increase the microbiota’s capacity to break down the carbohydrates.”
The researchers concluded that fermented foods could be a
valuable strategy to counteract a decreasing microbial diversity and increasing inflammatory response that is ubiquitous in Western society.
The process is controlled by microorganisms and the type of food being fermented. There’s a growing consensus that the fermentation process has nutritional benefits by
transforming the food and forming
bioavailable end products, including an increase in density of vitamins.
When you consume fermented foods, live cultures give you the
primary benefits. Unfortunately, fermented foods in the grocery store don’t usually contain live cultures. Instead, before packaging, they might be baked, pasteurized, filtered, or smoked. During the fermentation process, biologically active peptides are formed.
In one paper published in Nutrients, the authors wrote:
“Fermentation was found to increase antioxidant activity of milks, cereals, fruit and vegetables, meat and fish. Anti-hypertensive peptides are detected in fermented milk and cereals. Changes in vitamin content are mainly observed in fermented milk and fruits.
“Fermented milk and fruit juice were found to have probiotic activity. Other effects such as anti-diabetic properties, FODMAP [fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols] reduction, and changes in fatty acid profile are peculiar of specific food categories.”
“Among these peptides, conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), which have shown the ability to lower blood pressure, exopolysaccharides exhibit prebiotic properties, bacteriocins show anti-microbial effects, sphingolipids have anti-carcinogenic and anti-microbial properties, and bioactive peptides exhibit anti-oxidant, anti-microbial, opioid antagonist, anti-allergenic, and blood pressure lowering effects ...
“As a result, fermented foods provide many health benefits such as antioxidant, anti-microbial, anti-fungal, anti-inflammatory, anti-diabetic and anti-atherosclerotic activity.”
Gut Bacteria and Mental Health
Scientific evidence has demonstrated that your
gut microbiome plays a leading role in your mental health. Researchers have found there is
bidirectional communication between your gut microbiome and your central nervous system. It’s called the gut-brain axis and mounting evidence has demonstrated that dysbiosis, an imbalance in your microbiome, is associated with triggering mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression.
Some have coined the term
“psychobiome” to describe the crucial connection between your gut bacteria and how you think, feel, and act. A small start-up lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is researching human stool samples with a focus on brain drugs.
As Science Magazine reports, the small company hopes to capitalize on the mounting scientific evidence from animal studies and epidemiological studies that your gut microbiome is linked to health conditions such as anxiety, Alzheimer’s disease, and autism.
As of 2020, the company had developed “one of the world’s largest collections of human gut microbes” over a short five years. When talking to reporters from Science, the company CEO said the initial targets were
depression, insomnia, and visceral pain conditions that are typical of irritable bowel syndrome.
Two types of gut bacteria, in particular Coprococcus and Dialister bacteria, have been shown to be “consistently depleted” in individuals diagnosed with clinical depression. According to the authors of a study published in the
April 2019 issue of Nature Microbiology:
“We studied how microbiome features correlate with host quality of life and depression.
“Butyrate-producing Faecalibacterium and Coprococcus bacteria were consistently associated with higher quality of life indicators. Together with Dialister, Coprococcus spp. were also depleted in depression, even after correcting for the confounding effects of antidepressants.”
Other studies have also identified microbial profiles associated with better or worse mental health conditions. For example, a
2016 research study found the relative abundance of Actinobacteria was higher and Bacteroidetes was lower in depressed individuals compared to healthy controls.
Another study in 2015 found patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder had higher amounts of Bacteroidetes, Proteobacteria, and Actinobacteria, and lower amounts of Firmicutes than healthy controls.
Kimchi Can Provide Vitamin K2
One of the benefits of the fermenting process is that it can improve the nutritional value of a particular food. For example,
kimchi has antioxidant properties associated with lipid-lowering cardiovascular benefits, antimicrobial action, immune system activity, and anti-atherogenic activity.
Fermented plants also provide
high concentrations of vitamin K2. Vitamin K is a fat-soluble vitamin that is an important element for your heart health. In fact, results from the
Rotterdam study published in 2004 looked at causes of diseases in the elderly, and determined that those who had consumed the highest amount of vitamin K2 were less likely to experience severe calcification in their arteries and die from heart disease.
K2 is also
important for bone health and osteoporosis prevention. However, vitamin K doesn’t store well in your body, so it’s depleted quickly if you don’t get it regularly from your food. But what kinds of foods are the best ones to get the vitamin K2 you need? One thing the Rotterdam study made clear was there is a difference between vitamin K1 and K2 content in foods.
While K1 was found to be present in high amounts in green leafy vegetables such as spinach, kale, broccoli, and cabbage, K2 was only present in high amounts in fermented foods.
K2, or menaquinone, is produced by bacteria in your gut and can be found in some animal products, a few plants such as spinach, radish leaves, spring onions, and fermented foods, particularly kimchi and cheeses.
It’s becoming more popular to eat fermented foods at home, yet preparing them has largely become a lost art. Probiotic-rich foods, such as fermented vegetables and homemade yogurt, will boost the population of beneficial bacteria, which then reduces potentially pathogenic colonies.
Since many of the yogurts sold on grocery store shelves are fruit flavored and sweetened with sugar, they don’t help promote overall healthy gut flora. To make yogurt at home, you only need a high-quality starter culture and raw, grass-fed milk. You'll find simple step-by-step instructions in “
Benefits of Homemade Yogurt Versus Commercial.”
One of the few soy products that I recommend is natto, if you can obtain the soybeans organically grown. Natto is a fermented soy you can easily make at home. The fermentation process removes the disadvantages of eating raw or cooked soy, so you’re left with a dish that’s filled with probiotics and nutrients. If you haven’t tried natto before, I urge you to give f
resh, homemade natto a try.
Dr. Joseph Mercola is the founder of Mercola.com. An osteopathic physician, best-selling author, and recipient of multiple awards in the field of natural health, his primary vision is to change the modern health paradigm by providing people with a valuable resource to help them take control of their health. This article was originally published on Mercola.com.
