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How Fermented Foods May Alter Your Microbiome and Improve Your Health - The New York Times - - Your microbiome, that collection of microorganisms that live in your intestines have been the focus of a lot of research lately, and for good reason: A reduced diversity in the human microbiome appears to be linked to a wide variety of mental and physical health issues, some of them more obvious, like irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), Chrohn's disease, and ulcerative colitis, others less so: depression, anxiety, diabetes, obesity, and even cancer, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. One of the factors that ties all of these conditions together is inflammation, which tends to increase as microbial diversity decreases. So, if poor diversity causes problems, how might you encourage increased diversity? And would that help? This study added significant amounts of fermented foods to the daily diet of volunteers and then tracked the changes in their microbiomes and in a wide variety of inflammatory compounds. It also compared that approach to another strategy, adding more fiber to the diet.

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How Fermented Foods May Alter Your Microbiome and Improve Your Health - The New York Times - - Your microbiome, that collection of microorganisms that live in your intestines have been the focus of a lot of research lately, and for good reason: A reduced diversity in the human microbiome appears to be linked to a wide variety of mental and physical health issues, some of them more obvious, like irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), Chrohn's disease, and ulcerative colitis, others less so: depression, anxiety, diabetes, obesity, and even cancer, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. One of the factors that ties all of these conditions together is inflammation, which tends to increase as microbial diversity decreases. So, if poor diversity causes problems, how might you encourage increased diversity? And would that help? This study added significant amounts of fermented foods to the daily diet of volunteers and then tracked the changes in their microbiomes and in a wide variety of inflammatory compounds. It also compared that approach to another strategy, adding more fiber to the diet.