Can a pickle prevent heart disease? It just might!
Sound crazy? Well, there’s more!
There’s also sauerkraut, a Korean dish called kimchi, a milk-based drink called kefir, plain ol’ yogurt, and a type of soy food called tempe.
All of these dishes have something very important in common — they’re fermented. And more and more studies are revealing just how many health benefits fermented foods can bring to your table.
It’s not just about digestion, either, but your entire body – basically from head to toe!
But it gets even better, because two new studies have made the connection between fermented foods and keeping a killer at bay.
I’m talking about the hardening of the arteries that can cause everything from chest and leg pain and shortness of breath all the way to fatal heart attacks and strokes. Once deposits in your arteries become calcified, they don’t allow enough blood to get to where it’s going – be it your heart, legs, kidneys, or brain.
And unlike you would for clogged pipes, you can’t call Roto-Rooter!
This new research has found that if you’re not filling your diet with enough fermented foods and supplementing with beneficial bacteria, you’re losing out on one of the easiest (and tastiest!) ways to keep your arteries open and blood flowing.
Here’s exactly what you need to know.
Going with the flow
You might only think about what’s going on in your intestines when you’re forced to. That’s when you start reaching for remedies to help with tummy troubles.
But having a healthy gut – which means that the good microbes in your intestines are thriving and have outnumbered the bad actors – is one of the most important things you can do to stay disease-free.
And that means taking care of it even when something hasn’t gone horribly wrong.
Over the years, I’ve heard more good news about the importance of helping beneficial gut bacteria thrive than practically anything else!
Now comes the news that two new studies have made the connection between sufficient and diverse amounts of healthy gut bacteria and keeping your arteries working as they should.
In the first, researchers at the University of Nottingham and King’s College in the UK carefully analyzed data on over 600 adult twins, specifically looking at how flexible their arteries were (or weren’t).
To make sure that their results were accurate, they used a device considered the “gold standard” for that purpose, called PWV (carotid-femoral pulse-wave velocity), and they found a surprising link between “diversity of microbes in the gut” and arterial health.
After making adjustments for any “metabolic variations,” researchers found that the siblings who had robust varieties of good gut bacteria had significantly healthier arteries.
In the other study, researchers out of Western University in Canada examined the arterial health of over 300 people, focusing on the ones who had “unexplained” hardening of the arteries.
You know how you sometimes hear about someone who should be in the peak of health – seemingly fit, not too old, always exercising, not overweight or doing anything that promotes heart disease – suddenly suffering a major heart attack?
Well, that’s what the Canadians wanted to investigate — specifically if gut bacteria might play a role in that kind of unexplained heart disease.
And they found that if not enough good bacteria are present, damaging microbes can run amuck and produce “toxic metabolites” that promote hardening of the arteries – even without any other risk factors being present!
All of this research points to the fact that we can no longer leave the issue of maintaining good gut microbes simply to chance!
Now, if you’re already taking a daily probiotic, that’s an excellent start!
But as the researchers said again and again, diversity of good gut bacteria is the key. So, here are three important ways to make that happen:
#1: Go for more fermented foods — such as kefir (a dairy-based probiotic drink that contains more good bacteria than yogurt), tempe (fermented soy, or the only kind of soy you should be eating), apple cider vinegar, yogurt (the whole-milk unsweetened organic kind), and kimchi (a Korean dish containing fermented cabbage) — in your daily diet
And to get true probiotic pickles and all of the accompanying benefits, you’ll have to look for the real deal – ones that are fermented and not just pickled. For that, you’ll probably have to go to your local health food store or farmers market. A real fermented jar of pickles surprisingly won’t be made with vinegar and will be refrigerated.
As for sauerkraut, most store brands are pasteurized, which kills off all the good bacteria, so you’ll have to shop around to find an authentic jar of fermented cabbage (which will also be kept in the refrigerator).
#2: Stock up on prebiotics! These are the foods that good gut bacteria thrive on. They include garlic, leeks, onions, asparagus, and bananas. You can also feed your beneficial microbes with foods such as broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and coleslaw. You can also find a wide variety of prebiotic supplements.
#3: Make sure that your daily probiotic contains a variety of bacterial strains and enough “colony-forming units,” or CFUs. Try to aim for around 20 billion CFUs.
And if you’ve recently been on a course of antibiotics, double up on your efforts. Those drugs don’t discriminate between killing off both bad and good bacteria.
“New link between gut microbiome and artery hardening discovered” University of Nottingham, May 10, 2018, ScienceDaily, sciencedaily.com
