Kent Ferments: The Benefits of Kimchi for Gut Health

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I had the pleasure of supporting Leila and James Fox of Kent Ferments and BoConcept Canterbury with a talk last evening : ‘Detox Your Home, Reset Your Gut Health.’ We discussed the myriad health benefits associated with fermented foods, with a special highlight on the wonders of Kimchi – for me, one of my favourite gut-friendly foods! We also discussed the impact that our home and working environment can have on our gut health and wellbeing.

Kimchi, a traditional Korean dish, involves fermenting napa cabbage and Korean radishes with a blend of ingredients like chili peppers, garlic, ginger, spring onions, and spices. The fermentation process, driven by lactic acid bacteria, not only imparts a tangy flavour but also brings numerous health benefits. Kimchi played a big part in Leila’s life growing up in Hawaii and I am thrilled she and James are now sharing their precious family recipe and enthusiasm for fermented health foods with us here in East Kent.

A most versatile condiment, a little kimchi can go a long way in boosting gut health and overall well-being, also to contributing to our optimum different 7 plants a day, 30 different plants a week. It is also for me a complete food in terms of ensuring prebiotics such as ginger and garlic which possess anti-inflammatory properties and promote the growth and activity of beneficial bacteria in the gut.

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Kent Ferments offers an original Kimchi No. 1 with medium heat and a smoky finish, while Kimchi No. 5 provides a milder taste, ideal for those new to Kimchi. Priced at £6.50 per 340g E Jar, you can find Kent Ferments at Wye Farmer’s Market.

Health Benefits of Kimchi

Health benefits of Kimchi include promoting good bacteria, essential for a balanced gut microbiome. Probiotics, especially Lactobacilli, aid digestion, nutrient absorption, and help prevent digestive issues. Kimchi can help support the immune system with the good bacteria modulating immune responses and defending against infections. Moreover, the low-calorie dish is rich in vitamins A and C, potassium, and calcium, with antioxidant properties from garlic and ginger.

Kimchi can also play a role in weight management and metabolic health. The fermentation process produces Butyrate, a short-chain fatty acid with diverse benefits. Butyrate enhances insulin sensitivity, regulates energy metabolism, and acts as an immune modulator, potentially managing autoimmune responses. In my experience, insufficient butyrate is often implicated in many of my IBS, ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease cases.

Furthermore, Butyrate influences gene expression as an HDAC inhibitor, offering neuroprotective benefits, anti-inflammatory properties, and contributing to cancer protection. It also impacts the gut-brain axis, influencing hormones like leptin which regulate appetite and help to prevent obesity.

In conclusion, incorporating Kimchi into your diet can be a flavourful and health-conscious choice. Its unique combination of taste and nutritional benefits makes it an excellent addition to meals, offering a delicious way to support your gut, immune system, and overall well-being.

For more information or to book a nutrition consultation, contact Charlotte Fraser at enquiries@naturopathic-nutrition.com.

The Gut Health Wheel © and The Gut, Brain, Heart Connection: 1st March 2023

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Do you suffer from bloating and digestive issues like irritable bowel, diarrhoea, constipation, acid reflux or heartburn? Do you feel tired all the time? Are you lethargic and sluggish, merely existing each day burdened with brain fog, anxious and depressed? Then this Journey is for you!

Join me and KAYLO for ‘The Gut, Brain, Heart Connection’, a Journey to help heal, nourish and transform your gut for optimal physical and emotional health. To contextualise and make the experience even more immersive and relatable, I will be guiding participants around The Gut Health Wheel © – they will get a special preview and be able to place themselves on a ‘holistic roadmap’.

I will be hosting the first session from 18.00-1930 on 1st March 2023. This will be a deep dive to understand how our gut health influences our physical, emotional and mental health.  

These sessions are designed to get to the root of what is happening in your body, so that you can begin to heal yourself. For indeed, when you have a chronic health condition, it can often be difficult to separate the wood from the trees. I developed The Gut Health Wheel © to help my nutrition clients have a deeper holistic understanding. To help them ‘join the dots’ of their journey more, so they become more their own experts.

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The Gut Health Wheel ©

The Gut Health Wheel © is unique, a complete synthesis of all my clinical experience and years of research. It is a visual that integrates signs and symptoms (physical, cognitive, emotional, psychological and behavioural), contextualising these within vitamin and mineral deficiencies and disease pathways. It also incorporates TCM, western medicine and scientific research.

The Gut Health Wheel © has been evolving a very long time to get to this – I’ve also been through a lot of canvas. The wheel also continues to be reviewed by GPs, health practitioners, writers, psychologists, and academics. Their expertise has been valuable. So too the feedback of my nutrition clients who have been on the journey from the beginning. I’m so grateful to everyone for all their encouragement, support and insight. Special thanks as always to my friend and fellow nutritionist Virginia Hills for the tea and sympathy, her positivity and engagement, and to Emily Hewett for capturing my thoughts so intuitively in her wonderful graphic.

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The Gut Health Wheel © Copyright Charlotte Fraser Naturopathic Nutrition 2023

My motivation for developing The Gut Health Wheel © stems in part from a question that once frustrated me when I was managing my Ulcerative Colitis in the early days: ‘How can I know if healing is taking place?’

Indeed! How do you know if you are getting better? How do you know that you are moving in the right direction? That question can often get lost amidst all the medical diagnostics and blood tests don’t tell the whole story.

To answer these fundamental questions, it’s essential to retrace your steps, to understand the journey that you have already taken.

To achieve optimum health and wellbeing, we need to understand and better interpret our body’s own signs and symptoms in order to progress to a more mindful and preventative approach which facilitates healing. This is where The Gut Health Wheel © can be very helpful in providing a holistic and more integrated overview.

In The Gut, Brain, Heart Connection, we will look at how genetics, medical history, lifestyle, diet, food diversity, environment and mindset can impact our health and nutritional ‘bank balance’. Also what we can do about it.

I will be talking about how our gut health so influences that of our brain and heart and vice versa.   We will also look at:

  • The latest science 
  • Talking about some of the most common mistakes people make with their diet
  • Some of the “universal truths”, the simple steps that everyone can take to improve their nutrition and lifestyle
  • My ‘golden rules’ for gut, brain and heart health.  What we can do nutritionally from a regenerative and preventative point of view
  • My 7 Day Gut Sabbatical to help take the pressure off and help do a reset
  • Supplements and whether we need to supplement at all

For more information and to book a place: Visit The Gut, Brain, Heart Connection.

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The Elephant in the Room of the Diet Industry

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As many embark on a new year diet, I want to tackle the proverbial ‘elephant in the room’: the trillions of bacteria, fungi and viruses that we co-exist with. Consider the fact that we at only around 43% human and 57% microbial, how can we possibly ignore them?!

These microbes are also the reason why so many fad diets fail. What worked for the diet book author, your friend, or your family member, won’t necessarily work for you. Not unless you evolved in a clinically-sealed petri dish with the same shared dietary, social and environmental experiences. Realistically, it just isn’t possible and here’s why… let’s look at the science.

The majority of microbes inhabit our large intestine and every gut microbiome is wholly unique. Think of your gut microbiome like a biological fingerprint or signature. It is the embodiment of all our genetic, physical, mental,  emotional,  environmental, social, and cultural experiences. What we eat, our belief systems, movement, environment, nature, social and community engagement have all been found to influence the state of our microbiome in research studies.   

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The human intestinal tract harbours an estimated three trillion bacterial members, up to a 1000 different bacteria species, and the ratio of gut microbiota to human cells is roughly 1:1.   What’s more, the genetic diversity of gut microbiota is 100 times higher than that of human cells. That’s a huge amount of DNA we are carrying in us with an infinite numbers of variables possible between person to person.

In the exciting field of nutrigenomics, the focus is on gene expression, whether we activate a particular gene or not. Professor Vittorio Sebastiano, Epigeneticist at Stanford University says as much as 70% of our health outcomes are down to how we live, and not the ‘deterministic’ genes we inherited. The biggest influencer of gene expression is what we eat. However it doesn’t just stop there, as what we eat and how we live doesn’t just affect our DNA, but also the genes of the trillions of bacteria in our gut. The DNA scale and potential is huge, mind-boggling! The main takeaway I want to share however, is that there is a a HUGE amount we can do by means of what we eat and, as Professor Sebastiano says, “much of our destiny truly is in our hands.”

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There can be no “one size fits all diet

Even identical twins have been found to not process food the same way.  The largest ongoing scientific nutrition study of its kind, explored how more than 1000 participants (around 60 percent were sets of identical twins) process their meals. Surprisingly, the researchers found that even identical twins respond very differently to fats and carbohydrates.  The study was carried out by researchers from King’s College London, Massachusetts General Hospital and nutritional science company ZOE, co-founded by Professor Tim Spector, Professor of Genetic Epidemiology at King’s College London.

The results also suggested that personal differences in metabolism due to factors such as the gut microbiome, meal timing and exercise are just as important as the nutritional composition of foods. What fascinates me is that the study found twins shared only 37% of the same microbes with each other. That’s just a little more than unrelated individuals who share an average of 35% of the same microbes. 

A successful diet therefore requires an entirely personalised and person-centred or holistic approach. We really are all unique and that’s why I am passionate about supporting my clients in becoming their “own expert”. To help them tune into their own body, the many signs and symptoms that present, and to understand their own individual dietary needs. The focus has to be on sustainable wellness and more often than not, I am putting foods back into my clients’ diets.

Every gut microbiome is wholly unique. Think of it like a biological fingerprint or signature. Truly the embodiment of all our individual DNA, our genetic, physical, mental,  emotional,  environmental, social, and cultural experiences.  

Our DNA originally determines our microbiota.  We’re first exposed to microorganisms as an infant, during delivery in the birth canal and through the mother’s breast milk.   Later, environmental exposures, diet and lifestyle can alter our microbiome to be either beneficial to health or to place us at greater risk for disease.

A varied and diverse diet is key to optimum health and weight loss

Counting calories is very 1999 in dietary terms. In 2023, all the science suggests you should be counting plants.

Numerous science studies show that greater numbers and a more diverse range of good gut bacteria are key to successful weight loss and management. And key to having more good bacteria is to have a diverse and varied diet high in plants and whole foods. This is what our good bacteria feed on.

Indeed, the worst thing for health and weight management is to eat the same food every single day.

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Ideally, aim for more than 7 different plants a day and a minimum of 30 different varieties a week. By plants, I mean vegetables, legumes, fruits, shoots, leaves, nuts, seeds, whole grains, herbs and spices, etc.

Sadly, too many diets have a restrictive element and entail cutting out entire food groups which can result in nutritional imbalances and deficiencies. Instead the focus should be on variety and balance. I see a lot of gut health problems stem from people avoiding dairy and carbohydrates especially. In fact, some carbohydrates such as oats provide important sources of resistant starch which can help boost butyrate-producing microbes.

A lot of gut health problems stem from insufficient butyrate. Butyrate is a short chain fatty acid and the main source of fuel for the cells (colonocytes) lining the colon. Butyrate ensures the optimum environment for your gut microbes to flourish. It also helps insulate blood sugar levels and increase insulin sensitivity; helps regulate energy metabolism; has important anti-inflammatory properties; protects against cancer; and prevents obesity. Butyrate increases leptin gene expression. Leptin suppresses food intake, prevents low metabolism, and promotes weight loss. Higher butyrate levels also help increase levels of glutathione, an important antioxidant which helps strengthen the intestinal barrier and increase bioavailability of iron and zinc.

Fermented dairy products like kefir, bio yoghurt and certain probiotic cheeses are important sources of good bacteria (lactobacillus and bifidobacteria).

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In cutting out whole food groups, you can unwittingly exclude certain good bacteria which are very beneficial to health and aid weight loss. This isn’t a good idea. More so, when you consider that science research increasingly studies health conditions in relation to the lower incidence or absence of a certain gut microbe.

As for eliminating fat entirely from your diet, extra virgin olive oil is a valuable source of polyphenols which help promote Akkermansia Municiphilia, a beneficial bacteria that helps strengthen the intestinal lining. That lining, our gut epithelium, is the dividing line between the human and microbial worlds, and it plays a critical mediator role. It really is our front line defence to external threats, a key facet of our immune system.

Essential fatty acids such as omega 3 found in oily fish and flaxseeds also have anti-inflammatory properties and are important for vitamin A,D,E, and K absorption, hormonal health, blood sugar and cholesterol management; also gut, brain, liver and heart health. Good fats are also important for bile flow. Insufficient bile is another contributor to so many gut health problems that I see. Yo-yo fasting and low fat diets also risk later gallbladder removal.

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Our microbiome plays so many key roles in promoting the smooth everyday operation of the human body.  Most of our microbes are symbiotic (where both the human body and microbiota benefit) but some, in smaller numbers, are pathogenic (promoting disease).

In a healthy body, pathogenic and symbiotic microbiota coexist happily. However, if there is a disturbance in that balance—brought on by infectious illnesses, certain diets, or the prolonged use of antibiotics, artificial sweeteners, or other bacteria-destroying medications—gut dysbiosis occurs. This stops the normal interactions and as a result, the body can become more susceptible to disease.

Gut dysbiosis is implicated in various conditions including IBS, allergies, autism, inflammatory bowel disease, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, type 2 diabetes and obesity.

In particular, a high-fibre diet affects the type and amount of microbiota in the intestines. Dietary fibre can only be broken down and fermented by enzymes from microbiota living in the colon. These bacteria then release short chain fatty acids such as butyrates as a result of the fermentation process. This lowers the pH of the colon, which, in turn, determines the type of microbiota present that would survive in this acidic environment. The lower pH limits the growth of some harmful bacteria like Clostridium difficile.

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Our gut microbes aren’t just gate-crashing, they are integral to our health

Our gut microbiota help us:

  • Digest food
  • Produce metabolites such as short-chain fatty acids and vitamins, which strengthen the gut barrier and regulate/promote a healthy immune system 
  • Protect us against other pathogenic, disease-causing bacteria
  • Break down potentially toxic food compounds
  • Synthesise certain vitamins and amino acids, including B vitamins and Vitamin K
  • Help regulate our hormones, including the amount of oestrogen circulating in our system at any one time
  • Produce neurotransmitters that affect how we feel, including dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, and gamma-aminobutyric acid. These are key players in triggering intense feelings of happiness, reward, or anxiety

Indeed, our gut bacteria greatly impact our overall physical, emotional and mental health.  It is why I do scientific cognitive testing, anxiety, depression and perceived stress screening, so that clients can objectively measure their progress, Increasingly, research is looking into how our gut bacteria also influence our behaviour.

In 2023, Promote Food Diversity

The first UK Food Diversity Day will be taking place this Friday, on the 13th January. Professor Tim Spector will be taking part in that along with other leading experts. Dan Saladino, author of ‘Eating to Extinction’ has been really driving awareness of this important issue. Saladino’s article ‘Are we eating ourselves to extinction?’ explains why we really should be thinking more about what we put on our plate. What are the implications of the world’s increasingly homogeneous diet for the diversity of our gut microbiota and our overall health?

Here’s a scary statistic: of the 6,000 plant species humans have eaten over time, the world now mostly eats just nine, of which just three – rice, wheat and maize – provide 50% of all calories. Add potato, barley, palm oil, soy and sugar (beet and cane) and you have 75% of all the calories that fuel our species. As thousands of foods have become endangered and extinct, a small number have risen to dominance. For example soy which plays a starring role in an increasingly homogeneous diet eaten by billions of people.

These dietary shifts are taking place on a global level and are unprecedented. Global markets increasingly infringe on our food choices. They threaten the diversity of natural food sources so essential to our gut microbiome. I encourage everyone to incorporate more plants and whole foods in their diet, and to seek out new varieties! Try a new plant this week or try growing it in your garden. Our very future might depend on it.

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For more information or to book a nutrition consultation, contact Charlotte Fraser at enquiries@naturopathic-nutrition.com.

Covid-19: Can Probiotics Help Calm the Storm?

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As the global science community races to develop an effective vaccine to stop the Coronovirus pandemic, a recent article in The Korean Bio-Medical Review caught my attention: ‘Korean researchers found substance inhibiting COVID-19’.   At the time, I was researching the digestive symptoms some Covid-19 patients are reporting, as well as looking for the latest scientific research into probiotics. 

Good bacteria and probiotics were a very new field of scientific study when I first qualified as a nutritional therapist but I credit these microbes for helping me to transform my own health and to manage my Ulcerative Colitis.

The Korean scientific study claims that Sea Buckthorn Berry’s lactic acid bacteria can contain the spread of the new coronavirus by inhibiting the activation of its energy source.  More specifically, the probiotic bacteria extracted from fermented Sea Buckthorn Berry had lots of lactobaciullus gasseri (L.gasseri) and this repressed the activation of purine which the new coronavirus requires to mutate.     Purine is a base (such as adenine or guanine) that is a constituent of DNA or RNA.

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In China, a separate research team led by Professor Ruan Jishou from Nankai University in Tianjin recently discovered that COVID-19 in the human body mutated in a similar way to the Ebola and AIDS virus. According to the Chinese research team, Covid-19 creates spike protein to survive within the human body. The spike protein contacts the cell membrane and attacks purine to acquire energy for its replication.

Notably, Korea is also using AIDS drugs to treat COVID-19 patients by inhibiting proteolytic enzyme activity. A patient’s symptoms improved significantly in a few days after administrating Kaletra and AIDS drugs. Professor Yoon expects the probiotic bacteria in Sea Buckthorn Berry to be a supplementary treatment to suppress COVID-19 spread.

Covid-19 and Cytokine Storms

Delving further into lactobacillus gasseri, I came across a separate study published in October 2019 in Frontiers in Immunology. Lactobacillus gasseri was found to suppress the production of proinflammatory cytokines in Helicobacter pylori-infected macrophages.

Cytokine storms are a common complication not only of Covid-19 and flu but of other respiratory diseases caused by coronaviruses such as SARS and MERS.

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Cytokines act as chemical messengers between cells and interact with cells of the immune system to regulate the body’s response to disease and infection, as well as mediate normal cellular processes in the body. They are important in both health and disease specific to the host’s response to infection, immune responses, inflammation, trauma, sepsis, cancer, and reproduction.

Diseases such as Covid-19 and influenza can be fatal due to an overreaction of the body’s immune system which can provoke a cytokine storm. This is when the body attacks itself, unable to distinguish itself from the enemy invader or virus. An overproduction of immune cells, and their signaling compounds (cytokines) can trigger hyper-inflammation and this can cause substantial tissue damage, an effect of many autoimmune disorders such as Lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis, MS, Diabetes, Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis.

What is lactobacillus gasseri?

A probiotic, Lactobacillus gasseri is a strain of the Lactobacillus family of bacteria naturally found in the digestive and urinary tracts. The bacteria is thought to help the body suppress harmful bacteria and to enhance immune function and aids in digestion. A number of clinical trials have suggested that Lactobacillus gasseri may also help reduce abdominal fat and support weight loss, as well as be beneficial for managing inflammatory bowel disease.

Covid-19: Strengthen your body’s natural defences

Aside from taking precautions to protect yourself from the virus on the outside, you can also build up your body’s defences from the inside by strengthening your immune system. Replenishing the gut with more good bacteria is really pivotal to this and it is something you can do even whilst you are staying at home on lockdown.

Tim Spector, Professor of Genetic Epidemiology at King’s College London, provided some useful insights in The Conversation this past month. Professor Spector explains that the immune system is complex with many factors affecting its function. However, “what’s important to know is that most of these factors are not hard-coded in our genes but are influenced by lifestyle and the world around us”.

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Professor Spector says “One thing that you can control immediately is the health of the trillions of microbes living in your gut, collectively known as the microbiome. Recent research has shown that the gut microbiome plays an essential role in the body’s immune response to infection and in maintaining overall health. As well as mounting a response to infectious pathogens like coronavirus, a healthy gut microbiome also helps to prevent potentially dangerous immune over-reactions that damage the lungs and other vital organs. These excessive immune responses can cause respiratory failure and death. (This is also why we should talk about “supporting” rather than “boosting” the immune system, as an overactive immune response can be as risky as an underactive one.)”

Professor Spector also explains that “Gut bacteria produce many beneficial chemicals and also activate vitamin A in food” and that these “help to regulate the immune system.” Vitamin A is sourced from betacarotene-rich fruit and vegetables such as carrots, sweet potato and squash – and of course, Sea Buckthorn Berry if you happen to live near the coast.

How can I strengthen my microbiome and boost my good bacteria?

Eating a wide range of plant based foods and limiting highly-processed foods is the best way to increase microbiome diversity – your good bacteria. Avoid junk food!

Professor Spector says: “Following a Mediterranean diet has also been shown to improve gut microbiome diversity and reduce inflammation: eating plenty of fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds and whole grains; healthy fats like high-quality extra virgin olive oil; and lean meat or fish. Avoid alcohol, salt, sweets and sugary drinks, and artificial sweeteners or other additives.”

You an also eat foods which contain microbiome enriching good bacteria – probiotics.

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Best Sources of lactobacillus gasseri and probiotics:

There is a variety of natural food sources for probiotics. Full fat live bio yogurt is the best known and this is milk fermented with specific Lactobacillus or Bifidobacterium strains.

Other fermented foods that contain good ‘health-promoting’ bacteria include:

  • Kefir (You can make your own but I like Chuckling Goat’s Probiotic Live Goat’s Milk Kefir which has 35 probiotic strains including lactobacillus gasseri. You can even add extract of Sea Buckthorn powder (a source of rare omega-7, beta-carotene and phytonutrients that work together to support your immunity, mucosa function and skin health), or fresh berries.
  • Kombucha (Wild Fizz’s Organic Lavender & Rosemary is a Kombucha that I particularly like and I have Jeannette Hyde, Author of The Gut Makeover to thank for introducing this to me (I recommend Jeannette’s recipes too!) Watch out for added sweeteners in a lot of the supermarket brands of Kombucha though).
  • Fermented, raw cheeses (Emmental, aged Gouda, Gruyere, Parmesan – look for the words “raw”, “probiotic,” or “made from raw milk” on the label. Remember, no cooking or melting if you want to preserve the probiotic benefits!
  • Sauerkraut
  • Raw apple cider vinegar
  • Kimchi
  • Natto
  • Miso
  • Tempeh

Probiotics and good bacteria can be beneficial for most people but you may need to avoid Lactobacillus if you have a compromised immune systems. Those with advanced HIV infection, those who are organ transplant recipients, and those taking immunosuppressive drugs for cancer and other conditions should consult a medical practitioner first.