With an estimated 100 trillion microorganisms living inside our digestive tracts, it’s no wonder that past research has summarized the gut microbiome “as a virtual organ of the body.” What we eat can, in turn, have wide-ranging effects on the body—and a group of food science microbiologists at University of California, Davis (UC Davis) recently investigated whether eating one particular type of food, perhaps best known for its role in certain cuisines, could help boost your gut’s ability against inflammation.
Though acute inflammation is a normal and important function of the immune system, chronic inflammation “can develop for no medically apparent reason, last a lifetime, and cause harm rather than healing,” says Harvard Health Publishing. Previous research from Stanford University researchers suggest that eating fermented foods provides two benefits: increasing your microbiome’s diversity while decreasing “markers of inflammation.”
The study, published in the American Society for Microbiology journal’s Applied and Environmental Microbiology, looked at whether certain substances in both homemade and store-bought sauerkraut, or fermented cabbage, could help protect the cells in the intestines from being damaged by chemicals that cause inflammation.
The researchers also made homemade fermented cabbage, with and without adding a helpful bacteria called Lactiplantibacillus plantarum. (Of note, the study does not specify which types of cabbages were used.) They tested the effects after seven and 14 days and found that fermented cabbage—but not raw cabbage or just the juice (brine)—helped protect the gut cells from damage. And good news if you’re wanting to skip the wait of at-home fermentation: there was “no noticeable difference” between sauerkraut purchased from the grocery store versus the sauerkraut made for the study, according to a UC Davis news release.
Says study author Marcia Marco, PhD: “Some of the metabolites we find in the sauerkraut are the same kind of metabolites we’re finding to be made by the gut microbiome, so that gives us a little more confidence that this connection we found between the metabolites in sauerkraut and good gut health makes sense.” A metabolite, as defined by the National Library of Medicine, is “any substance produced during metabolism.”
Another finding: the longer the cabbage was fermented, the more its chemical makeup changed for the better. Specifically, fermentation reduced the amount of sugar in the cabbage and increased healthy compounds like lactic acid, fatty acids, amino acids, and plant-based chemicals.
In addition to “eating more fiber and fresh fruits and vegetables,” consuming a serving of sauerkraut “can help us in the long run against inflammation,” and “make our digestive tract more resilient when we have a disturbance,” says Dr. Marco, who is a professor with the Department of Food Science and Technology at UC Davis.
“A little bit of sauerkraut could go a long way,” she added. “We should be thinking about including these fermented foods in our regular diets and not just as a side on our hot dogs.”
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