Free shipping on all orders over $125*
Synbiotic Blend of 10 Beneficial Strains, Developed by Board-Certified Gastroenterologist

almonds

Walnut in the shape of a heart

Can Probiotic Foods Like Walnuts Boost Your Gut Health?

I get asked by A LOT of people about the best kinds of “probiotic foods” that can boost their gut health.

Many people are surprised to learn that simple adjustments to one’s daily diet — like adding almonds — may be better and easier than fermented foods that come with as many negatives as positives.

If you’re looking to boost your gut health and improve your heart health too, you may want to consider adding walnuts to your diet, according to researchers at Penn State University.

Testing the gut/heart health advantages

Previous studies have found the addition of walnuts to a diet that is low in saturated fats can benefit your heart health by lowering blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

Scientists at Penn State University and Juniata College examined the role gut health plays in those health benefits by tracking gut bacteria changes in relation to dietary changes and heart disease risk factors experienced by 42 overweight or obese patients over several months.

First, each patient was assigned to eat a standard Western diet, followed by a random series of three diets for six weeks at a time.

One of the three diets included walnuts, while the other two substituted walnuts with similar amounts of fatty acids contained in vegetable oils.

Then, scientists collected fecal samples from each of the patients three days prior to finishing each diet. What they found was surprising!

Eating real walnuts makes the difference

Compared to the other diets, the one that included walnuts produced real, measurable benefits.

With the walnut diet, researchers saw improvements in various gut bacteria and heart health, resulting in significant reductions in blood pressure, total cholesterol and non-HDL cholesterol. The two diets that substituted walnuts for vegetable oils did not present these benefits.

“Foods like whole walnuts provide a diverse array of substrates — like fatty acids, fiber and bioactive compounds — for our gut microbiomes to feed on,” says Regina Lamendella, an associate professor of biology at Juniata College. “In turn, this can help generate beneficial metabolites and other products for our bodies.”

After this successful trial, the research team plans to examine how walnuts can make an impact on blood sugar levels.

Before you stock up on walnuts…

There’s little doubt about the link between the heart-healthy benefits of walnuts and the bacteria in your gut. However, before you start eating them every day or any other probiotic foods, I need to remind you about a few things…

While walnuts are very nutrient-dense and low in carbs, their fat content, at 65 percent, is high. A 1-ounce serving (14 half-pieces) of walnuts contains about 18 grams of fat, so be careful about how much you’re eating.

Also, due to their higher fat and fiber content, be very careful to eat small amounts of walnuts, especially if you experience problems with diarrhea associated with inflammatory bowel syndrome (IBS).

Eating walnuts, almonds or most probiotic foods are good in moderation. However, they don’t do a complete job of protecting your gut health like probiotics made from multiple strains of beneficial bacteria, plus a prebiotic that feeds the bugs in your gut like EndoMune Advanced Probiotic.

Resources

Penn State University News

The Journal of Nutrition

Medical News Today

Healthline

Food Answers

Can Probiotic Foods Like Walnuts Boost Your Gut Health? Read More »

For Gut-friendly Holidays, Eat Cranberries

Apart from being a staple in foods for the holiday season (desserts, stuffing, sauces and drinks) and a first-line treatment for urinary tract infections, cranberries receive little notice in the wide world of whole foods, an undeserved sign of disrespect.

Many health experts consider cranberries a superfood due to their low-calorie/high-fiber content and being fill to the brim with important antioxidants and nutrients (resveratrol, vitamins C, E and A and copper).

A study featured recently in Applied and Environmental Microbiology found another important use for cranberries as a natural prebiotic, non-digestible fiber or carbs that feed the bacteria living in your gut.

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts at Amhurst made this discovery when feeding cranberry-derived carbohydrates called xyloglucans to gut bacteria in the lab.

The real benefit from eating cranberries, says lead researcher Dr. David Sela, is the ability to eat for two, as it supports our own nutrition as well as the beneficial bacteria that lives in our gut.

“When we eat cranberries, the xyloglucans make their way into our intestines where beneficial bacteria can break them down into useful molecules and compounds,” says Dr. Sela, according to a press release.

Under the microscope, Dr. Sela and his research team observed these prebiotic compounds from cranberries feeding bifidobacteria under the microscope, an important process in protecting the healthy balance of bacteria in your gut.

Cranberries aren’t the only natural sources for prebiotics. They’re also a healthy component in many whole foods, from bananas, jicama and apples to artichokes, onions, leeks and almonds.

Just like almonds that contain a lot of fat, you have to be careful about eating a lot of cranberries too. Many commercial brands of juices and dried fruits add a lot of unnecessary sugar — 25-30 grams for juices and 8 grams for dried fruits — per 8-ounce serving, so eating them in moderation is a healthy choice.

If you want to add some prebiotic protection for your gut and cranberries aren’t your favorite food, look for a probiotic that contains fructooligosaccarides (FOS).

FOS is a natural substance derived from plant sugars and a proven prebiotic used in products like EndoMune Advanced Probiotic and EndoMune Advanced Junior (for kids).

For Gut-friendly Holidays, Eat Cranberries Read More »

Almonds may help Boost your Gut Health

In the world of nutrition, there’s little doubt that almonds are among the most popular, delicious and healthy foods to eat.

A single cup of raw almonds (143 grams) provides a surplus of measurable benefits from a variety of vital nutrients, including calcium, niacin, vitamin E, magnesium, potassium, phosphorus, protein and fiber, according to the USDA’s National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference.

Chock full of unsaturated fats, almonds have also been associated with a growing number of health benefits, from reducing the risk of heart disease to lowering two of the markers linked to metabolic syndrome and promoting satiety (feeling full after eating).

As the positive health news has spread (with much help from the Almond Board of California), the profile of almonds has risen exponentially, along with the number of products sold at your neighborhood grocery store.

In fact, almonds lead the pack in new food products worldwide by a sizeable margin (9.7 percent) and over all nuts combined (7.1 percent), which may explain why you’ve been seeing more brands of almond milk sitting next to traditional milk products.

Almonds: Food for the Gut

A recent study funded by the Almond Board of California has discovered one more healthy reason to eat almonds and almond skins. Almonds serve as prebiotics—non-digestible carbohydrates/plant fiber that feed the good bacteria already living in the gut.

In this study, patients boosted amounts of Bifidobacteria and Lactobacillus in the human gut significantly after eating almonds or almond skins for just six weeks.

Scientists monitored the health of 48 healthy patients (ages 18-22) who supplemented their daily diets with 56 grams (almost 2 ounces) of almonds, 10 grams of almond skins or 8 grams of fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS), a natural substance derived from plant sugars that’s used as a prebiotic in products like EndoMune Advanced Probiotic.

During the six-week observation period, the collective gut bacteria of volunteers were affected positively but at different times.

For example, groups who ate almond skins or FOS enjoyed increased amounts of Lactobacillus and Bifidobacteria from the beginning. On the other hand, those who consumed roasted almonds didn’t experience growth in good gut bacteria like the other groups until week six. By the end of the study, both almond groups reached the same elevated levels of good gut bacteria.

Additionally, the gut health benefits linked to eating almond skins lasted two additional weeks after the six-week period ended.

One more benefit from eating roasted almonds or almond skins: Levels of Clostridium perfringens, a spore-forming, gram-positive bacterium that contributes to food poisoning, were greatly reduced.

However, before you start loading up on almonds, be aware that up to 80 percent of this nut is fat, so you should eat them in moderation.

When looking for a good probiotic, be sure it contains FOS or another proven prebiotic that feeds the healthy bacteria in your gut, like EndoMune Advanced Probiotic or EndoMune Advanced Junior (for kids) with multiple strains of beneficial bacteria.

 

Almonds may help Boost your Gut Health Read More »

Scroll to Top