Kimchi For Weight Loss?



kimchiDisclaimer: no actual weight was lost in this study! Nevertheless, according to a Han Kyungsun and colleagues, in a paper published in Molecular Nutrition and Food Research, daily ingestion of fermented (but not unfermented) kimchi may result in a potentially beneficial change in the gut bacteriome profile with changes in the expression of multiple metabolic pathways (at least in circulating blood cells).

This study on 8-weeks of fermented vs. unfermented kimchi in 24 women with obesity, was prompted by the widely held assumption that fermented preserves (e.g. kimchi, sauerkraut, etc.) can have positive metabolic effects and has optimistically been linked to weight loss (although evidence for this is rather anecdotal at best).

Be that as it may, the fact that the researchers did find an effect on the relationship of firmicutes to bacteroides populations in the gut at least demonstrates that fermented foods (in this case kimchi) can indeed have a significant on gut bacteria.

How and if this results in any clinically relevant metabolic changes remains to be seen.

@DrSharma
Gurgaon, India