6 ms·
Another piece of anecdotal evidence. My wife has had allergy attacks constantly for years and years. Every morning she would wake up and have to blow her nose f
by frikk 11y ago
Another piece of anecdotal evidence. My wife has had allergy attacks constantly for years and years. Every morning she would wake up and have to blow her nose for a half hour. We started making fermented food (saurkraut, pickles, fermented garlic carrots) and at the same time buying/drinking keefir daily. This was just to be healthy and as a new hobby. However, within a week or two, her allergies subsided substantially. To the point where she would go for weeks at a time without having the morning nose blowing session. When she dials back the intake of fermented foods, allergies come back.
We haven't spent much time tracking it closely, but the relationship is obvious enough to be a no brainer for us.
- robbies 11y agoThat reminds me of the 'hookworm' therapy to help alleviate allergies. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/01/health/01iht-01prof.14122951.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/01/health/01iht-01prof.141229...
- frikk 11y agoThats... really interesting.
- atom-morgan 11y agoI've heard stories like yours, witnessed a few myself, and have noticed changes within myself as well. Yet no matter how many times I tell people they look at me like I'm an idiot.
- frikk 11y agoI sincerely hope there will be more research into this in the coming years. The problem I think is that we need to do more personalized research and experiments, but somehow figure out the baseline to compare individual results against. Someone who has a system with X properties will respond differently from someone with Y properties, and we don't know enough about those properties to understand the different response types.
- merpnderp 11y agoI really appreciate you posting this and am going to try it.
- frikk 11y agoYou're welcome. I almost feel backwards when I tell people about it, but the results are obvious (to us).
- chaqke 11y agowhoa - I've recently had that problem start happening. I'm going to go build some more anec-data.
- frikk 11y agoI'd love to see any results that you may have. Especially if you figure out a good way to track it.
- lioeters 11y agoThank you for this note, I will recommend it to someone close to me who has the same symptoms as described.
- frikk 11y agoYou're welcome. She's just been following the serving size on the bottles from the healthfood store on the keefir (usually half a bottle a day), with some other random fermented foods thrown in (shredded carrots + garlic, ginger is one of my favorites)
- lioeters 11y agoIt's really timely information - my girlfriend who has the health/immune issue was just making "Korean carrots" which are shredded and, I believe, fermented or at least pickled (not sure if that's the same). I bought her a bottle of kefir too, it's a popular and commonly sold product here in Central/Eastern Europe. Funny thing, she once went through a phase of making home-made yogurt and also bought some kefir "seeds", little white blobs of culture. I saw that it's quite simple to multiply/generate a regular home production, so I'm going to recommend that she start the hobby again, for improving her health and immune system. The issue you described of sneezing and stuffy nose every morning affects quality of living, and I hope fermented foods can help clear it up.
- frikk 11y agoA quite note on pickled vs fermenting: pickling usually refers to a vinegar solution that preserves but isn't fermented (so it isn't a live culture). Fermenting is usually just water and salt, promoting the lactobacilus in the air and slowing down everything else. I wish you the best! Gut health is important, and very much still a black art.
- lioeters 11y agoI see, good to know about pickled vs fermenting, I learn something new every day. Another thing we're trying with regards to allergies and other immune issues, is medicinal mushrooms. But that's a whole topic in itself and maybe only tangentially related to gut flora. It's fascinating the medicinal/curative potential of bacteria, molds and fungi. The posted article mentioned 100 trillion microorganisms in the human microbiome, that's astronomical.
- pkaye 11y agoDo you have recipes for the fermented foods you make. I'm thinking of trying some for my own health issues.