Fermented foods, yogurt, and radiation protection

Dr. Fauci’s admission last week that social distancing was completely made up is another example of why people striving for health need to move on from their clinicians. We’re clearly on our own. My own self-guided wellness tour includes prioritizing the yin-yang of sun and sleep, donating blood regularly, and obsessing over oysters. What’s next?

Any serious health program must account for parasites. Parasites can produce nutrient deficiencies (and their consequences) and invade any part of the body including the brain — causing everything from migraines to psychological problems. A parasite cleanse should be part of a once-per-year wellness protocol, analogous to annual physicals and blood tests.

Because I don’t go to doctors anymore, and since they’d likely refuse to prescribe me parasite medication anyway, I recently procured some albendazole from a drugstore in Venezuela. (Apparently near the equator, anti-parasite pills are sold at the checkout next to the gum and tabloids.) I take two pills now and two pills in 15 days, and then I’m good for a year.  

Another intervention never discussed at the doctor’s office but important to the health conscious is controlling exposure to Wi-Fi. In particular, health gurus recommend shutting off your Wi-Fi router at night. The idea is that by reducing exposure to electromagnetic radiation you can improve sleep quality. Unfortunately, if you live in a condominium like me, you can’t shut off everyone’s Wi-Fi, and unless you live in the wilderness, Wi-Fi radiation is probably impossible to escape.

One strategy to boost protection against radiation is to eat fermented foods. The Russians discovered after Chernobyl that the people of one village who consumed a lot of probiotics suffered no radiation damage while the inhabitants of neighboring towns who ate unremarkable diets suffered grievously from cancer and the like. Theories include the increased antioxidant activity in fermented foods which suppress free radical damage and reduce carcinogenesis; the impact of a robust gut microbiome on the immune system; and the ability of probiotics to repair DNA damage.  

While the advantages of fermented foods are great news, choosing fermented foods is surprisingly complicated. I wrote previously that if your personal trainer or dietician recommends pickles as a fermented food, run away. Pickles are not fermented unless they are prepared by the same anerobic process as other fermented foods; most pickles are *pickled* in a hot vinegar brine. I’m pleased to share a second red flag that should send you sprinting from your specialist: anyone who recommends yogurt as a source fermented dairy.

Only certain kinds of probiotics can survive the trip through the human digestive system and deliver their protective payload. These “encapsulated” probiotics shield the sensitive beneficial bacteria from harsh stomach acid. Foods with encapsulated probiotics include kefir, sauerkraut, and fermented pickles. The probiotics in yogurt, however, get burned up by stomach acid and provide little benefit.

Now don’t let me stop you from enjoying yogurt. In fact, yogurt is a great source of the amino acid leucine – which stimulates muscle protein accretion (muscle recovery). Just be aware that yogurt won’t make you superhuman. You won’t get protection from either 1) sleep disturbances caused by Wi-Fi or 2) DNA mutation due to nuclear fallout.