- Eating up to three servings of kimchi a day is associated with a lower risk of obesity compared to eating one serving or less or more than five servings daily, according to a new study.
- Fermented foods may have positive metabolic effects thanks to the pre-biotic and probiotic nutrients that occur as part of the fermentation process.
- While excessive kimchi consumption is not recommended, adding more fermented vegetables to your diet could be one way to promote better metabolic and microbiome health, the researchers said.
People who regularly eat the fermented vegetable dish kimchi — up to three times daily — may lower their risk of obesity.
That’s according to a study published today in the journal BMJ Open.
In it, researchers from Korea looked at data from more than 100,000 participants ages 40 to 69 who were part of the nationwide Health Examinees study and used body mass index (BMI) scores to determine the obesity rates of study subjects.
The researchers reported that there appeared to be a dose-response relationship between kimchi consumption and health benefits up to a point.
For instance, eating up to three servings of kimchi per day was associated with an 11% lower prevalence of obesity compared to those who ate less than a serving daily.
Specific kimchi types also showed a positive effect.
Three or more daily servings of cabbage kimchi among men was associated with a 10% lower prevalence of overall obesity as well as a 10% lower prevalence of abdominal obesity compared to those who ate less than one serving daily.
Among women, two or three daily servings of cabbage kimchi were associated with an 8% lower occurrence of obesity while less than one serving was associated with a 6% lower occurrence of abdominal obesity.
Meanwhile, even half servings or smaller of radish kimchi (25 g per day for men and 11 g per day for women) was associated with an 8% and 11% lower risk of abdominal obesity among men and women, respectively.
That said, excessive kimchi…
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