We live in an age of preservatives. Fresh food has almost become a luxury. In the health food world, we advocate that our patients shop the grocery store more around the periphery rather than down the aisles of processed and preservative filled foods. We repeat the cliché that if you can’t read the ingredient on the label, you probably should not eat it. Today, we will add a new health vocabulary word, lantibiotics, to your repertoire- and give you another guardrail for your diet.
For centuries, various means of preserving food by preparation processes and various additives have been necessary to some degree for the continuation of mankind during the off-seasons of agriculture or hunting. Not all forms are bad, but some more modern days practices should draw our attention. Our focus for today looks at a class of bacterially produced chemicals called lanthipeptides which act as antibiotics. Many call them ‘lantibiotics’ for short.
While decreasing the growth of various bacteria in food, these lantibiotics also have the potential to affect our gut microbiome. Researchers looked at six different lantibiotics similar to nisin. Nisin is used in a variety of foods such as beer, cheese, sausage, and more, and it is produced by bacteria in the mammary glands of cows. Further, it is similar to lantibiotics produced in the human gut. In the study, researchers took six lantibiotics and tested their effects on good and bad bacteria in the human gut microbiome.
In the study, these six lantibiotics had effects on both good and bad bacteria, killing both indiscriminately although each one exerted different nuanced effects. They estimated that the amount of lantibiotics added to food could likely have effects on our microbiome.
As functional medicine providers like myself consider how to educate and guide our patients through the conflicting data of popular press and societal dietary habits, we have to keep our heads on straight. On one hand we don’t want to be overly alarmed about every single additive. On the other we don’t want to overlook potential dangers that can be easily avoided. A careful balance to avoid creating food phobias and encourage proper food enjoyment as God intended requires open eyes, calm minds, and diligent research. In cases like this, we need more research to confirm how much is too much and find better ways to preserve food when needed. Besides that we can continue our cliché advice to shop mostly around the periphery of grocery stores where fresh food waits. When we have to wander down the preserved aisles, we must be discerning in our choices. This is how we help our patients pursue healthier, more abundant lives.
Original Article:
Zhenrun J. Zhang, Chunyu Wu, Ryan Moreira, Darian Dorantes, Téa Pappas, Anitha Sundararajan, Huaiying Lin, Eric G. Pamer, Wilfred A. van der Donk. Activity of Gut-Derived Nisin-like Lantibiotics against Human Gut Pathogens and Commensals. ACS Chemical Biology, 2024; DOI: 10.1021/acschembio.3c00577
Thanks to Science Daily:
University of Chicago. “Common food preservative has unexpected effects on the gut microbiome.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 2 February 2024. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/02/240202192305.htm>.
Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.
