The beneficial health effects attributed to nuts are not only due to their good fats, but also imply a prebiotic activity that is essential for the health of the intestine and immunity.
Many studies report health-promoting relationships for nut consumption. From a nutritional point of view, nuts are known to be a source of choice lipids, because they are mainly unsaturated in nature, with, for some of them, a very interesting content of omega-3 fatty acids. This lipid characteristic is often considered the main nutritional asset of nuts, especially in the area of cardiovascular health.
Fibres, vegetable proteins, and phenol
But there are many other useful components in nuts: fibers, vegetable proteins, vitamins, minerals, phytosterols and phenolic compounds. In a new review of the available data, two researchers believe that the health effects of nuts also go through the provision, to the intestinal microbiota, of substrates of choice. These are materials that are not bio-accessible as such, namely polymerized polyphenols and non-digestible polysaccharides.
A super prebiotic that feeds bacteria intestinal
These non-bio-accessible compounds would therefore be transformed by the intestinal microbiota into different substances endowed with interesting properties. In other words, it is indeed a prebiotic effect that it would be.
They cite butyrate, one of the leading products of colonic fermentation, but also new compounds formed under the effect of the intestinal microbiota from polyphenols, such as urolithins and valerolactone.
Source
Lamuel-Raventos RM, Prebiotic nut compounds and human microbiota.Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr 25:0.
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