The Life Bridge

I just finished The Life Bridge by a trio of health professionals Paul Shulick, Thomas Newmark, and Richard Sarnat.  The book was about fermentation, and how important it is for human health.  As I am sure many people who read this blog know, fermented foods are a part of almost every traditional culture on the planet, and are a very important type of food to consume for overall health.

I thought the book was very well written, however some parts were a bit rambling.  I would say the main point of the book is how fermented food can act a bridge between inorganic vitamins and minerals, to organic living organisms.  His main example throughout the book selenium, which is a very important to human health.  He talks about one study that shows the antioxidant effect of a "selenium yeast" is much greater than that a traditional selenium supplement.  When I looked further into the study I had trouble finding what his exact citation.  I did find this study that examines the differences between various types of selenium and glutathione enriched yeasts, and is by the author he mentions.  Although I can only get the abstract, I think what comes across as the main point is that these enriched yeasts can allow us to get more benefit from our supplements, than just taking inorganic vitamin and mineral salts of chelates.

I am sure many of you are wondering "what exactly is a selenium yeast?".  Well it appears these are just yeasts (usually just simple brewer's/baker's yeast) that are grown in selenium rich environment.  You can also enrich yeasts with many other vitamins and minerals (like the glutathione ones), and the authors say this is becoming a big player in supplement manufacturing as a whole.  At first I found it odd that the selenium rich environment was usually just the selenium salts that they were saying were not as good as these selenium yeasts, and then the life bridge concept really started to sink in.

I would compare the life bridge idea to that of nitrogen fixing in plants.  All life needs nitrogen for many basic functions.  The atmosphere on earth is mainly nitrogen gas, so you would think this wouldn't be a problem.  However, that nitrogen is unusable to many organisms, it would be great if humans could simple absorb this nitrogen through our lungs or skin and use it.  We rely on plants and fungi that have the ability to take in nitrogen and "fix" it into the organic compounds needed by life.  This is exactly what probiotics do, and why they are a life bridge.  They are able to absorb inorganic minerals and viatmins and turn them into usable organic compounds that we can easily utilize.

Many of us have heard of the term "bioavailability", or the ability of our body to absorb and use a compound, and the authors show us that probiotics are bioavailability machines!  They can turn many low bioavailable supplements into extremely bioavailable ones, and all you have to do is combine them and wait a while!

The book does a great job of convincing anyone who doesn't believe in the merit of probiotics just how important they are.  And for those of us who already know that we need to consume them, it does a good job in laying out the science for just why they are so important, and the mechanisms they use to work for us.  I would highly recommend the book, as it a very quick read, yet still quite detailed!