Today I had a hangnail. I realized I hadn’t had one in months. I used to get them all the time — say, once a week. The only big change in my life in the last few months is all the fermented food I now eat. I find it hard to believe there’s a connection but I can’t remember another time in my life when they went away.
Your interest in fermented food has sparked my interest for the past 3 months or so, so I thought you might be interested in changes that I noticed from adding daily kombucha and rejuvelac. I follow a pretty low carb, almost grain free routine, but I was on this diet long before I started adding the fermented stuff. I dropped wheat as an experiment about 3 years ago, and it was a revelation. More on that, if you request.
The two most noticeable changes from the fermented food?
I would regularly get some late afternoon belching, long after lunch, sometimes vicious enough to the point of serious discomfort. This has disappeared almost completely, and it’s a great relief. It’s been consistent, even after big mexican food lunches (includes beans, no tortillas, rice or chips).
The second thing I noticed was a substantial reduction in the puffiness under my eyes, sufficient that my significant other noticed, too.
I prefer the very low residual sugar kombucha – the brand you like has just too much sugar for me.
yes, I’m interested, Cliff. What happened when you stopped eating wheat?
Now that I make my own kombucha I find that brand is a little too sweet, as you do.
This post caught my eye too. I’ve hardly ever experienced hangnails (I am not a native english speaker and had to look up the internet to understand what they are), maybe only 3-4 times as far back as I can remember (I’m 23 yrs old).
Since childhood, I’ve always eaten fermented food – as this type of food is part of the traditional diet in my home country (Romania). I eat approx 3 servings of yoghourt or fermented milk/cheese a day, as well as all kinds of pickled vegetables.
I don’t know whether there’s a connection here, but in addition to not having any skin/nails problems, I have never had tooth cavities and never needed any fillings (which always surprises my dentist when I run my annual checkup).
I’ve never tried stopping fermented food altogether to see if anything happens. If I ever try it, I’ll let you know if I notice any changes…
With regard to ceasing to eat wheat, the following happened:
I dropped about 15 pounds of fat quite quickly, within a few weeks.
I had long had a very annoying (even disturbing) morning cough, a real hacking at times. That ceased completely. I was a smoker when I was young, but quit 35 years ago.
My sleep apnea ceased completely, and my night time snoring declined by a substantial amount. Again, verified by my significant other.
When I quit the wheat, I felt like I had the flu for about 4 days. I notice now that if I have a bit of wheat once in a while, the cough does not return, but my snoring apparently immediately gets worse. If I have wheat for 3 days together, then the cough comes back.
Since this experiment, I have read Taubes’ book, and other bloggers (like cardiologist William Davis at the Heart Scan Blog) who have provided more concrete evidence of other reasons to quit wheat. That has helped with motivation, since I found that giving up wheat was much harder than giving up cigarettes.
I’ve upped my fermented food intake drastically over the past maybe four months but I have not seen any reduction in hangnails. I also have never had any cavities and my dentist (well, the last time I went to one, which was around 2004, I think) said I had “textbook teeth.”
I’ve mainly gotten my fermented food fix from yogurt (homemade for the past month or so) and kefir. Recently I’ve added some natto and I’m working on growing a SCOBY to do my own kombucha. I don’t buy kombucha though as it’s just too expensive/out of the way to get.
I also follow a low-to-no carb diet (exceptions: fruits, non-starchy vegetables, alcohol, fermented foods, and occassionally ice cream) and practice intermittent fasting.
Since the fermented food addition, I’ve noticed that I actually have a craving for yogurt. It’s as though I have to have *something* fermented every day now — this is as opposed to supplementing fish oil, which I know I *should* do, but often forget and/or disregard.
Of note, my snot has consistently had that greeny/yellow look ever since regularly incorporating fermented foods; however, I’ve not had any colds or other respiratory infections, and I successfully avoided a cold/flu that I felt onset symptoms for by mega-dosing Vitamin D3 (an unprecdented event for me).
I’ve also speculated that I’ve seen minor improvements (or at least maintenance of the status quo) in body composition while adhering less to working out.
Finally, when I have had the inevitable carb-binges, I’ve made it a practice to incorporate some fermented foods. This change seems to have reduced or eliminated the typical carb hangover (typically characterized by truly horrible gas).
But I still get hang nails.
I have seen two changes since increasing use of probiotics. First, it seems to me that my sclera are whiter. (No way to measure, of course, this is simply my impression.) Secondly, I used to enjoy a small glass of wine with supper. I no longer have much of a desire for a glass of wine . . . I might have one about once a week now.
My probiotic sources are, in order of volume and significance, real kefir, water crystal kefir, cheese, miso, kimchi, pickles, tamari. I tried kombucha for 3 weeks but finally my body asked for kombucha to be dropped from the menu.
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Wikipedia says: “hangnails are usually caused by dry skin or (in the case of fingernails) nail biting, and may be prevented with proper moisturization of the skin.” So I suppose I’d check for changes in humidity, bathing/handwashing habits (any new soap?), clothing habits (I always get hangnails when I wear ski gloves), gardening habits…
I used to get hangnails all the time. They went away when I went (ovo-lacto-) vegetarian.
Here’s a speculative connection. Dry skin is a classic sign of poor thyroid function. Some have speculated that poor thyroid function can be caused by adrenal fatigue, which in turn can be caused by an overactive immune system. So, fermented food reduces excessive immune response, which reduces the burden on the adrenals, which helps thyroid function, which helps with dry skin, which helps with hangnails.
Fermented food and HIV?
https://www.pri.org/health/global-health/yogurt-limit-hiv-aids1435.html
Oh for Christ’s sake. “My hangnails went away when I started taking probiotic homeopathic placebos”.