How do you begin to approach the topic of “everything you want to know” when discussing Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)?

Here at the IBS Recovery Center, we assume that what most people want to know the most is an immediate way to deal with their digestive ailments. And it just so happens that our science writers just stumbled on a near-to-miraculous food consumed by the some of the most long-lived people in the world. Those people live in the Caucasus Mountains region of Russia, and the amazing food staple they consume prevents digestive ailments.

In the West, we call that “amazing” food staple ‘kefir.” But perhaps the best way to do justice to the potential kefir has to treat your ailing bowel is to simply publish part of the chapter of a book our science team has just written. The writers of that book possess too many credentials to be mentioned here. And the book draws its content from some hard science reports. So without further delay, here it is, an excerpt from the “Preface” of Nature’s Miracle Food for IBS:

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Ancient Knowledge About Health Being Renewed

Certain regions in the Caucasus Mountains have, for example, long attained the status of myth for the long-lived peoples who live there.
And in the early nineteen seventies, the National Geographic (NG) paid a world known physician, Dr. Alexander Leaf, to travel those places where people had always been said to live the longest. Leaf’s first stop had been to Abkhasia in the Caucasus Mountains of Southern Russia. In the NG article, he repeatedly, comments on the consumption of a pro-biotic there —-fermented, or “sour milk2” —a pro-biotic which is likely Kefir.

He noted: “Breakfast general consists of cheese, bread, tea, and sometimes honey. The usual beverage is sour milk with cold water added.2”

Curiously, Leaf reported that the wide spread consumption of “sour milk” also supplied the, “main source of protein,” for Georgians over the age of eighty in the Caucasus2. Although, it has to be noted that Leaf didn’t attribute the long life-spans only to the consumption of sour milk.

He clearly also thought that factors played a role such as exercise, a cultural reverence for the aged, and fresh produce. In his book, Healthy at 100, John Robbins also remarks on the diet of Abkhasians and other peoples in the Caucasus that they regularly consume a fermented milk product, which has been“used in the Caucasus for centuries,3” and likely originated there.

Since Kefir is also a fermented milk drink that originated in the Caucasus, we can guess that Robbins might be unknowingly referring to Kefir. But he doesn’t actually refer to ‘kefir,” so the least we might conclude is that people in that region consume one pro-biotic food as a staple. So the question which might be raised is whether one secret to a long life is the consumption of probiotic foods, particularly kefir.

Needless to say, however, most of the ancient “secrets” to a healthy and long life remain lost to today’s generations as the ‘knowledge of the wise’ was passed orally from one generation to the next.

This Book an Extension of the Principle: “Fresh is Best”
Dr. Leaf had explored the three following regions known for the long life-spans of their inhabitants: Ecuador’s valley of Vilicabamba, Pakistan’s Hunza region, and Russia’s Caucasus Mountains.

In his book, Healthy at 100, Tim Robbins remarks that Leaf’s study and all other studies of those regions have revealed one important factor of diet common to all their long-lived people. They all consume the freshest foods. Robbins remarks that: “They all depend on fresh foods, eating primarily what is in season and locally grown rather than relying on canned foods or foods shipped long distances.4 “

The rule of thumb about the diets of long-lived people might be best stated as, “fresh is best.” And, in turn, that rule begs the question of what food could be fresher than a probiotic food (a food such as kefir or yogurt) that contains live organisms—-a food that can be said, therefore, to be “alive’” in one sense even as you consume it.

At the very least, the fresh foods mentioned by Robbins tend to be pre-biotic foods which encourage the activity of probiotic organisms in the gut.

If human health depends on fresh foods which help the gut’s beneficial bacteria and micro-biotic flora to keep thriving, than the freshest foods like Kefir might be considered the greatest advantage to a diet which helps people live longer. And as well, a probiotic food like Kefir possesses important advantages over all other probiotic foods. A later chapter will explore those advantages.

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So there it is. Nature’s Miracle Food for IBS explores the many facets of kefir’s effect on healh. I have to end this entry now, but I forgot to include the link for more information on the book and the topic of kefir. Sorry about that. I will return later today and include a link from the IBS Recovery Center.

Bye for now.

Edward Eliesen