Almond Skins Promote Gut Health

Prebiotics are food ingredients that beneficially impact metabolism in the intestinal tract, and some studies have suggested these compounds help to manage metabolic diseases in overweight/obese individuals.  Giuseppina Mandalari, from the Institute of Food Research (United Kingdom), and colleagues the effects of natural and blanched almond skins.  The researchers found that ingestion of almond skins promoted the numbers of good bacteria, specifically Clostridium coccoides and Eubacterium rectale, in the gut.  Explaining that almond skins contain a high amount of dietary fiber, high in plant cell wall polysaccharides that provide the body with energy through fermentation and absorption of short chain fatty acids, the team  concludes that: “Dietary fibre from almond skins altered the composition of gut bacteria and almond skins resulting from industrial blanching could be used as potential prebiotics.”