Browse evidence-based analysis of health-related claims and assertions
Roasting sesame seeds at the right temperature helps get more oil out of them — especially when heated to 250°C — because the heat breaks open the tiny cells inside the seeds where the oil is stored.
In some Japanese women who can make a compound called equol, the more daidzein their bodies process, the more equol they tend to produce — probably because of the right gut bacteria.
People who live in Sendai, Japan are more than twice as likely to have gut bacteria that turn soy into a helpful compound called equol, compared to people elsewhere — probably because of local lifestyle or environmental habits.
Smoking might make it less likely for Japanese women to have gut bacteria that turn soy into a helpful compound called equol.
Japanese women whose gut bacteria can turn soy into a substance called equol also tend to have much higher levels of certain healthy compounds from sesame in their urine—suggesting their gut bugs might be linking how they process soy and sesame.
About 4 out of every 10 Japanese women between 30 and 69 can turn a soy nutrient into a special compound in their gut called equol — and this might affect how much they benefit from eating soy.
Sesamol works better than other sesame compounds at stopping oil from going bad, browning, and changing smell or taste when it's heated.
Sesamol and sesamolin make heated sesame oil smell better by boosting nutty, roasted, and popcorn-like scents while cutting down on grassy or stale smells.
Sesamol seems to speed up the browning process in foods with sugar and protein when heated, which might mean it changes how flavors and nutrients develop during cooking.
Certain natural compounds in sesame oil — sesamol, sesamolin, and sesamin — seem to help prevent the oil from going bad when heated, by reducing harmful changes and boosting its ability to fight damaging molecules in the body.
Sesame seed compounds change how the oil smells when cooked, by affecting chemical reactions and reducing certain smell-producing chemicals when heated.
Why do phytoestrogens help some people but not others? It might come down to the unique mix of bacteria in your gut, which can change how your body uses these plant compounds.
The good stuff in plant estrogens only works if your gut bacteria turn them into active forms — otherwise, they might not help with things like heart disease, bone loss, or menopause.
Your gut bacteria turn certain plant nutrients into powerful compounds that your body can use more easily—and these new compounds may have stronger health benefits like balancing hormones and fighting inflammation than the original plant chemicals.
Crushing flaxseed doesn't release as many healthy compounds as grinding it completely — it only gives about 43% of the benefits you'd get from fully ground flaxseed.
If you eat whole flaxseeds instead of ground ones, your body gets way less of the healthy compounds they contain—only about 28% as much.
If you eat ground flaxseed instead of whole seeds, your body absorbs way more of the healthy compounds that your gut bacteria turn into beneficial substances—crushing or grinding helps your body get more out of them.
A bacterial enzyme called Edl can turn one form of a plant compound (enterodiol) into another (enterolactone), and this was shown to work in lab-grown bacteria.
Most people have the gut bacteria genes needed to turn plant nutrients called lignans into helpful compounds—scientists found these genes in nearly everyone they checked in a California study.
Scientists found that when certain gut bacteria are more common, specific genes linked to breaking down plant compounds tend to show up more too — like a pattern that helps guess which helpful genes might be present just by knowing which bacteria are around.
Mice with a certain gut bug that has a specific gene make more of a helpful plant compound in their gut and pee than mice without that gene, after eating a seed-related substance.
A single enzyme from a gut bacterium can turn a plant compound into another one that might be good for health — and it worked really well in a lab test using engineered bacteria.
People having heart bypass surgery tend to have much higher levels of a protein linked to inflammation than people having heart valve surgery — this might mean their immune cells are more active because of their heart disease.
After heart surgery, there's more of certain immune chemicals in the fluid around the heart than in the blood, which means the area around the heart may be more inflamed and actively calling in immune cells.