Einkorn is an ancient grain and is known as the oldest variety of “wheat.” Einkorn is also sometimes referred to as “farro” or “farro einkorn.” Einkorn was first cultivated 5,000 to 6,000 years ago. It is classified as a “diploid” because it only has two sets of chromosomes. Modern wheat varieties are classified as “hexaploid,” having six sets of chromosomes, due to a long history of hybridization. Einkorn is thought to have originated in the upper area of the Fertile Crescent of the Near East (Tigris-Euphrates regions), and is quite probably the main grain recorded in the earliest biblical history. Einkorn became widely distributed throughout the Near East, Transcaucasia, the Mediterranean region, southwestern Europe, and the Balkans, and was one of the first cereals cultivated for food. Another ancient grain, emmer, has four sets of chromosomes and was probably an early hybrid of wild einkorn that was more suitable for a wider range of climates and geographical areas, particularly warmer climates. Emmer became the predominant wheat throughout the Near and Far East, Europe, and northern Africa until about 4,000-1,000 BCE, although it was still cultivated in isolated regions such as south-central Russia into the last century, and even today remains an important crop in Ethiopia and a minor crop in Italy and India. The oldest hexaploid grain and the predecessor to modern wheat is probably spelt. Spelt was a hybrid of emmer with more adaptability then emmer. These three ancient grains are known as “the covered wheats,” since the kernels do not thresh free of their hard coverings, making them more labor-intensive to mill. These ancient grains went through a long history of hybridizations to make them easier to mill and process into our modern-day wheat, and to make them more desirable for bread making with a higher gluten content. But due to gluten toxicity issues in modern times, many are reviving the ancient varieties of grains, and einkorn is the oldest. The ancient grain einkorn is packed with nutrition. It is a rich source of beta carotene and lutein, powerful antioxidants. Einkorn has the highest amounts of lutein of any other wheat variety.

The gut-skin axis is now well-established in the peer-reviewed literature. Multiple 2024-2025 reviews have mapped the mechanisms. Your gut lining is a barrier serving as the last line of defense between the outside world (the food you ate two hours ago, now being broken down by your microbiome) and your bloodstream. When that barrier is intact, and the microbes on it are balanced, you're fine. When it's not, everything downstream gets loud. Damaged intestinal barrier → bacterial fragments + inflammatory signals cross into circulation → systemic immune activation → cytokines and immune cells migrate to peripheral tissues → skin gets the overflow. Acne, eczema, and psoriasis all correlate with measurable gut dysbiosis and intestinal permeability . The pattern is well-documented for psoriasis specifically: Decreased Actinobacteria, increased Firmicutes, and modulation of the Th17/IL-17 immune axis that drives the disease. For atopic dermatitis (eczema), the pattern is reduced beneficial bacteria and increased barrier dysfunction. For acne, dysbiosis correlates with the inflammatory component, making acne more than just a clogged pore. There's honest scientific uncertainty about causation direction: Does gut dysbiosis cause the skin condition, or does an already-inflamed body drive both? Researchers are still working this out. But the correlation is real, mechanistically plausible, and consistent across populations. The dietary drivers are increasingly clear. High-glycemic-load food. Robyn Smith + colleagues at Melbourne’s RMIT University ran the first randomized controlled trial on this in 2007. 43 male acne patients aged 15-25 were assigned to either a low-glycemic-load or standard high-glycemic-load control diet for 12 weeks. The low-GL group's total acne lesion counts dropped ~twice as much as the control (-23.5 vs -12.0, p=0.03), with parallel improvements in insulin sensitivity, IGF-1, and free androgen index. Multiple follow-up trials have replicated this.

Dear Friends, ​ ​One of the most fascinating discoveries in medicine over the past decade is just how deeply connected the gut and brain truly are. ​ Most people think of the gut as simply a digestive organ. In reality, it's constantly communicating with your brain through the immune system, nervous system, microbiome, and countless signaling molecules. In fact, about 90% of the body's serotonin is produced in the gut, highlighting just one of the many ways gut health can influence mood, sleep, and cognitive function. Researchers have also discovered that the brain's immune cells, called microglia, respond directly to signals originating in the gut. When the intestinal barrier becomes compromised, inflammatory compounds can influence these cells, contributing to neuroinflammation that may play a role in brain fog, memory changes, and mood disturbances. Perhaps even more exciting is the growing body of research suggesting that supporting gut health may also help support brain health. As our understanding of the gut-brain axis continues to evolve, we're gaining valuable new insights into how addressing the gut may improve cognitive resilience and overall wellbeing.

In 2010, Laura de Magistris and colleagues published a study in the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition that compared intestinal permeability in children with autism, their first-degree relatives, and healthy controls. They found significantly elevated intestinal permeability in 36.7 percent of children with autism, compared to 4.8 percent of controls. This is the phenomenon often called “leaky gut”: tight junctions between intestinal epithelial cells become loose, allowing larger molecules (partially digested food proteins, bacterial endotoxins, microbial fragments) to pass through into the bloodstream where they trigger immune responses. When this happens, several cascades unfold. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS), an endotoxin shed by gram-negative bacteria, enters circulation and triggers systemic inflammatory cytokines that can cross the blood-brain barrier and activate microglia, the brain’s resident immune cells. Food peptides that should have been digested into amino acids reach the bloodstream and provoke immune memory and food sensitivities. Mast cells, distributed throughout the gut, lung, and brain, become primed and start releasing histamine, tryptase, and inflammatory mediators in response to ordinary stimuli. The gut-immune-brain axis is one continuous loop, and dysfunction at any node propagates throughout the system. Digestive Enzyme Insufficiency A separate but related problem has emerged from endoscopic biopsy studies in children with autism: many of them simply cannot digest sugars and carbohydrates properly. In 1999, Karoly Horvath and colleagues evaluated 90 children with autism undergoing endoscopy and found that 49 percent had at least one deficient disaccharidase enzyme (lactase, maltase, sucrase, palatinase, or glucoamylase), and 20 percent had deficiencies in two or more. Lactase deficiency was the most common. A 2011 study by Williams and colleagues, published in PLoS ONE, confirmed and extended these findings, also documenting altered intestinal microbiota associated with the carbohydrate digestion impairment.

We are all carrying microplastics, and one of the more intriguing recent findings suggests that traditional fermented foods may offer a practical way to remove them. Researchers in South Korea, publishing in Bioresource Technology, screened hundreds of bacterial strains and identified a specific lactic acid bacterium found in kimchi that clings tightly to nanoplastics in the gut, keeping them bundled together as they move through the intestine so they can be excreted rather than absorbed into the body. In mice given this strain, plastic particles in the stool more than doubled, suggesting meaningfully better clearance. The idea is that the bacterial cells essentially grab onto the plastic particles and escort them out before they can cross into the bloodstream and accumulate in organs. Two caveats worth noting: this is animal data, and the study was funded by the World Institute of Kimchi. But the mechanism is plausible, kimchi is already well-supported for gut health and immune function, and if live-cultured fermented vegetables can also help bind and eliminate plastic particles, that is a meaningful potential benefit in an era when avoiding nanoplastic exposure entirely is essentially impossible. Look for unpasteurized, live-culture kimchi to ensure the active bacteria are present.