Lifestyle Sports: Latest from Food Politics: Industry-funded study of the week: Kimchi

By Marion Nestle

April 06 2026

Industry-funded study of the week: Kimchi

Eileen M. Duffy, Publisher and editor of Edible Port City (Wilmington NC) sent me this announcement: Kimchi probiotic promotes the excretion of nanoplastics from the gut.

Experiments have confirmed that lactic acid bacteria isolated from kimchi can bind with intestinal microplastics and promote their excretion from the body. In an animal study, the amount of plastic detected in feces more than doubled.

I went right to the reference:

Efficient biosorption of nanoplastics by food-derived lactic acid bacterium. Bioresource Technology Volume 447, May 2026, 134234. doi.org/10.1016/j.biortech.2026.134234

Guess who paid for this?

Acknowledgements: This research was supported by the World Institute of Kimchi.

Declaration of competing interest: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Comment

I’m always amused that authors do not view research support as a source of competing interests. They should. Research funding is so well established to influence how research is designed and interpreted that it has its own name: The Funding Effect.

But this study breaks new ground. Microplastics are a huge issue right now since we are all loaded with them and have no idea how harmful they might be.

Kimchi, like other fermented foods, promotes a healthy microbiome. Wouldn’t it be fabulous if eating it not only was good for us but also helped get rid of microplastics. This study compared the effects of two kinds of bacteria derived from kimchi; one kind did better at getting microplastics excreted from the intestines of germ-free mice.

It’s a big jump from that to doing something similar in human intestines.

But if you want to use this as an excuse to up your kimchi intake, go for it. I’m all for eating more kimchi.

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