A year and a half ago, while trying to find a food capable of curbing and protecting the organism from ulcerative colitis -a disease of unknown origin that affects 180,000 people in Spain-, the microbiologist Felipe Lombó received a news that would end up shortening the way . The salmantino Joselito , whose hams bear his name, offered to the scientists of the University of Oviedo his famous Iberian. A ham that is born in the pasture , where Joselito hapy pigs spend two years raised in freedom, with a "totally natural" diet and where the production of acorn hams "only carries sea salt, without additives, dyes or preservatives."
But this time it was not about repeating the benefits (well known) of the excellent piece of acorn. What the researcher Lombó was looking for was a one hundred percent natural food and, above all, that met the scientific requirements necessary to be able to combat a painful and disabling disease that progresses at the rate of 3,300 new cases a year in Spain. And there it was, running as if it were an apothecary remedy , the delicacy of Guijuelo.
"We wanted to find out if our ham, in addition to its cardiovascular effects demonstrated in previous scientific studies, contains beneficial properties for digestive health." No injections or pills were necessary. Only ham of the best. Pure acorn. And according to the scientific results obtained with experimental animals, Joselito was not misled. "We had a natural medicine in a slice of ham, and we certainly didn't know it until now," says Joselito Jr., José Gómez Sánchez, the sixth generation of a firm that has been making palates and stomachs happy, proudly says.
Accepted the challenge, the rodents of the Asturian laboratory were the first to certify that a diet of 100% natural acorn ham eliminates and prevents the symptoms of this autoimmune disease in which at least 100 genes are involved. What causes genetically predisposed people to have a defect in the intestinal flora that, according to specialists, ends up producing an exaggerated inflammatory response and, therefore, lesions in the colon.
Now, while veganism continues to rise, vegetarians increase and listeriosis has put fear in the body of many, research adds a new incentive to eat ham. Acorn, yes. Joselito The considered as the best ham in the world.
As explained by Dr. Sabino Riestra Menéndez, from the Gastroenterology Department of the Central University Hospital of Asturias, where the clinical trial is being carried out with people treated with it for Iberia, ulcerative colitis is an inflammatory bowel disease that in Spain It is on the rise and shows its face between the ages of 20 and 40.
Those who suffer from it coexist and suffer from diarrhea, abdominal pain, sores in the large intestine that cause bleeding, fatigue, weight loss and fevers. But that is another story. Let's go to how this unique and pioneering experiment was carried out.
Thirty laboratory rats were chosen, which were induced by the disease (ulcerative colitis), which were divided into three groups of 10: one group was fed with supermarket ham; another with feed, and a third, with 100% acorn ham, 20 grams daily , cut into tacos, for a month. For this experiment, two whole legs were allocated, about 500 euros per piece, which were sliced in the same experimental laboratory.
After four weeks on this diet, says the microbiologist Lombó, the rats that had ingested pure Iberian ham "developed a larger population of bacteria with anti-inflammatory properties and had no symptoms of the disease." (In the conventional ham group, only two of the sick rats that began the investigation survived).
The connection between the Iberian leg and the intestine had worked. In fact, there was also a lower weight loss, less damage to the lining of the colon and lower levels of proinflammatory cytokines in the blood. What is a great advance in the field of health and, according to the microbiologist, opens the way to the science of functional foods (those that in addition to their basic nutritional properties, have an additional beneficial effect on our health).
We ask where the key is. "The first thing to note is that it is a product without nitrates , which are usually added to the ham in the preservation period." It also has 51.92% oleic acid (anti-inflammatory), a high percentage of omega 3 (also anti-inflammatory) and very little of omega 6 (pro-inflammatory). Moreover, the animals that took 100% acorn ham only have sea salt in the body as an additive, that is, 15 milligrams per kilo in solution, unlike those that ingested ham from the supermarket, which presented 188 milligrams, 12 times more than the first. A cocktail that makes it "a very important functional food within the meat sector", highlights the head of the research, in which the Faculty of Medicine of Oviedo, the R&D department of the Salamanca firm and the Faculty has participated of Veterinary of the Complutense University.
In other words: "Although diets based on meat products are not recommended in patients with this type of colitis, it is well known that foods that contain a high percentage of oleic acid and a low proportion of omega6 / omega-3 produce important changes in the intestinal microbiota, enhancing the appearance of bacteria with beneficial anti-inflammatory activity.That is why we wanted to check if a traditional cured meat product like this, which precisely contains high levels of oleic acid, could be useful to control inflammatory diseases such as ulcerative colitis, and so we have experienced it in an animal model. "
"The results of this research - Lombó finally points out - open a path to human research, to which we are optimistic in order to continue advancing in the care, control and quality of life of the sick." And he adds: "It is the only one that does not contain heavy metals , thus endorsing its category of functional superfood, unique in the meat sector." To these results, published in the scientific journal Plos One , will be added those obtained from the clinical trial with humans that are underway.
"The truth is that we are very proud and hopeful," says Joselito Jr. "This ham, which is made exclusively with sea salt, surprises us every time it is studied , it is natural medicine." In the two experiments (in animals and humans) a total of 20 joselites (18 for the clinical trial) have been assigned with four years of healing each (about 500 euros a piece). It should be clarified that the benefits of this food go beyond the time of quarantine. "It does not influence. This is a functional food because the basis of its diet is natural, which makes anti-inflammatory acids are there, in the animal itself, and, on the other hand, the product has a healing process without preservatives," Professor Lombó explains, "that applies to smells and taste, the decisive thing is that it does not carry nitrates."
Joselito recalls that this latest finding adds the cardiovascular effects of the product demonstrated in rigorous studies carried out in 2003 in collaboration with the University of Salamanca and the prestigious Mayo Clinic , in the United States, and that were collected in the prestigious scientific publication Journal of Nutrition Health and Aging .
Successfully passed the experiment in rats, now it's time to check if the positive effects of pure acorn ham detected in rodents act in the same way in humans. This is what they try to find out at the Central University Hospital of Asturias where the clinical trial is carried out. 30 volunteers participate in it. It consists of supplying 50 grams of this ham daily to patients affected by ulcerative colitis. "An intestinal disease that can lead to the disability of the individual," says Dr. Felipe Lombó Burgos, also responsible for the BIONUC Research Group (Biotechnology of Nutraceuticals and Bioactive Compounds) of the Department of Functional Biology of the Microbiology Area of the University of Oviedo ). Voluntary patients do not have to go to the hospital daily to receive their dose. The center that is in charge of carrying out the test sends them their portions of ham, already sliced and vacuum packed , to their homes. "All of them have a normal life , and they only go to the hospital to carry out the corresponding analyzes and follow-up of their illness," says the doctor.
Caring for health has never been so pleasant. And we are what we eat, said Hippocrates, the father of Medicine. And Joselito's Iberian, as just shown, is therapeutic.
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