Why is Sourdough Bread is healthier than yeasted Bread

This article touches on the role of the lactic and acetic acids, and how they can be beneficial in a number of ways:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/22/sourdough-bread-good-for-you

That said, I've always wondered if similar benefits can be had from a long cold ferment of dough with commercial yeast. If anyone has any information about that, I would greatly appreciate it!

Here are just a few links with interesting info on the benefits of naturally leavened vs. commercial yeast breads.  These are not scientific papers by any means, but provide some basic info.  Google is your friend for this topic and you will likely find some other threads on this site if you use the search function in the upper right corner.

Sourdough

Wild yeast vs. commercial

Real yeast (interesting blurb from the Blue Zones book)

There is no proof it is healthier if you shouldn't have it. And plenty that it's just as unhealthy if you shouldn't have it. Funny how that works. Enjoy! 

Sourdough Bread is simply not healthier than yeasted Bread. It's myth. Sourdough is often seen as some type mystical being, something holy. It's not, it's just one way the leaven the dough. 

Lots of very weird information out there around sourdough. 

I believe that misconception comes from the fermentation time. With yeast you can work very fast and have a bread within a few hours. With sourdough you typically work the next day with the dough - longer fermentation makes a healthier bread because long fermentation bread is easier to digest for the body. Typically - but you can do the same with yeast too if you want to! Then it's the same.

New here.  Only been baking breads serious for a short time but have a decent amount of knowledge dealing with the fermentation process and bacteria yeast general fungi..  The confusion and issues IMO are the use of terms that are not clear nor properly descriptive. 

Sourdough = wild yeast bacteria is just a poor choice.

Sourdough which is describing the sour flavor note of bread is suppose to mean wild sourced yeast and bacteria.  Yet you can make sour flavored bread using commercial yeast.  You can also make sweet bread with certain wild starters that are aggressively active.

To make sourdough with commercial yeast is as simple as making a starter with a small amount of idy or ady etc.

Further, 90% of the yeast and baceria strains found wild starters come from the flour used.  Understanding that every fermented dough that uses commercial  yeast also has all those wild yeast and bacteria strains that are already in the flour there and active as well.  Only way around this would be to use irradiated or UV sterilized flour or some way to kill the organisms in the flour itself.  

So all bread has wild strains in it and the difference between sourdough and sweet dough is fermentation over all activity that produces a given below neutral ph that creates a sour flavor to the bread produced.

As for the effect the fermentation has on the actual wheat flour digestibility and nutritional profile if given the same fermentation activity there would be little difference.  no real need to go deep into the science of all the yeast bacteria processes and effects on the grains used wheat in most cases.

The one area where wild starters especially those handed down over generations to even millennia, is diversity of yeast bacteria.  While you get majority of strains from the flour you also pickup some from the people making the dough, the enviornment it's made in.  Various grains made into flour especially over generations and sourced from different geographical locations will be incorporated into the biome of the starter.  Strains will adapt thus becoming new strains.  Some will be competed out or to lower % of the whole.  Each strain can produce different compounds as its consuming converting sugars alcohols etc.  By adding a huge amount of powerful comnercial yeast can push out and significantly lower other wild strains.  As a general rule keep lab created strains out of wild cultures is a rule follow.

Because of this I collect starter samples if possible when I run into someone that has had it handed down over a generation or more.  Same for if I go to different regions around the world.  Have some from 50yr up with the oldest dating back almost 1000yr.  Trying to get a sample from one sourced from Egyptian relics vessels that was dated 4500+yrs.   Those strains should mate very well with einkorn wheat.  Be interesting to see how the dough and bread  produced is effected differently or not.

It important to consider these bacteria and yeast end up all over our enviornment so while of course cooked bread ihas very little if any surviving biotic that starter and flour is floating thru the air all over the home it becomes part of the enviornment.  Not to mention the bakers hands and then all over the body transfered to many things including frsh veggies fruits dairy products.  All then consumed.   It's the same transfer as letting kiss play in tge dirt and in a biodiversity garden etc.  Point being it ends up in our enviornment and becomes part of use in varying degrees.

 I always thought it was odd people making a claim of best reason to only use flour you ground that day was loss of vita8min when most of those are oxidized when exposed to the high heat of the oven.  Sure it's better but not to the degree some claim.  Frankly the way our wheat has been hybridized and now GMO has far greater effect IMO.  Seems everytime scientists think they know better than nature when it comes to our food nurtients it's a disaster.  Just look at the study done by UT comparing the nutrient profile of fruits and veggies from 1950 to present day.  Oranges vit A would take 21 today to equal one from 1950.  Apples vit c 1950 would take 100 today. Yes 100.  Onions and potatoes have lost most all there micro nutrients vs 1950.  It's not rocket science the closer the product is to its natural source the better for health with of course some obvious exceptions.  Somethings of course must be processed to some degree to be safe to eat.  Soaking cooking beans etc.

One thing we know for sure from the research done on the human gut biome is more diversity = better health and resistance to pathogenic domination.  Thus anything we can do to add to our bacteria diversity the better.  So in this specific way yes wild starter bread can be healthier all other things being equal.

Consider that we have more cells and genetic material in our bodies of bacteria than we do our own human cells and dna material.  Much of our overall health comes from the compounds released from our bodies and specifically our gut bacteria.  Most people have no idea how powerful our gut biome are in determining our overall and acute health.  Most of the allergies you see today come from gut health and diversity going back to our birth and infant diets and those of our mothers.   This all points to wild starters especially those kept over longer periods as adding to health thru biodiversity of the biome.

Again I apologize for the terrible formatting.  I do not see an way to edit my post or I would attempt to fix it.  I hope it's  legible.