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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Scientists know that our microbiome, it's not just involved in digestion. It's intimately linked with so much of our overall health. It influences our immune system, our mental health, our cognition, and much, much more. Some of these links are only beginning to be fully revealed.
You're listening to LifeKit. I'm Mariel Segarra. And that was NPR health correspondent Will Stone. The gut microbiome is a way of describing the literally trillions of microbes that populate our intestines.
A lot of these are bacteria, but we also have other organisms in there, fungi and viruses. So you want to picture this packed, dense ecosystem that's alive within you.
Now given what scientists are discovering, that the microbiome is important to our health, people want to hack it. They want to have the very best, healthiest microbiome possible. Will says the problem is the science hasn't come quite that far yet.
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Chapter 2: What is the gut microbiome and why is it important?
And this isn't a test that your doctor orders because they think you have some illness. This is a test you would get
commercially a couple hundred dollars to try to maybe optimize your microbiome or figure out what's wrong with it on your own they'll give you hundreds of different measurements and it looks pretty pretty legit i talked to dr alexander koritz about them he's a gi specialist and researcher at the university of minnesota he says he'll get patients who are worried about their gut health maybe they'll have some symptoms and they'll send him their results
It usually comes as an entire book, colorful, with many, many entries of different bacterial species, fungal species, different metabolites. And I think the message the patient gets, well, gee, my doctor never did this kind of testing, this amount of information. This looks very impressive. It must mean something. And the reality is, unfortunately, it's not very informative at all.
And the fundamental problem is one we already discussed, which is we don't have a definite consensus on what even is a healthy microbiome. But beyond that, we've also seen research that's shown the same patient with the same sample can send it to different companies and they get very different results.
So it's not just interpretation, it's also kind of the reliability and variability you can get when you go out onto the market.
Okay, so don't bother with the tests. And what about supplements, like probiotics, for instance? If you walk into a health food store, there'll be shelves of many different probiotic capsules you can choose from.
Yeah, and it can be pretty confusing to figure out, is any of this worth my money? Now, probiotics can be helpful in specific circumstances. So for example, there's good evidence they can be beneficial for reducing the risk of diarrhea associated with antibiotic use, also for preventing traveler's diarrhea.
Or for preterm infants who are at risk of complications, these are a few examples where we have better data. But beyond that, the idea that most people who are otherwise healthy should be taking a probiotic daily to support their gut health, it's really not backed by science yet.
There may be a day where we actually have more targeted probiotics that can help people, but we are just not at that point yet.
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Chapter 3: How can I define a healthy microbiome?
So these are things like sauerkraut, kimchi, yogurt, but you want to look and see whether the yogurt has live cultures of bacteria in it, not highly processed kinds of yogurt with sugar in it that don't actually have bacteria in it. Those are a couple examples of beneficial probiotics that you can get from your food.
Okay. And then is there anything that people should avoid to help their gut microbiome?
Yeah, so probably no big surprise here unless you really need it. Antibiotics tend to be overused, overprescribed. So try to avoid those when not necessary. Beyond that, Hannah and others brought up some of the usual culprits we hear when we talk about other issues with our health. Foods like highly refined, sugary, that are low in fiber, sometimes called ultra-processed foods.
You wanna try to keep those to a minimum. And, you know, she's an advocate of moderation, you know, doesn't really think people need to be extreme here. But she says, as much as you can, unfortunately, alcohol is not great for our gut. And, you know, best to avoid that if you're concerned about supporting your gut microbiome.
Will Stone, thank you so much.
Thanks for having me. It was fun.
All right, time for a recap.
Don't bother spending money on a gut microbiome test. They overstate the science, and they're way ahead of the evidence. Some probiotic supplements have been shown to help with particular problems, like traveler's diarrhea and diarrhea associated with antibiotic use.
But the idea that most people who are otherwise healthy should be taking a probiotic daily to support their gut health is not backed by science yet. We'll drop the names of a couple strains that are well studied in the show notes. And you can also check out a website called usprobioticguide.com, which outlines the levels of evidence for each strain that's been studied and for which conditions.
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