Gut health has become a hot topic, but over-touting its efficacy can be harmful. This article dissolves gut health myths and emphasizes the importance of eating a balanced diet rather than relying blindly on supplements and processed foods.
In my childhood, my family often repeated the phrase: "All diseases begin in the gut." "My father was a health maniac and used this phrase to set a rule for our family's three meals a day: rice must be eaten, and the time must be exactly the same, so as to maintain regularity and thus promote overall health. I always scoffed at this, suspecting that his enthusiasm was nothing more than over-the-topping.
Now, to my chagrin, his obsession has become mainstream. Social media is full of testimonials about improving "gut health", claiming that it not only solves gastrointestinal problems such as bloating and abdominal pain, but also brings a range of additional benefits, including**itching, puffiness, slow hair growth, fatigue and weakness, acne, weight gain, and anxiety, among others. Now, you'll find a wide range of gut health products, from traditional yogurt and kimchi, to teas, crackers, gummies, supplements, powders and even soda that claim to contain "probiotics" or "prebiotics."
However, the reality is not so simple. Keeping your gut healthy, just like keeping any body organ healthy, is always important. But it's unrealistic to expect certain foods and products to revolutionize gut health, and it's even more delusional to think that they will guarantee overall health. Karen Corbin, an investigator at AdventHealth's Metabolic & Diabetes Research Center, told me that these claims are "a bit premature." Being overly obsessed with gut health will only add to the annoyance and may even do more harm than good. After all, biscuits, which are known as "gut health", are essentially biscuits.
In my father's defense, the gut is indeed important for your health. A large number of microbiomes live mainly in the large intestine and help the body get the most nutrients from food. Overall, a healthy gut is where different microbiomes, including a large number of bacteria, fungi, and viruses, coexist in harmony. An unhealthy gut can mean that the balance is broken: a group of people can become too strong, or invading microbes can upset the balance, leading to problems such as gastroenteritis and a compromised immune system.
Diet, in particular, has a profound effect on your gut and thus indirectly affects how you feel. Purna Kashyap, a gastroenterologist at the Mayo Clinic, told me, "Food can affect the microbiota and, in turn, the host. He added that the effects of food on people and microbes are often consistent with each other; Fast food, for example, is "bad" for both parties. Ignoring the nutrient needs of the microbiome can lead to an imbalance in the microbiome, which can lead to an imbalance in the gut with corresponding bloating, stomach pain, and bowel problems.
Fermented foods like yogurt and kimchi have long been believed to benefit digestive health and are known as "probiotics" because they contain live bacteria that can reside in your gut. Other foods are called "prebiotics" because they feed the microbes you already have in your gut – mostly fiber, as it is not digested in the stomach. Consuming more fiber can improve regularity and support a more normal gastrointestinal system, Corbin says.
But there is a fundamental problem with the gut health boom, which is that "there is no clear definition of a healthy gut microbiota". The composition and balance of people's microbiota varies depending on a variety of factors such as genetics, diet, environment, and even pets. This means that what works for one gut may not work for another. This also means that products that claim to promote gut health don't have any specific meaning. The idea that gut health, no matter how you define it, will solve gastrointestinal problems is misleading; Many diseases can cause abdominal discomfort.
The extent to which gut health is associated with benefits that outweigh the gastrointestinal tract is more uncertain. There is no doubt that the microbiota is connected to the rest of the body; Recent studies have shown that it plays a role in weight gain, depression, and even cancer, supporting the idea that having a healthy gut can bring other benefits. But the mechanism of it remains weitgehend unbekannt. Which microorganisms are involved? What are they doing? Daniel Freedberg, a gastroenterologist at Columbia University, told me that "based on animal studies, there are a lot of exaggerations about the microbiota influencing various diseases such as diabetes and obesity," and that it is "very unlikely" that these findings can be translated into humans. Until scientists can prove definitively that microbial X causes outcome Y, any gut relationship to overall health is simply "correlation," Corbin says.
This doesn't mean that paying more attention to your digestive health is a bad thing. This can be crucial especially for people with gastrointestinal conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome or Crohn's disease. For others, the pursuit of a healthy gut through food and supplements can be a non-specific process with vague goals. The food industry has capitalized on the interest in probiotics and prebiotics (as well as the lesser-known postbiotics and synbiotics) to create products such as "super probiotic" yogurt, probiotic-fortified chocolate and pasta, and prebiotic sodas. Especially when it comes to probiotics, the specifics are still lacking. Which bacteria, and how many, are able to actually cross the stomach and enter the colon, is unclear. "Many probiotics are unlikely to contain live bacteria, and very few of them may actually make it to the colon," Freedberg says. ”
Prebiotics are usually more important, but ** important. Freedberg told me that prebiotic fiber is "one of the most important factors in determining which bacteria are present," but getting a small amount of fiber from a fiber-fortified product doesn't make much of a difference. Freedberg explained that soda brands such as Poppi and Olipop mainly contain inulin, a fiber commonly found in food manufacturing for its slightly sweet taste, but it may not contain much or it will become "sticky." A can of olipop contains about 9 grams of fiber, which is about the same amount as a cup of cooked lima beans.
Of course, any product that is inherently unhealthy with the addition of fiber or live bacteria won't magically become good for you. For desserts and savory snacks, no amount of added fiber "can overcome the problem of them being full of sugar or salt," Corbin said. These concerns aside, Corbin is just shrugging when it comes to gut health products: buying foods that contain extra prebiotic fiber is a "reasonable approach," provided they are healthy on their own. Freedberg says that if probiotics make patients feel "great," then "I wouldn't object." Prebiotics and probiotic products may help to some extent, but don't expect them to completely change your unhealthy gut by drinking soda. All the experts I've interviewed say people who are concerned about gut health should eat more fruits, vegetables, whole grains and legumes, and cut back on junk food, which doesn't nourish their microbiome. In other words, a basic healthy diet is enough to achieve good gut health.
My father's mantra about gut health was clearly borrowed from Hippocrates, suggesting that people's obsession with the digestive system has been going on for thousands of years and the belief that it is the key to overall health. The appeal of this idea lies in its simplicity: to reduce the body's many ailments to a single super-disease seems to be a lot easier than the medical intervention required to solve individual problems. And the simple and easy methods — drinking fiber-rich soda, taking a pill with bacteria — add to its appeal.
But perhaps the most appealing thing about this idea is that it contains some truths. Recently, there have been some promising advances in microbiota research. A large study published in 2022 showed that people with depression had significantly elevated levels of certain bacteria. A study in 2023 in which Corbin participated was the first to demonstrate in human clinical trials that a high-fiber diet can alter the microbiota, thereby promoting**. This moment is especially confusing as we finally begin to understand how the gut connects to the rest of the body and how eating certain foods can soothe the gut. Much more is known about the gut than it was in Hippocrates' time, but it's still far less than the gut influencers on social media would make you believe.