Gut Health Myths and Facts What Science Really Says

The hashtag gut talk has over 6 billion views on TikTok. Gut health. And if you think that's a big number, how about 60 billion dollars? According to Grand View Research, that's the market value of the global digestive health products market, and it's projected to grow to over 100 billion dollars by 2033. These massive numbers are just a taste of how popular the world of gut health has become. Gut health has been such a hot topic all over our social media for a couple of years now. More people talking about gut health and the gut microbiome.

Gut health is everywhere right now, and honestly, it should be. Experts say good gut health can not just improve digestion, but also prolong life, boost immunity, and reduce inflammation. But with so much information out there, including some extreme diets and bizarre trends like poop maxing and coffee enemas, it can be confusing to tell what advice is backed by real evidence instead of marketing gimmicks and social media clickbait. I tracked down some experts to help explain what gut health really means, how it became such a hot topic, and what they could tell us about maintaining a glorious gut.

First off, let's define what gut health is. And just to get this out of the way, it involves pooping. Gut health is not just the absence of disease, but a state where your entire gastrointestinal tract, which is your stomach, your small bowel, your large bowel, all of these organs are thriving and healthy such that you are preventing disease occurrence in future. A lot of focus on the gut microbiome, um, and that's really having a robust gut microbiome, which is having a lot of different helpful microbes in there and feeding them well.

The microbiome in our gut is vital to our health. It's a complex network of trillions of microorganisms or microbes living inside of our digestive system. That's trillions with a T. When we talk about the gut microbiome, we're talking about archaea, fungi, bacteria that live within our gut. They are synergistic with us. They help us survive as a species, as an individual, and if they're happy, we're happy. We evolved with these microbes in our gut since really since the beginning of time. So, they're very important for helping us digest what we eat, extract calories from what we eat, and help maintain a normal gut sort of ecosystem.

They eat mostly what we eat. Um and their waste products have a huge role in determining a lot of aspects of our health. Those compounds get absorbed into your bloodstream, and they can move to your heart, they can move to your lungs, they can move to your brain, and they can have beneficial effects elsewhere so far away from where those bacteria are. This is also where we get another buzzword that you might have heard before. Probiotic. Probiotics are live microorganisms, which when administered in adequate amounts confer a health benefit on the host. If you want to go more in-depth on that,

we actually did a video about probiotics in yogurt. And there's actually no hardline definition of what exactly is going on inside of us that makes our gut microbiome healthy. What we do know is that if the microbes in it are diverse and robust, our gut is working properly. We always describe each person's gut microbiome as being like a fingerprint. Tons of different species doing tons of different things, producing all these different compounds. And when that world of microbes inside of us is out of balance, we can feel it. When it comes to your gut microbiome, there's no good or bad bacteria. You need a lot of different kinds of bacteria in your gut. So, there's a term for the imbalance of the gut microbiome called dysbiosis,

and some of those symptoms are things like bloating, abdominal pain, issues with movements. So, it's a good thing that we're talking about our gut health and microbiome more, but its rise as a trending topic has opened the door to questionable claims about gut health. Many people have conditions that are affected by the gut microbiome. 40% of Americans say that GI symptoms disrupt their daily lives. Gut issues have been stigmatized in the past. You know, you don't walk around talking about your bowels and how they It's just kind of not what people do.

Public awareness of the gut health benefits from things like probiotics became widespread in the 2010s. And product marketing for supplements, beverages, beauty, and food products leaned into that popularity. They added labels with claims like supports gut health and boost microbiome. You don't know if that means that actually any of those bacteria are going to make it to your colon, or they're going to take hold, or if they were ever, you know, live to begin with. Everyone should just remember that the supplement industry is not regulated the same way as a medicine. That hasn't stopped the big business of the wellness industry, which is now worth over $6 trillion and is largely unregulated.

You go to any grocery store and you see a hundred different probiotics and gut health supplements. There are studies that have been done that have shown that if you take probiotics off the shelf and you look at them, almost 30% of them are completely dead. They have nothing that's alive. And I think even more worrisome is that almost 30% of them have something in them that isn't on the label. So, you don't really know what you're getting. But things really took off once social media influencers started heavily chiming in about gut health. All right, I got a gut hack for you. Want to focus on your gut health? This is the perfect drink for you.

I cleansed my gut, and now I have a healthy gut. While some wellness influencers might be legit doctors or health care professionals, research shows that many of them aren't. Billions of bacteria live in a person's mouth, maybe more than there are birds on earth. Some are helpful, others, many are behind oral health problems like cavities and gingivitis. So, how do you manage something you can't actually see? It starts with a solid routine and the right ingredients for the job. Take stannous fluoride for example, it helps target and kill plaque bacteria. Plaque can harden into tartar and plaque bacteria can cause cavities and

gingivitis. That's why Colgate developed a unique stabilization technology to keep the bacteria-fighting stannous fluoride stable in your toothpaste for longer. The benefits go even further when you pair it with the Colgate Total toothbrush and mouthwash. The toothbrush is designed with ultra-fine bristles to reach deep along the gum line and between teeth where plaque likes to hide. And when you're not brushing, the antibacterial mouthwash extends protection. Together, they form the Colgate Total Active Prevention System designed to prevent oral health problems before they start. 41% of health and wellness influencers identify themselves as some kind of healthcare professional, but most of them describe themselves as things like

coaches or entrepreneurs. And the thing is, people are listening to their advice. Pew Research shows that 40% of adults get health and wellness information from social media influencers or from podcasts. It's midnight and you're scrolling TikTok and you see somebody who is like, "Hey, do you have diarrhea and bloating?" Suddenly, you're locked in. For the first time you're feeling heard. Someone's describing your symptoms. And then you get sold. And then you start liking their content, you buy their supplements, you try out, you know, all of their different products. And you move further and further away from the science.

That's led to plenty of unverified claims of so-called miracle products or hacks offering promises of improving your gut health overnight. And the more extreme viral trends like colonics, parasite cleanses, or poop maxing are likely to actually harm your gut. The colonics is a big one. It actually will cause negative impacts on your gut microbiome. Anything that's like a very vigorous wash of your gut will disturb your microbiome, and you definitely don't want something like that. This whole concept of cleansing and resetting, there's no evidence, there's no proof for it. So, what should we really be doing to keep our gut healthy? The doctors and researchers that I talked to actually had some pretty simple and science-backed advice.

I think healthy diets like a Mediterranean diet are very reasonable. A wide variety of foods is good. Avoiding things, I think, is more important. Avoiding preservatives, avoiding artificial sweeteners. We know that a lot of the preservatives that are added, particularly those that are added to make foods sort of softer and creamier, um they can cause an inflammatory response within the gut lining and also systemic inflammation. Fiber maxing, or at least trying to get a little more fiber into your diet, is one gut health trend that you should probably listen to.

Number one, it is fiber, 100% for gut health. We want a little bit of fiber, we want the fruits, we want the vegetables, we want the colorful plates. Fermented foods for most people is a good thing to incorporate into your diet if you can tolerate it. There's really no way to hack your gut or change your microbiome without making some serious lifestyle changes. Start introducing probiotic foods every day. Probiotic foods do really boost the diversity of your microbiomes. The closest you can get to your food source, the closest you can get to pulling it directly out of the ground and eating it, that's probably even better for you than anything you get in the grocery store. So, if I had to distill it all down, I

would say fiber, water, cuz water and fiber go together, and stress reduction. It's really a lot of common sense things. There's no cure-all supplement, food, or single habit that you can take up that's going to magically fix your gut health. Anybody who's offering you one size fits all for microbiome and microbiome therapies, um just approach with caution. The best advice is the simplest and probably the same thing that your mom has been telling you for years. Eat

healthy, don't stress, get some sleep, and make good choices. Thanks for watching. If you're not already a member, head on over to patreon.com to get access to more stories, stay connected with us, and help make ambitious reporting possible. It's so important to support independent journalism. Your membership allows us to have fun, research interesting stories, make cool videos, and continue our investigative reporting. And if it doesn't make financial sense for you to support right now, you can still follow us on Patreon for free, and you'll stay up-to-date with all of our great Vox reporting.