Postbiotics

Gut Microbiome

Trillions of bacteria, viruses, and fungi colonizing the gut aren't a passive "passenger" in the body — they're an active ecosystem influencing digestion, immunity, and even mood, with an increasingly well-documented, though still not fully mapped, role in whole-body health.

Probiotics

The effectiveness of probiotics depends heavily on the specific strain and indication — there's no single universal 'best probiotic'.

Prebiotic Fiber

The fraction of fiber not digested by humans that becomes food for beneficial gut bacteria — one of the simplest, best-documented ways to support a healthy microbiome.

Low-FODMAP Diet

A three-phase elimination protocol developed specifically for people with irritable bowel syndrome — one of the few 'therapeutic' diets with solid support from randomized clinical trials.

MicroAge

A machine-learning model that estimates biological age from the composition of the saliva microbiome — a very early, emerging approach to aging biomarkers, distinct from the mortality-focused OMAA Score.

Oral Microbiome Aging

The composition of bacteria colonizing the mouth changes in a predictable way with age — predictable enough that researchers have started building models to estimate biological age from a simple saliva sample.

Probiotics and Antibiotics: Do They Really Prevent Diarrhea?

This is one of the best-studied uses of probiotics — and one of the few cases where science points to a specific, best strain instead of a vague "probiotics help." We check how much the risk of antibiotic-associated diarrhea really drops, who benefits most, and which strain wins in head-to-head comparison.

August 22, 2026

SIBO — Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth

SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth) is a condition in which bacteria that normally colonize the large intestine multiply excessively in the small intestine, where under normal conditions there are far fewer of them. The result is bloating, gas, abdominal pain, and diarrhea or constipation that's easy to mistake for irritable bowel syndrome — and indeed, research shows the two diagnoses overlap far more often than one might expect. The trouble is that the standard diagnostic tests for SIBO have real limitations, and the term itself is often used more broadly today than the evidence supports.

September 10, 2026

Leaky Gut Syndrome — Is It a Real Diagnosis?

"Leaky gut" (leaky gut syndrome) is one of those terms that exist simultaneously in two very different worlds. In the scientific literature, increased intestinal permeability is a real, measurable physiological phenomenon, studied for decades and linked to several specific diseases. In the popular corners of the internet, "leaky gut syndrome" is often a standalone, all-encompassing diagnosis, made without testing and "treated" with expensive supplements. We check where one ends and the other begins.

September 10, 2026

Antibiotics, Vitamin K, and the Gut Microbiome: When It Actually Matters

Part of the vitamin K our bodies use doesn't come from diet — it's synthesized by gut bacteria. Broad-spectrum antibiotics, which destroy these bacteria along with pathogens, can therefore theoretically lower this internal supply of vitamin K — and in clinical practice this does have real significance, though not quite where you might intuitively expect. The biggest, well-documented problem isn't vitamin K deficiency in healthy people, but destabilized INR in patients on warfarin, where an antibiotic strengthens, rather than weakens, the blood thinner's effect.

October 5, 2026