Gabrielle Fundaro – Gut Health Explained

Ads for probiotic supplements are everywhere you turn these days, and they promise you everything under the sun. They will balance your “good” and “bad” gut bacteria, improve depression or anxiety, help you lose weight, reduce inflammation, lower cholesterol—the list goes on. Are all these claims true? Are some of them true? Are any of them based on rigorous scientific inquiry?

The money spent on marketing probiotics, the number of individuals using them, and the technology to better understand the human microbiome have all increased dramatically in the 21st century. What an exciting time for research and a hopeful era for new ways to cure disease. But, as with any new area of inquiry, the field of gut microbiome science is fertile soil for pseudoscience, exaggeration, and unscrupulous marketing. How can the consumer tell what information is based on solid science, and what is the magic pill of wishful thinking?

In the 12 fascinating lectures of Gut Health Explained, Dr. Gabrielle Fundaro shares the latest scientific knowledge about the trillions of organisms that live in your gut. Humans have coevolved with this gut microbiota for such a long time that the microbiome interacts with every system in your body. It produces useful compounds that nourish intestinal cells, support metabolic health, protect against certain types of cancer, influence brain activity, and support the immune system—in fact, you might be surprised to learn that the gut contains about 70 percent of the body’s immune tissues and cells.

Each of us has a microbiome composition as unique as our fingerprints, made up of trillions of microorganisms. In this course, you’ll learn how to navigate the evolving landscape of gut microbiome science while gaining a deep understanding of the intricate interplay between you and your microbiome.

Do You Have a Healthy Gut?

Scientists agree that one of the most important questions in microbiome science is also one of the most elusive to answer: What constitutes a healthy gut? In 2012, the International Life Sciences Institute’s North American Gut Microbiome Committee commissioned a review to answer that seemingly straightforward question. At the time, they concluded that a healthy gut microbiome couldn’t be defined by one single, idealized composition.

More than a decade later, the question still hasn’t been answered. The exact species and quantities of yeasts, bacteria, protists, archaea, unicellular eukaryotes, and viruses that live in each person’s gut are determined by genetics, diet, disease, climate, and many more factors. Trying to explain the best gut microbiome by quantifying species distribution is trying to define a system with literally trillions of constantly moving parts—not all of which have yet been fully identified—is like trying to understand the population dynamics of a metropolis based on a single photograph.

Instead, recognizing that everyone is interested in “gut health,” even though no one can define exactly what that is—and accepting that plenty of healthy people have vastly different microbiomes—Dr. Fundaro has developed a functional approach. In this course, you’ll learn about the “Three Ds of Gut Health.” A healthy body will function well in the following categories:

• Disease. The term “health” usually implies the absence of disease. However, given that about 40 percent of people suffer from a gastrointestinal disease, a healthy gut must include not only one without disease, but also one in which a disease is successfully managed.
• Digestion. This includes both your subjective experience of digestion—nausea, bloating, etc.—and the objective ability of your gut to break down and absorb nutrients.
• Diversity. This refers to both the number and proportion of microbes (the taxonomic diversity) as well as the variety of genes (the functional diversity) that lets us know what those microbes can do.

Your Gut Microbiome vs. Disease

In the last 15 years, scientists have learned that the relationship between the microbiome and the rest of the body is far more complex than originally thought. As a result of that complexity and lack of detail below the species level, researchers have not yet established any strict cause-and-effect relationships between the gut microbiome and any specific aspect of health or disease. Nevertheless, interesting patterns have emerged with respect to several diseases, including:

• Colorectal Cancer. High levels of Fusobacterium nucleatum have been observed in patients with colorectal cancer, and it is now considered a potential biomarker for colorectal cancer risk.
• Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). IBS is often characterized with lower microbial diversity in the intestines. However, it would be incorrect to say that lower microbial diversity causes IBS.
• Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO). SIBO is a condition characterized by an abnormally high concentration of bacteria in the small intestine, especially the types that should be found in the large intestine. However, it can’t be said whether the abundance of certain microbes is a potential cause or consequence of this GI disease.

Is It Science Or Pseudoscience?

It’s not surprising that gut health supplements are selling like mad these days. Given that more than 50,000 articles about the human microbiome have been published in the past 15 years alone, almost everyone has heard about this exciting new field. Unfortunately, the truth is that those 50,000 articles have produced more questions than answers—due to both the complexity of the human microbiome and the necessarily methodical pace of true science. But that’s not stopping the unscrupulous from selling products related to the microbiome. How can you tell if an article or a product is based on scientific evidence?

In this course, you’ll learn about several tell-tale signs of pseudoscience, including:

• Anecdotal Evidence. Just because people are willing to tell a television audience how much a particular supplement helped them doesn’t mean there’s any scientific evidence to support its efficacy. If scientific evidence existed, it would probably be front and center in the ad.
• Inaccurate Disease Terminology. Manufacturers may sell supplements for diseases that are not recognized by the medical community. For example, you can buy dozens of products to treat “leaky gut”—but that’s not a medically recognized condition.
• Direct-to-Consumer Medical Tests. It’s a good idea to check with your doctor before ordering any direct-to-consumer medical tests. FDA-approved tests have been shown to be both safe and effective. Any non-approved test might only be analyzed by the manufacturer’s lab, and you cannot be sure what your “results” actually mean.

As Gut Health Explained illustrates, huge strides have been made in recent years in this relatively new science. And even without the answers about concrete causative relationships we hope to have in the near future, the field has already provided exciting new avenues to support your overall health.