Every few months, like clockwork, hundreds of videos promising tips and
tricks to “hack” your gut flood
TikTok. In March, influencers pushed shots of aloe
vera juice: “My digestive system, like my gut health? Never been better,” one
gushed in a video with 1 million likes while tapping on a purple bottle of the
drink.
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Another, with the username “oliveoilqueen,”
advocated drinking extra-virgin olive oil every day in a video viewed more than
3.5 million times, claiming that doing so cleared her skin, made her periods
less painful, and fixed her frequent bloating.
Videos tagged with #guttok have garnered nearly 400
million views. They are crammed with suggestions for cucumber-ginger juices and
boiled apples, bone broth in the morning, and sludgy sweet potato soups at
night.
But, there is not enough data to prove whether any
of these supposed fixes improve digestive functions, gastrointestinal experts
said. Some purported gut-health helpers, like coconut oil, have high-fat
content that can loosen stool and irritate your stomach, said Beth Czerwony, a
registered dietitian with the Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Human Nutrition.
Others, such as aloe vera juice, may cause diarrhea
in some people. And since the
US Food and Drug Administration largely does not
regulate supplements, many gastroenterologists are reluctant to recommend the
pills, powders, and products promoted by influencers.
“If somebody is claiming to have something that will
immediately turn gut health around, you should be skeptical of that,” said
Justin Sonnenburg, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford
University. Instead, his research points to long-term lifestyle habits that can
benefit the gut — ones that rarely go viral or make their way to social media
acclaim.
Going mainstream
The online obsession with
gut health is just one example of self-transformation content, said Stephanie
Alice Baker, a senior lecturer in sociology at the City,
University of London
who studies online wellness culture. “What you see is this trend of
self-optimization,” Baker said. The most popular #guttok videos tend to feature
before and after pictures — the swell of bloating under a crop top becomes toned
abs.
In a culture that sometimes bristles at mentions of
dieting or weight loss, framing these changes around a topic like gut health
might be more palatable to an influencer’s audience, she said.
There’s also an inherent intimacy that comes with
talking about the gut, Baker said. Authenticity attracts an audience — and it’s
hard to get more personal than talking about bowel movements.
“That’s what people are referring to when they say
gut health,” said Dr. Rabia De Latour, a gastroenterologist at
NYU Langone Health. “They want to stamp a nice, pretty name on it, but it’s about pooping.”
Signs of poor gut health
There’s evidence to suggest
that gut-related health conditions, particularly irritable bowel syndrome, have
spiked over the past few decades, said Sonnenburg, a surge he attributes to the
rise of processed and packaged foods. A global survey published in 2021 of more
than 73,000 adults from 33 countries found that more than 40 percent of
respondents had gastrointestinal disorders, like irritable bowel syndrome or
constipation.
Chronic, unexplained abdominal pain, constipation,
and diarrhea are all signs of poor gut health, experts said. People may also
feel sluggish, or “blah.”
If you are concerned about your gut, pay attention
to the consistency of your stool, De Latour said; you want them to be soft,
smooth, and sausage shaped. The Bristol Stool Chart, a medical classification
of seven groups of poop, can help determine whether your stool is healthy.
Gut health can have long-term health consequences,
doctors said. The gut is linked to the immune system and heart health, and
emerging research is examining the link between gut flora and neurological
disorders like Parkinson’s disease, said Dr Reezwana Chowdhury, an assistant
professor at Johns Hopkins Medicine.
Issues with your gut could point to a larger health
problem, she added, and people experiencing gastrointestinal symptoms like
abdominal pain or chronic diarrhea should consult a doctor.
Tips for improvement
- Eat more fiber: Two kinds
of fiber can aid your gut: soluble fiber — the gummy fibers we get from foods
like oatmeal and apple skins — and insoluble fiber, which serves as a laxative
that helps push food through the digestive system. Nuts, whole grains, beans,
and legumes can be good sources of insoluble fiber, Czerwony said.
Be careful not to introduce a lot of fiber too
quickly, though. You want to ease into any dietary changes, experts said, and
steadily increase the amount of fiber-rich foods you add to your meals over a
period of weeks.
- Limit processed foods: Emulsifiers that help keep
packaged foods shelf-stabilized can erode the mucus barrier in your gut,
Sonnenburg said, and artificial sweeteners found in many processed foods can
lead to unhealthy gut microbes.
Bacteria in the gut may quickly convert simple
sugars and starches into gas, he said, causing bloating. This means that fast
foods and processed foods — which Sonnenburg defines as foods with ingredients
“your grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food,” like additive chemicals — can
contribute to poor gut health. The gut microbiome is fairly resilient, though,
he said; the occasional ice-cream binge or gas-station snack won’t wreak havoc
on your gut health.
- Opt for fermented foods: Sonnenburg published a
study in August showing that fermented foods like yogurt, kimchi, kefir,
sauerkraut, and kombucha can increase the diversity of bacteria in the gut. His
research found that people who ate six servings of fermented foods each day saw
these benefits — the equivalent of consuming one cup of yogurt, one 16-ounce
bottle of kombucha, and one cup of kimchi in a day.
Past research has linked high levels of diversity in
your gut microbiome to lower rates of obesity, diabetes and other health
conditions.
- Lower your stress levels: There is a strong
connection between the gut and the brain, Czerwony said. “If you’re stressed,
if you’re not sleeping well, you might have gastrointestinal symptoms and think
it’s from your diet. It could be from your lifestyle,” she said. Adequate
levels of sleep, hydration and exercise are also linked to gut health, she
said.
Even a small amount of
physical activity can help with
digestion. “If you’re feeling sluggish and bloated, go for a walk,” she said.
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