Spill your guts: the mess of modern health

Do no harm. It is a promise or a warning. As modern medicine rests upon prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and pain, it’s almost as though the definition of health is negligible and reliant on a lack of symptoms. A zero on the pain scale, a short medication list, a small body– the doctrine of modern health is defined by what is not, rather than what is, and I’m convinced no one is speaking the same language. What is health, besides preventative medicine that’s ushered in to preserve bodily vacancy. As the institution of Science looks beyond the individual to stare at a cosmic uncertainty in the face and see limitations, I can’t help but turn inwards to recognize medicine’s blindness in understanding core relationships between textbook bodily systems. 


Food is fuel, and more recently, microbiology on gut bacteria has deemed it as treatment. As the end of science longs for a paradigm shift, the field of microbiology offers a transformation of medicine’s perception of our digestive system beyond a cesspool of acid and that wad of gum sitting at the bottom of your stomach. What’s old is made new through recent research on the strong neuro and endocrinological connection to gut biota, the collection of microorganisms colonizing in the GI tract, to form the world of the gut microbiome. Consider it a world within a world. The medical understanding of the digestive tract becomes intertwined with mood, behavior, disease, and inflammation as a result of neurotransmitters found in the gut that are regulated by one of our most important long term relationships –  intestinal bacteria that aid in digestion (Ding et al., 2021).


The microbiota-gut-brain axis, the bidirectional communication between the gut and brain, regulates intestinal homeostasis and the central nervous system via neural networks and neuroendocrine pathways. This direct relationship between the composition of gut bacteria present and the food we unconsciously feed that biome placed the ketogenic diet, high-fat, low carb fad diet, as potential treatment against multiple neurological disorders. Novel therapies targeting the gut microbiota contribute to epilepsy, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson's research when mainstream routes of medicine are less responsive (Olson et al., 2018).


Beyond IBS, the digestive system, specifically the colon produces a majority of the body’s serotonin, the 5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT, neurotransmitter that supports mood and memory regulation, although the exact process controlling gut metabolism of 5-HT remain unclear. Recognizing the gut-brain connection has been a recent breakthrough within understanding comorbidity between IBS and prevalence of mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression, and the contribution of the keto diet on mental health regulation is still being explored. The gut microbiome poses a concept of health where neurological, immune, and mental health become synonymous with daily diet and gut bacteria diversity, and the phrase “eat your colors” holds the weight to heal a lifestyle (Yano et al., 2015). This transformation of what we claimed to understand as separate metabolic and neurological pathways is groundbreaking in a unifying, harmonious sense rather than subscribing to the pure pursuit of “disruptive” science. The proper reconstruction of the unclear workings of the metabolic pathways can dictate an entirely more comprehensive healthcare experience beyond a negative diagnosis. 


How can normality be arbitrary, non-revolutionary, when our previous medical knowledge and patient advice has been half of the picture? Maybe the argument that “science has entered a period of permanent normality; there will be no more insights into nature as revolutionary as the theory of everything,” can simply practice humility. In the lens of health, it’s a privilege to say that our understanding of human metabolism is patchy and misunderstood as it allows medicine to revolutionize the picture of health modeled for patients and completely reorient our understanding of self.



Ding, M., Lang, Y., Shu, H., Shao, J., & Cui, L. (2021). Microbiota–Gut–Brain Axis and Epilepsy: A Review on Mechanisms and Potential Therapeutics. Frontiers in Immunology, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2021.742449

Olson, C. A., Vuong, H. E., Yano, J. M., Liang, Q. Y., Nusbaum, D. J., & Hsiao, E. Y. (2018). The Gut Microbiota Mediates the Anti-Seizure Effects of the Ketogenic Diet. Cell, 173(7), 1728-1741.e13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2018.04.027

Yano, J., Yu, K., Donaldson, G., Shastri, G., Ann, P., Ma, L., Nagler, C., Rustem F. Ismagilov, Mazmanian, S., & Hsiao, E. (2015). Indigenous Bacteria from the Gut Microbiota Regulate Host Serotonin Biosynthesis. Cell, 161(2), 264–276. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2015.02.047

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