This is a very interesting read, and validates what I have experienced, personally and with patients.
Personally, I have a sweet tooth. Twice I experienced having it evaporate: once it was after eating a GAPS diet for 6 days (!) -- the Gut and Psychology Diet, basically Russian grandmother diet. It starts very restrictive and then turns into a "heathy diet" full of produce and also meat over time. The effect lasted about 2 months and was very noticeable.
The other time was with a preparation of antimicrobial herbs. I don't believe in killing gut microbes willy-nilly and the Russian diet was too drastic for me but there must be other ways to budge that microbiome in the right direction.
I am launching my newsletter Tuesday: the first issue is on how Time-Restricted Eating (the practice of limiting your eating hours in the day) impacts your microbiome, and in turn, a variety of medical conditions.
While nobody denies the impact of the microbiome on health, the research on probiotic supplementation is not very promising to date. Here's a quote from a recent RCT on probiotics for metabolic syndrome: "...we describe a double-blinded, placebo controlled human study examining the effects of a probiotic supplement designed...to treat metabolic syndrome...We did not observe a probiotic arm-wide improvement in metabolic syndrome parameters nor a decrease in circulating markers of inflammation in the...participants...However, we identified a subset within the probiotic arm with lowered triglycerides and diastolic blood pressure, a group we termed probiotic responders..the remaining participants in the probiotic arm, the probiotic non-responders, had higher levels of serum glucose and insulin at the end of the intervention, indicating that for these participants the probiotic could be having a detrimental effect. While some studies have described a potential benefit in glycemic control with probiotic supplementation, there does not appear to be a consensus among studies, which would be consistent with a portion of the population being responsive to probiotics and others being non-responsive or adversely-responsive. In general, probiotic supplements are considered...safe, however, there have been reports that probiotics can lead to acute issues such as sepsis and gastrointestinal issues in individuals with compromised immune systems...probiotic supplementation can hinder microbiome recovery after antibiotic treatment...Whether probiotic supplementation could be detrimental in some individuals with metabolic syndrome remains unknown, but as the field of personalized medicine and nutrition advances, understanding how an individual’s underlying physiology impacts probiotic efficacy will likely be important in treating conditions like metabolic syndrome." So, probiotic intervention is nowhere near ready for primetime, and user beware!
How does this apply to artificial sweeteners, something I have always considered as poison. I was off my GLP-1 for a month during my slice-and-dice surgery, along with my usual routine of plant-based diet, probiotics, and B Vitamin routine. I’m now four weeks back to my routine and suddenly dealing with an irrational & unexplainable craving for Diet Coke. Real sugar cravings are absent, but the Diet Coke cravings persist. They’re so strong that they wake me from sleep, and I keep finding what I can only assume are emergency stashes around the house and even my car! Please, make it make sense. :). Can’t wait for the Zoom.
There's a video with Erika Sonnenburg where she is being interviewed about the study comparing people randomized to high fermented foods vs. people randomized to high fiber diet.
She said they also tried a probiotic arm and found that people who were eating a lot of vegetables had a reduction in inflammation, while people who were not had an *increase* in inflammation.
This could be a clue to your different populations.
Some of what you say seems consistent with my simplistic theory, based partly on self-observation, partly on decades of treating various addictions in my patients, and partly on raw speculation: some of us react to simple carbs with dramatically increased cravings for more of the same, whereas a diet that restricts simple carbs (perhaps combined with overnight fasting) can lead to dramatic weight loss, remission of Type II diabetes, and slowed progression of ASCVD. In such cases, to paraphrase the old saw from AA, "one Oreo is too many and 100 is not enough!" So maybe the plethora of simple carbs, arriving in the gut, causes the little buggers in there to do something nasty that changes the brain's appetite settings in ways that may subside over a day or two if not further stimulated. Or maybe the reaction is wholly in the brain, who knows? The next part of the theory is based on the "A-to-Z Study" (and my own experience) suggesting that a simple-carb-restricted diet with unrestricted saturated fats intake may not be as dangerous as some people think, perhaps because it's not the fats that cause the problem but the high sugar a/o insulin levels that irritate the endothelial cells leading to their attempting to protect themselves by covering their raw areas with passing lipids. How's that for a fantasy? Is there any proof, one way or the other? I'm hoping to learn that by reading your very interesting publications, none of which was even published as fantasy when I was in med school.
The Microbiomes have spoken: No guts, No glory.
🤣
This is a very interesting read, and validates what I have experienced, personally and with patients.
Personally, I have a sweet tooth. Twice I experienced having it evaporate: once it was after eating a GAPS diet for 6 days (!) -- the Gut and Psychology Diet, basically Russian grandmother diet. It starts very restrictive and then turns into a "heathy diet" full of produce and also meat over time. The effect lasted about 2 months and was very noticeable.
The other time was with a preparation of antimicrobial herbs. I don't believe in killing gut microbes willy-nilly and the Russian diet was too drastic for me but there must be other ways to budge that microbiome in the right direction.
I am launching my newsletter Tuesday: the first issue is on how Time-Restricted Eating (the practice of limiting your eating hours in the day) impacts your microbiome, and in turn, a variety of medical conditions.
I'm certainly linking to this newsletter in mine! https://simple-science.beehiiv.com/subscribe
Great info. I've linked to your article in my post about the gut microbiome:
https://drmick.substack.com/p/trusting-your-gut
While nobody denies the impact of the microbiome on health, the research on probiotic supplementation is not very promising to date. Here's a quote from a recent RCT on probiotics for metabolic syndrome: "...we describe a double-blinded, placebo controlled human study examining the effects of a probiotic supplement designed...to treat metabolic syndrome...We did not observe a probiotic arm-wide improvement in metabolic syndrome parameters nor a decrease in circulating markers of inflammation in the...participants...However, we identified a subset within the probiotic arm with lowered triglycerides and diastolic blood pressure, a group we termed probiotic responders..the remaining participants in the probiotic arm, the probiotic non-responders, had higher levels of serum glucose and insulin at the end of the intervention, indicating that for these participants the probiotic could be having a detrimental effect. While some studies have described a potential benefit in glycemic control with probiotic supplementation, there does not appear to be a consensus among studies, which would be consistent with a portion of the population being responsive to probiotics and others being non-responsive or adversely-responsive. In general, probiotic supplements are considered...safe, however, there have been reports that probiotics can lead to acute issues such as sepsis and gastrointestinal issues in individuals with compromised immune systems...probiotic supplementation can hinder microbiome recovery after antibiotic treatment...Whether probiotic supplementation could be detrimental in some individuals with metabolic syndrome remains unknown, but as the field of personalized medicine and nutrition advances, understanding how an individual’s underlying physiology impacts probiotic efficacy will likely be important in treating conditions like metabolic syndrome." So, probiotic intervention is nowhere near ready for primetime, and user beware!
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9980610/#cit0039
How does this apply to artificial sweeteners, something I have always considered as poison. I was off my GLP-1 for a month during my slice-and-dice surgery, along with my usual routine of plant-based diet, probiotics, and B Vitamin routine. I’m now four weeks back to my routine and suddenly dealing with an irrational & unexplainable craving for Diet Coke. Real sugar cravings are absent, but the Diet Coke cravings persist. They’re so strong that they wake me from sleep, and I keep finding what I can only assume are emergency stashes around the house and even my car! Please, make it make sense. :). Can’t wait for the Zoom.
There's a video with Erika Sonnenburg where she is being interviewed about the study comparing people randomized to high fermented foods vs. people randomized to high fiber diet.
She said they also tried a probiotic arm and found that people who were eating a lot of vegetables had a reduction in inflammation, while people who were not had an *increase* in inflammation.
This could be a clue to your different populations.
Some of what you say seems consistent with my simplistic theory, based partly on self-observation, partly on decades of treating various addictions in my patients, and partly on raw speculation: some of us react to simple carbs with dramatically increased cravings for more of the same, whereas a diet that restricts simple carbs (perhaps combined with overnight fasting) can lead to dramatic weight loss, remission of Type II diabetes, and slowed progression of ASCVD. In such cases, to paraphrase the old saw from AA, "one Oreo is too many and 100 is not enough!" So maybe the plethora of simple carbs, arriving in the gut, causes the little buggers in there to do something nasty that changes the brain's appetite settings in ways that may subside over a day or two if not further stimulated. Or maybe the reaction is wholly in the brain, who knows? The next part of the theory is based on the "A-to-Z Study" (and my own experience) suggesting that a simple-carb-restricted diet with unrestricted saturated fats intake may not be as dangerous as some people think, perhaps because it's not the fats that cause the problem but the high sugar a/o insulin levels that irritate the endothelial cells leading to their attempting to protect themselves by covering their raw areas with passing lipids. How's that for a fantasy? Is there any proof, one way or the other? I'm hoping to learn that by reading your very interesting publications, none of which was even published as fantasy when I was in med school.
If people stay off sugar and flour for a month, the craving goes away. Probably changes the microbiome.