Let’s run an ultramarathon Is it possible for a perfectly average middle-aged man to change his lifestyle and, in a short time, reach a level of physical performance he had never achieved before? Do we already have enough knowledge to shorten this journey? If experience has shown that a bacterial composition from runners is more...
The Beginning: A Gut Feeling They say knowledge is power. But at 49, sitting at the edge of a trail he once visited as a beginner runner, he wasn’t so sure anymore. He had spent most of his life and career looking for something meaningful that would help others – dozens of patients with mysterious...
Would You Swallow That to Live Longer? He had done strange things before. Fasted for 3 days. Ran a 42K with nothing but water and salt on a 400m track. But then he was only 17. Participated in over a hundred fecal transplants. But this was different. This time, the recipient wasn’t sick. This time,...
The Enemies in My Pantry For someone who had competed in triathlon races, he wasn’t expecting to lose a battle to a granola bar. But there it was – half-eaten on the kitchen counter, smug in its plastic wrapping, listing ingredients that barely sounded like food: glucose-fructose syrup, “natural flavor,” soy isolate, sunflower oil, emulsifiers,...
My Gut Garden Begins to Bloom There was a time when he thought of nutrition purely in terms of macros. Just as he learned: protein to rebuild, carbs to fuel, fats to balance hormones. But now, after clearing out his pantry, his mindset had shifted. Food wasn’t fuel. It was fertilizer – for the invisible...
The Clock That Heals It wasn’t hunger that woke him – it was rhythm. He began rising earlier. Not because of discipline or a new alarm, but because his body started syncing with something deeper. He had changed what he ate, but now it was time to change when he ate it. And it began...
Feeding the Right Army He often joked that if the body were a castle, then the immune system was its army – and the gut microbiota was the black-ops unit that trained them. But like any army, it needed to be fed. And not with sugar, caffeine, and ultra-processed flour, but with what microbes actually...
Bugs in a Bottle: Friend or Hype? He stood in the supplement aisle of a well-stocked organic market, staring at a wall of promises. Probiotics for immunity. Probiotics for stress. Probiotics for weight loss. Probiotics for replacing hair. Dozens of bottles with billions of CFUs per capsule, many costing more than a nice dinner. And...
I Fixed My Sleep, and My Gut Thanked Me At first, he thought his sleep issues were age-related. He’d wake up at 3 a.m., mind racing, heart slightly elevated. His Garmin watch showed fragmented deep sleep. He tried magnesium, meditation, white noise, blackout curtains. They helped – briefly. But nothing stuck. Then he looked inward....
Strong Body, Resilient Gut He had always respected muscle. As a doctor and former thriatlonist, he’d seen firsthand how lean mass predicted everything from blood sugar stability to injury recovery. But now, as he moved closer to his 50th year, he saw it differently. Not just as armor – but as fertile ground for microbial...
A legbelső szerotonin védelem Az egyetemen úgy gondolta, hogy az immunitás a vérben zajlik – T-sejtek, antitestek, gyulladás. De minél többet olvasott, annál világosabbá vált: az igazi frontvonal a nyálkahártya, különösen a bélben. És a titkos katona, aki ezt a határt őrzi? Egy molekula, amit úgy hívnak: szekretoros IgA. A bélfal plazmasejtjei által termelt szekretoros...
Stress, Cortisol & Gut-Brain Axis
You Are What Grows On You For most of his life, he treated skin as an afterthought – something to wash, shave, moisturize when dry. A functional cover, not an active organ. But that changed when he dove deeper into microbiome research. The science was undeniable: the skin wasn’t just a barrier. It was a...
The Testosterone-Gut Tango He never obsessed over testosterone. But as he neared 50, he noticed things changing. Recovery slowed. Motivation dipped. Muscle didn’t build like it used to. And it wasn’t just the gym – it was life. He wondered if his hormones were whispering something his microbes already knew. Then he found the research:...
Vice and Virtue in the Gut World For years, he thought small indulgences were harmless. A glass of wine, a strong espresso, the occasional painkiller. Not excess, not abuse – just comfort. But as his journey deepened, he realized something subtle: even the “little things” were messages to the microbiota. Alcohol, for instance, carried more...
The Great Fermentation Experiment He’d eaten sauerkraut before. Occasionally bought kombucha. Maybe spread a little miso into soup. But until now, fermentation had been just flavor. Not medicine. Not a mission. That was about to change. The more he studied the microbiota, the more one truth kept surfacing: populations with higher microbial diversity often include...
The Hidden Toxins Around Me He once believed health was mostly about food, fitness, and rest. But the deeper he went into microbiota science, the more he realized another invisible layer was at play: the exposome—the total sum of environmental exposures we encounter daily. Plastics, pollutants, fragrances, cleaning chemicals, heavy metals, even the air he...
My Cells Needed a Microbial Upgrade He had felt it for years – that creeping fatigue that no coffee could fix. His labs looked fine, his diet clean. But deep inside, he knew something was off. Not just a gut issue. Not just aging. Something cellular. That’s when he began connecting the dots: the gut...
How Sweet It Isn’t He had always been suspicious of “sweet without calories.” It sounded like cheating nature. And the more he dug into the science, the more he realized that his instinct wasn’t entirely wrong – but neither was it completely right. Artificial sweeteners weren’t one story. They were many. Saccharin, sucralose, aspartame, stevia,...
I Sequenced My Gut—Here’s What I Found It wasn’t just curiosity anymore – it was accountability. After months of restructuring his habits, feeding his microbes, and testing the limits of rhythm and food, he wanted to see if the inside reflected the effort. Who exactly was living in him now? He had always warned patients...