Walk into any chemist and you'll find a wall of probiotics, each promising to fix something. So is gut health really that complicated?
On a recent episode of the Wonder Voice podcast, recorded at the Wonderlab studio in Sydney, host Rachel invited clinical nutritionist and health coach Anthony Hartcher to talk about one of the most popular topics in wellness right now. Anthony's answer was to zoom out: before we get lost in strains and supplements, look at the bigger picture of what we eat, when we eat it and how we live.
Gut health is an essential function of life
Our gut is how we bring nourishment into the body, in two forms:
- Macronutrients, the things we need in large quantities: fats, proteins and carbohydrates.
- Micronutrients, the things we need in very small quantities: vitamins and minerals.
His point is that modern health culture gets so focused on the micro picture that we lose sight of the macro picture. And from a gut health point of view, it's the macro picture, what we're eating day in and day out, that matters most to the gut microbiome.
There's a bonus too: when the gut is nicely populated with bacteria that support our body, those bacteria can help us make some of the vitamins we'd otherwise buy at the store.
Why the "best" probiotic might not be best for you
Rachel described a familiar habit: picking up the most popular, well-advertised product at the chemist, hoping it helps through a life stage such as puberty or perimenopause.
Anthony's response was honest. Many companies exist to sell a particular strain of probiotic, and like any company, they want to make money. So they'll tell you that you need their strain.
But your gut microbiome comes from your mother. To understand what's going to work for you, Anthony suggests following your mother's pathway, the ancestral pathway of your mother.
He also flagged a risk that rarely makes the advertising. There may be some evidence that a strain helps with a particular issue, but you might not be deficient in that strain. If you take a lot of something you didn't need, it can overpopulate and cause dysbiosis, an unbalanced microflora in your gut.
What we're really seeking, he said, is the same thing we seek in life: balance.
Listening in, not out
Rachel summed it up: listen more to what your body is signalling than to the advertising. Anthony agreed. Rather than assuming something else will fix our problem, we need to understand what we're deficient in or in excess of, then make decisions.
Protein first, and fat is back
When Rachel asked about the nutrients we can't produce ourselves, Anthony was clear: the number one thing is protein. He noted it hasn't been a focus in public health until the recent change to the US food pyramid.
Until then, he said, the focus was mostly on carbohydrates, and many of today's health problems come from excess carbohydrates and the wrong types: simple, refined carbs rather than whole ones.
Fat has also come back in. For years it was demonised with the message that "fat makes you fat". Anthony sees it the other way around: in order to burn fat, we need to consume fat. There are essential fatty acids we can't make and must get from our diet. And if we cut fat out, we also cut out fat-soluble vitamins, which then results in health problems.
Your gut needs the environment
One of the biggest ideas in the episode is that gut health has been missing a key ingredient: our interaction with the environment.
We live in a very sanitised world that kills off bacteria. But, as Anthony explained, our bacteria don't only come from fermented food. They also come from picking up dirt, playing with dirt, trees, leaves and foliage, and eating straight from the environment.
He shared that he recently visited Uganda, where people don't worry about sanitisation in the same way, yet have really great gut health because they interact intimately with their environment.
For families, the message is simple: kids need to get outside, play in the dirt and get dirty, as much as mum might not want the mess. The gut immune system's early training comes from childhood contact with the environment, and when we're removed from it, kids and adults both suffer.
Eat the foods that surround you
Asked how culture and environment shape our food choices, Anthony's answer was: eat the foods that surround you.
Food brings information to the body. It tells us what season it is and helps the body adjust to the environment. If we're eating foods from the equator while living in the Southern or Northern Hemisphere, Anthony says the body gets confused. His example: someone in the Nordics eating bananas or mangoes, when the body makes different enzymes at different times of year based on what food is available locally.
Feast in summer, fast in winter
Anthony then turned a common habit on its head. In summer, humans have always been exposed to an abundance of food. Animals are multiplying, veggies grow well (as he put it, in Sydney right now there are sharks everywhere), and we evolved seeing and eating lots of food in summer. So, in his view, it's not a good idea to fast in summer, because we're working against nature.
Winter, when food was scarce and we pickled and preserved, is the better time to fast. Yet many of us do the opposite, exiting winter over-nourished and trying to lose it all in summer.
Couples, life stages and getting back to balance
Rachel asked what Anthony would recommend for a couple who are at different life stages, such as perimenopause and andropause, and want to improve their gut health together.
If you're feeling a bit of dysbiosis, Anthony suggests returning to traditional, whole foods, looking back beyond our mother's generation to our grandmothers and earlier, because Western culture has changed the way we eat so much.
Get the environment right before the food
Even before the food, Anthony says the first priority is the environment, because it's the environment that trains the body on what to do at a particular time.
We're not meant to eat outside of light, yet Western culture eats late, and digestion turns down as the light goes down. Eat at 8pm under bright artificial lighting and, as Anthony describes it, the body thinks it's midday, produces insulin and cortisol, gets confused and generally sends that energy to fat stores.
In the evening, the body needs to do repair. If it's busy digesting, repair gets pushed down the road. So eat at the right times of day, and keep the evening meal light.
The one thing: spend more time outside
To close, Rachel asked for the single thing listeners should take home. Anthony's answer: spend more time outside.
He noted we're spending 90 per cent plus of our time indoors, and the body is confused. Poor digestion, bloating and irritable bowel syndrome can follow when the body doesn't know what time of day it is or what it should be doing.
His practical suggestions are small and doable:
- When you catch up with a friend, sit outside at the cafe.
- Go for a walk first thing in the morning to get proper light exposure, so your body knows what time of day it is.
- Build more outdoor activity into your routine.
Over time, Anthony says, this builds a more robust nervous system. Indoor life surrounded by technology is agitating, while time outdoors allows more regulation.
Listen to the full conversation
A healthy gut isn't something you buy off a shelf. It's built from the big picture: real macronutrients, seasonal and local foods, sensible meal timing and plenty of time outside.
Watch or listen to the full episode of Wonder Voice with Rachel and Anthony Hartcher, and if you'd like personalised support with your own gut health, get in touch with the me&my wellness team.