How your gut bugs feed you (a little)
Quantifying the varying harvest of fermentation products from the human gut microbiota
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Your gut bacteria eat the fiber you can't digest and turn it into tiny amounts of energy that your body can absorb. What you eat matters way more than which bacteria you have.
No biological mechanisms were identified in this study. This may be an epidemiological, observational, or survey-based study that reports associations rather than proposing causal biological pathways.
Systematic Reviews & Meta-Analyses
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Max 90Cohort Studies
Max 72Case-Control Studies
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Max 5Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Your gut bacteria eat the fiber you can't digest and turn it into tiny amounts of energy that your body can absorb. What you eat matters way more than which bacteria you have.
No biological mechanisms were identified in this study. This may be an epidemiological, observational, or survey-based study that reports associations rather than proposing causal biological pathways.
Systematic Reviews & Meta-Analyses
Max 100Randomized Controlled Trials
Max 90Cohort Studies
Max 72Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional Studies
Max 44Case Reports & Case Series
Max 30Expert Opinion & Narrative Reviews
Max 5Publication
Authors
Arnoldini M, Sharma R, Moresi C, Chure G, Chabbey J, Slack E, Cremer J
Related Content
Claims (5)
The gut bacteria in people eating lots of fiber can provide up to 12% of their daily energy, while those on a typical Western diet get only 2%–5% from their gut bugs — so what you eat changes how much energy you get from your microbiome.
What you eat—especially fiber and complex carbs—mostly decides how much gut fermentation happens, and eating more of these carbs can boost fermentation by up to five times compared to a standard Western diet. The types of gut bacteria you have don’t really change the overall amount.
Most of the stuff your gut bacteria eat turns into helpful chemicals like butyrate, and your body soaks up almost all of it—very little ends up in poop.
Your gut bacteria don’t change how much waste they produce overall, but they do change what kinds of waste chemicals—like butyrate and lactate—are made, and this mix is different for everyone depending on their unique gut bug lineup.
People can't break down tough plant fiber like cows or rabbits can, so we get almost no energy from it — their stomachs are built for that job, but ours aren't.