How to Find Facts in a Sea of Fads: Inflammation & Our Microbiome

If you are a loyal reader to my blog, you may have gathered that our microbiome carries utmost importance when it comes to how well our body works. I mean, our microbiome is able to control both our physical and mental capacities, so we might as well take care of it! However, if one were to find themselves with an imbalanced microbiome, inflammation can arise and cause the telltale bloating that people seek to solve. It is important to make sure you are healing your gut correctly, not just by following what a TikTok "nutritionist" influencer or a Cosmopolitan magazine health guru says - but in a healthy, lasting, and medically safe way. Here, in this article, we are going to decipher facts from fads that are shown in our media today when it comes to solving inflammation as a result of our microbiomes!

The popular women's magazine, Cosmopolitan has been known to offer medical misinformation that can often lead many women astray when it comes to their health. This can be especially dangerous in situations like inflammation as a result of an unhealthy microbiome because oftentimes it is encouraged to merely drink a teawhen one finds themselves with chronic bloating and/or inflammation. Funnily enough, this tea is hyperlinked with a brand that is surely enough paying the magazine to advertise it. More often than not, these teas are merely placebos that target women who may not be too knowledgeable about their dietary health. This article simply outlines inflammation of the microbiome as a gas issue in result of eating "trigger" foods. While eating certain foods over an extended period of time can surely mess someone's microbiome up, one instance of eating bread (when it comes to a perfectly healthy human) is not going to cause your microbiome to go awry. Instead, once one's dietary habits have been cleared of not causing an issue in one's microbiome, they should then look at their sleeping patterns, fecal movements, stress levels, and genetic microbe history. The big issue with me when it comes to the fad of "trigger" foods is that it encourages the raging diet culture that fitness/dietary influencers are pushing today in the media. When big-time magazines such as Cosmo is seen here blaming one's microbial issues onto merely eating bread at dinner once a week, it can cause a lot of impressionable women to believe that bread is the devil and should be avoided at all costs. But, let's be real here: bread is too good to not have, especially when the person is healthy and has no underlying issues with gluten.

Moreover, there is a popular trend in the dietary community of healing bloating with tea. Not only did I see this in Cosmopolitan, but also in the brand Gut Power Drinks who sells prebiotic and probiotic teas that claim to heal microbial imbalance in the gut. Throughout their article that introduces possible remedies to bloating, they describe the use of teas and hypnotherapy as solvents to one's microbial problems. They especially push for the use of teas, however, this could be potentially dangerous and even worsen one's symptoms as teas contain, tannins, which are antioxidants that can actually induce bloating through increased gas production. Increased gas production can be a tell-tale sign of imbalanced microbiomes, as the microbes are unable to regulate the amount of gas in one's digestive tract and become overwhelmed by the increased pressure in our bodies.

If you find yourself seeking medical information on your microbial state in TikTok or even the Internet ... think twice! As this can more often than not lead to worsening symptoms due to the large amount of dietary fads there are in our world today. According to the CDC, gut microbiome dysbiosis can lead to Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) which can lead to Crohn's-like symptoms in certain individuals. These symptoms can lead to life-long effects when it comes to digestive health. Therefore, chronic inflammation is actually a really serious issue that should first be addressed with a physician, not a random fitness influencer who has a commisionable link for the "world's first microbiome-saving miracle tea".