HeyJaredBetter Microbiome Thinking
Essays by William DePaolo, PhD on how the gut, brain, and environment shape one another. Exploring microbiome science beyond “good vs. bad bacteria” toward systems thinking, integration, and human meaning.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 15
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- Sep 29, 2026
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- Jul 27, 2026
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Dysbiosis and the Art of Explaining Nothing (opens the original)
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Subscribe now“Dysbiosis” has a remarkable talent for making an unfinished explanation sound like a completed diagnosis. The bacteria are different, so the microbiome is dysbiotic. The patient is sick, so the dysbiosis must matter. A product changes the bacteria, so balance has supposedly been restored. Somewhere in that sequence, several demanding scientific questions disappear beneath a word that sounds sufficiently medical to discourage further interrogation. We should be interrogating it much
Who Gets Protected When Microbiome Companies Stay Anonymous? (opens the original)
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Subscribe nowImagine paying for a microbiome test because you want an explanation for what is happening in your body. You send away a stool sample and receive a report describing your bacteria, assessing your gut health and suggesting changes to your diet. Then researchers discover that a company classified two portions of the same standardized material as healthy and a third as unhealthy. You would reasonably want to know which company produced those results. In the published study, that compan
Your gut reset has an end date. Does it have a definition of success? (opens the original)
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Subscribe nowBy day seven, you can finish every powder, follow every food rule, and complete your gut reset exactly as instructed. The company can count a sale, and you can count a week of effort. What would either of you measure to establish that your gut had been reset? If the answer involves restoring your microbial ecosystem, the program owes you evidence about what changed, why that change matters, and how long it lasts. Finishing the box answers the easiest question.<div class="captioned-i
Microbiome Tests and Supplements. What Does the Evidence Show? (opens the original)
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Subscribe nowYou paid for a microbiome test because you wanted to understand your gut. Now the report has arrived, and several bacteria are marked low. There is a probiotic to consider, a prebiotic powder to add, and perhaps another supplement intended to support something your microbes appear to be doing poorly. Each recommendation sits beside information collected from your own stool sample. That arrangement makes the advice feel personal, and it gives you a compelling reason to believe the pr
Stop Treating Microbiome Diversity Like a Credit Score (opens the original)
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Subscribe nowMicrobiome reports love a score because a score feels decisive. Diversity has become one of the favorites. A higher number suggests a richer ecosystem and therefore a healthier person. That story is intuitive, easy to sell, and scientifically incomplete.<a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!OCc8!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3
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