Did quick research on how to support the bacteria growth
> Dietary modifications that emphasize high-fiber and prebiotic foods and dietary supplements may support the healthy growth of Roseburia [1]
> As stated above, a Mediterranean diet is associated with increased Roseburia growth. This diet emphasizes primarily plant-based foods: whole fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds, olive oil, and fatty fish. The high fiber and resistant starch content of these foods may fuel Roseburia and the other beneficial flora of the human microbiome [1]
> Polyphenols are plant compounds abundant in fruits, vegetables, tea, and coffee. Emerging research indicates that polyphenols can enhance Roseburia abundance indirectly by inhibiting harmful bacteria and fostering beneficial ones. [2]
I wish scientists would be more open about how little they understand digestion and nutrition, particularly on an individual level. Advice gets presented as an if-then, when it's not.
If you have a complaint against "scientists" as hsme homogenous group, I think I'm going to have to ask you to explain how these particular scientists did not do that, and why you would think this is a problem of scientists (a label for a largelt disparate group not connected through any specific communication or hierarchy and mostly in output) in general?
Nutrition researchers know a lot about diet. Or at least what constitutes a good diet.
The reason you think “they don’t know” is a media ecosystem that hypes weak minor contrary results that usually disappear in further research and an entrenched trillion dollar food industry that spreads misinformation to get you to continue eating the foods they sell that have the highest markups, such as processed foods, meat and dairy.
It is known that the bacteria that produce high amount of butyrate are beneficial, e.g. by decreasing the risk of colon cancer, but this does not seem sufficient to explain the increase in muscle strength that seems to be caused by this species alone.
The study has first found in humans a correlation between muscle strength and the presence of this bacterium. Then they have attempted to determine whether this correlation is due to a causal relationship by killing the gut bacteria in mice, then feeding them with this kind of human gut bacteria. The result was an increased muscle strength, which seems to confirm causality.
How the bacteria increase muscle strength remains unknown. I think that a possible explanation may be that this bacterium produces some substance that mimics a human hormone, e.g. a steroid, in which case it would be a kind of natural doping.
It can be, but it's often not. The thing that makes hamburgers harmful isn't really the "chemicals" or processing or whatever, it's the fact that it's red meat with high amounts of saturated fat.
You would have to use low fat beef, and ideally not beef but turkey.
I think some people think that burgers, fries, steak, and milkshakes are bad for you because they're fast food or restaurant food. No... no that stuff is just bad for you. You'll get a heart attack if you make it at home, too. Just eat it in moderation and eat more vegetables.
IMHO it's the restaurant. For a variety of reasons but here's just one example of a mechanic:
> Repeatedly heated cooking oils (RCO) can generate varieties of compounds, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), some of which have been reported as carcinogenic. RCO is one of the commonly consumed cooking and frying medium. These RCO consumption and inhalation of cooking fumes can pose a serious health hazard.
Nutrition is complicated and rules of thumb can be really useful even if they sometimes over simplify things. One good rule that has had a ton of research interest into it in the past decade or so is ultra-processed foods. Here's a BMJ review
> Greater exposure to ultra-processed food was associated with a higher risk of adverse health outcomes, especially cardiometabolic, common mental disorder, and mortality outcomes. These findings provide a rationale to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of using population based and public health measures to target and reduce dietary exposure to ultra-processed foods for improved human health. They also inform and provide support for urgent mechanistic research.
"chemicals" (however those are defined) are bad for you, but unhealthy food is still unhealthy even if it's natural. The naturalism fallacy is just that, a fallacy.
Hamburgers aren't bad because chemicals. They're bad mostly because they're super high in calories, saturated fat, and red meat. All of those are going to contribute to heart disease, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, obesity, etc.
UPF are bad for you, yes. Not necessarily because of the processing, but rather because MOST UPF is unhealthy. That does not mean that non-UPF is magically healthy.
If you deconstruct an UPF and eat it's components, it's still unhealthy. Oreos are bad for you because it's sugar and empty calories. Not because they were made in a factory. If you just take a spoonful of sugar and eat that, that's still bad for you.
I agree that rules of thumb can be good. Here's a simple one:
There are many poisons in nature. Saponins and tannins are extremely poisonous but because they are so widespread in plants and because humans have been eating such a wide variety of plants for so long we've adapted specific pathways to make them basically harmless in standard amounts (some even have medicinal importance). Give those substances to a carnivorous animal and they will suffer or die. Alcohol too is something we've uniquely adapted to. How "poisonous" something is is often a function of how widespread it is. The most lethal poisons are also some of the rarest in nature.
Given the option of two substances, one which we've had 10k years to adapt to and one which was just created in a lab and has structures not like anything commonly found in nature, there is definitely a lower chance that the "natural" substance will be more harmful to you.
It's not that bad for you, but it's definitely not good for you. It's not a very good source of protein and it's fairly calorie dense. It can also be quite high in saturated fat and red meat is a carcinogenic.
Obviously eating steak in moderation is fine. Eating steak everyday is not going to be good for you.
All fiber-consuming gut bacteria, yes - but that's basically synonymous with "good"/beneficial gut bacteria, so it's good advice even if it doesn't give people the massive gainz they might have been hoping for.
> This opens up the possibility that the bacterium under investigation could be used as a probiotic to help preserve muscle strength during aging
Maybe, but it's really hard to control for other variables here. They don't know what's causing this bacteria to diminish over time in older adults in the first place.
It could totally just be dietary habits getting worse over time as people let themselves go. Regardless of age, most people already don't eat enough protein and when they do they might not be getting "complete" proteins either (missing amino acids is common with plant-based foods).
For me personally, as I've gotten older I have continued to eat better and more consistently than I ever did earlier in life. I think the long term study of your own life tends to show you that diet is one of, if not the, primary factor in short and long term health and well being.
That's why they followed up with an actual experiment with mice, where they found that just adding the bacteria made them stronger.
Of course we won't know for sure before doing human experiments, but it'd be an odd coincidence if we saw the correlation in humans and causation in mice, but there was no causation in humans.
Beer is basically fermented sugar (well, glucose converted to ethanol by yeast, for the most part; though its maltose first, yeast, bacteria etc... prefer glucose and maltose is a disaccharide of glucose: Maltose).
Pretty sure Duff was a heavily filtered macro beer.
Not saying engineered beer is necessarily bad- Sapporo and Asahi never disappoint- but I imagine you would want to stick to unfiltered and unpasteurized to retain some of the more… alive compounds.
They have found first a correlation between the presence of this species of bacteria and muscle strength in humans.
Then they have made an attempt to determine whether this correlation reflects a causal relationship.
So they have fed mice previously treated with antibiotics, to remove their own gut bacteria, with this kind of bacteria extracted from humans.
They have indeed seen an increase in muscular strength at the mice that have received the human bacteria, which seems to confirm causality between the presence of this bacterium and muscle strength.
While they have also determined the biochemical changes in muscles that have caused increased strength, the mechanism of how the bacteria have influenced that remains a mystery. Perhaps this bacterium produces some substance that mimics a human hormone, e.g. a steroid.
This is why I tell my gym bros that they should quit all that Celsius garbage and stick to the basics. You should measure your gut health by the quality of your feces (consistency, texture, colour, shape), and then your muscles and rest of your body will thank you. This research is evidence of that. The science is still catching up.
Perhaps there is also a direct correlation between this microbiome and longevity in the so-called "blue zones" of the world like Okinawa, Sardinia etc.
Every few months there's a new study showing gut bacteria control yet another thing we thought was "us." Mood, cognition, immune response, and now muscle strength. Starting to wonder what's even left.
85 comments
> Dietary modifications that emphasize high-fiber and prebiotic foods and dietary supplements may support the healthy growth of Roseburia [1]
> As stated above, a Mediterranean diet is associated with increased Roseburia growth. This diet emphasizes primarily plant-based foods: whole fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds, olive oil, and fatty fish. The high fiber and resistant starch content of these foods may fuel Roseburia and the other beneficial flora of the human microbiome [1]
> Polyphenols are plant compounds abundant in fruits, vegetables, tea, and coffee. Emerging research indicates that polyphenols can enhance Roseburia abundance indirectly by inhibiting harmful bacteria and fostering beneficial ones. [2]
[1] https://www.rupahealth.com/post/roseburia-spp-101
[2] https://www.innerbuddies.com/pages/gut-microbiome-101/gut-ba...
I wish scientists would be more open about how little they understand digestion and nutrition, particularly on an individual level. Advice gets presented as an if-then, when it's not.
The reason you think “they don’t know” is a media ecosystem that hypes weak minor contrary results that usually disappear in further research and an entrenched trillion dollar food industry that spreads misinformation to get you to continue eating the foods they sell that have the highest markups, such as processed foods, meat and dairy.
The study has first found in humans a correlation between muscle strength and the presence of this bacterium. Then they have attempted to determine whether this correlation is due to a causal relationship by killing the gut bacteria in mice, then feeding them with this kind of human gut bacteria. The result was an increased muscle strength, which seems to confirm causality.
How the bacteria increase muscle strength remains unknown. I think that a possible explanation may be that this bacterium produces some substance that mimics a human hormone, e.g. a steroid, in which case it would be a kind of natural doping.
You would have to use low fat beef, and ideally not beef but turkey.
I think some people think that burgers, fries, steak, and milkshakes are bad for you because they're fast food or restaurant food. No... no that stuff is just bad for you. You'll get a heart attack if you make it at home, too. Just eat it in moderation and eat more vegetables.
> Repeatedly heated cooking oils (RCO) can generate varieties of compounds, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), some of which have been reported as carcinogenic. RCO is one of the commonly consumed cooking and frying medium. These RCO consumption and inhalation of cooking fumes can pose a serious health hazard.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28925728/
Nutrition is complicated and rules of thumb can be really useful even if they sometimes over simplify things. One good rule that has had a ton of research interest into it in the past decade or so is ultra-processed foods. Here's a BMJ review
> Greater exposure to ultra-processed food was associated with a higher risk of adverse health outcomes, especially cardiometabolic, common mental disorder, and mortality outcomes. These findings provide a rationale to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of using population based and public health measures to target and reduce dietary exposure to ultra-processed foods for improved human health. They also inform and provide support for urgent mechanistic research.
https://www.bmj.com/content/384/bmj-2023-077310
Hamburgers aren't bad because chemicals. They're bad mostly because they're super high in calories, saturated fat, and red meat. All of those are going to contribute to heart disease, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, obesity, etc.
UPF are bad for you, yes. Not necessarily because of the processing, but rather because MOST UPF is unhealthy. That does not mean that non-UPF is magically healthy.
If you deconstruct an UPF and eat it's components, it's still unhealthy. Oreos are bad for you because it's sugar and empty calories. Not because they were made in a factory. If you just take a spoonful of sugar and eat that, that's still bad for you.
I agree that rules of thumb can be good. Here's a simple one:
- eat more greens, eat less meat
> The naturalism fallacy is just that, a fallacy.
I disagree. It's a "good enough" rule of thumb.
There are many poisons in nature. Saponins and tannins are extremely poisonous but because they are so widespread in plants and because humans have been eating such a wide variety of plants for so long we've adapted specific pathways to make them basically harmless in standard amounts (some even have medicinal importance). Give those substances to a carnivorous animal and they will suffer or die. Alcohol too is something we've uniquely adapted to. How "poisonous" something is is often a function of how widespread it is. The most lethal poisons are also some of the rarest in nature.
Given the option of two substances, one which we've had 10k years to adapt to and one which was just created in a lab and has structures not like anything commonly found in nature, there is definitely a lower chance that the "natural" substance will be more harmful to you.
Obviously eating steak in moderation is fine. Eating steak everyday is not going to be good for you.
> This opens up the possibility that the bacterium under investigation could be used as a probiotic to help preserve muscle strength during aging
Maybe, but it's really hard to control for other variables here. They don't know what's causing this bacteria to diminish over time in older adults in the first place.
It could totally just be dietary habits getting worse over time as people let themselves go. Regardless of age, most people already don't eat enough protein and when they do they might not be getting "complete" proteins either (missing amino acids is common with plant-based foods).
Of course we won't know for sure before doing human experiments, but it'd be an odd coincidence if we saw the correlation in humans and causation in mice, but there was no causation in humans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roseburia_inulinivorans
0. https://webshop.dsmz.de/en/bacteria/Roseburia-inulinivorans....
Beer is basically fermented sugar (well, glucose converted to ethanol by yeast, for the most part; though its maltose first, yeast, bacteria etc... prefer glucose and maltose is a disaccharide of glucose: Maltose).
Not saying engineered beer is necessarily bad- Sapporo and Asahi never disappoint- but I imagine you would want to stick to unfiltered and unpasteurized to retain some of the more… alive compounds.
>So Homer Simpson was right in the end.
Indeed. Proof that beer builds gut strength: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrrEzyKXUnk>
They have found first a correlation between the presence of this species of bacteria and muscle strength in humans.
Then they have made an attempt to determine whether this correlation reflects a causal relationship.
So they have fed mice previously treated with antibiotics, to remove their own gut bacteria, with this kind of bacteria extracted from humans.
They have indeed seen an increase in muscular strength at the mice that have received the human bacteria, which seems to confirm causality between the presence of this bacterium and muscle strength.
While they have also determined the biochemical changes in muscles that have caused increased strength, the mechanism of how the bacteria have influenced that remains a mystery. Perhaps this bacterium produces some substance that mimics a human hormone, e.g. a steroid.
Paywalled research article: https://gut.bmj.com/content/early/2026/03/03/gutjnl-2025-336...
We are what we eat.