The Sterile Gut ideal is probably Ray Peat’s second most controversial idea, right after the claim that PUFA’s aren’t “essential.” However, just like Peat says it’s impossible to avoid PUFA eating real world food (even orange juice has milligram levels), it’s also impossible to have a sterile gut. All gut microbes produce toxic substances, with endotoxin, serotonin, and lactate being prime examples. Just because 100% sterility isn’t possible, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive for a cleaner gut with a lower overall microbial load, and favor species that also tend to have some benefits to offset the toxins they create.
A lot of very common foods could be considered both probiotics and prebiotics. Fermented foods like kefir and saurkraut are often considered probiotics, but the most widely consumed probiotic in the world (and US) has to be beer. Starches have to be the most widely consumed prebiotic (as both the starches themselves and other components within those foods feed bacteria). In the US and Canada, many starches are “fortified” with the most potent prebiotic known to man, and that being raw iron (aka, “ferrous sulfate”). It’s rarely considered that with the copious amounts of probiotic beer and prebiotic starch and iron, that modern Americans likely carry a microbial load that absolutely dwarfs more natural/primative living people like the Hazda.
We’ve all heard the phrases beer belly and wheat belly. Maybe it’s really “Bacteria Belly.” If the microbial load gets high enough, it could cause the gut to distend, just from the bacterial mass alone. A bigger factor is probably the inflammatory byproducts that are created, like endotoxin. Referring back to the Lassesen article, his 18 week protocol relied heavily on antibiotic substances (both natural and prescription) to shift bacteria populations, which almost certainly resulted in a much lower microbial load overall.
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