Imagine a vitamin factory within your gut, where trillions of microscopic “workers” tirelessly produce essential nutrients.
Join Sina McCullough on her quest to uncover truths about food and health. A scientist by training and journalist by nature, Sina offers facts and insights about how to live healthy, happy, and free.
Despite our food-rich nation, many Americans still lack nutrients. Soil depletion, overfarming, and food processing have eroded the nutritional quality of our foods, resulting in fewer micronutrients in our diets.
Enter Supplements
By 2024, 75 percent of Americans had turned to supplements to help bridge nutrient gaps. However, relying on supplements comes with challenges: They’re often synthetic, expensive, and—like some food and water–commonly contaminated with heavy metals, pesticides, dioxins, and PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls).
What if there was another way to bridge the nutrient gap?
A Vitamin Factory Inside You
Imagine a hidden vitamin factory inside your gastrointestinal tract, with trillions of microscopic “workers” producing critical vitamins.
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As a result, we’ve been taught that we must get them from food–or supplements.
While we all know eating nutrient-rich food can give us more vitamins, fewer people know we can also increase levels by feeding and supporting the “vitamin factory workers” in the microbiome.
These findings suggest we can increase the production of certain vitamins by increasing the quantity of microbes that produce those vitamins.
We Are Losing Our Internal Vitamin Factories
A modern lifestyle consisting of processed foods, antibiotics, sterilized food, chronic stress, and environmental toxins can diminish the diversity of your gut microbiota. Some estimates suggest that Westerners have lost up to half of their microbial diversity.
When beneficial microbes decrease, we’re not just losing gut bacteria—we’re losing our vitamin factory workers responsible for producing key nutrients. Without them, we may become more vulnerable to chronic diseases.
“Loss of microbes is the culprit of disease,” Dr. Sabine Hazan, a physician specializing in gastroenterology, microbiome expert, and CEO of Progenabiome, told The Epoch Times in a phone conversation.
The loss of microbes that make vitamins has also been demonstrated in the context of mental health.
Together, these findings suggest that a rising prevalence of certain diseases could be connected to a reduced capacity to make vitamins in our gut. Building a more diverse, robust microbiome may help close those nutrient gaps naturally—perhaps even aiding in recovery from chronic conditions.
But can our microbes make enough vitamins to eliminate our need for specific vitamin supplements?
Can a Healthy Microbiome Replace Supplements?
According to Hazan, the answer is yes–with a caveat.
“In my humble opinion, vitamins are helpful initially to supplement lost microbes,” she said.
However, the ultimate goal is resilience. While you may need vitamins to help rebuild a robust microbiome, you can maintain it without supplements.
“A robust microbiome just needs good natural foods. The key to health, in my opinion, is to reach that resilience where you are not dependent on products to survive but just good food, air, and water,“ Hazan said. ”The problem is we live in a toxic environment that constantly weakens our microbiome, so we have to adapt. Adaptation changes the microbiome.”
Harnessing Your Body’s Natural Design
While supplements have their place, the idea that your gut microbiome could fill many nutrient gaps is exciting and empowering.
We’re still uncovering how to fully harness this potential, but one thing seems clear: A thriving gut microbiome lays the foundation. Modern diets and lifestyles may have made it harder to meet our nutritional needs, but they haven’t taken away our innate resilience.
By working with our body’s natural design, we may be able to close the nutritional gap.
Wouldn’t that be something?
Join the Conversation
Have you noticed positive changes in your health after focusing on your gut? What changes did you make?
Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Disclaimer: The information provided is for educational purposes only and reflects the opinion of Sina McCullough, a scientist, not a medical doctor. It is not intended as medical advice or a substitute for guidance from your healthcare provider. Always consult your health care provider before making changes to your diet, medications, or lifestyle. Use this information at your own risk.
