• Temperature swings can place physical stress on your vascular system — Moving repeatedly between warm indoor environments and cold outdoor air can force blood vessels to expand and contract quickly. This repeated vascular strain could heighten nerve sensitivity and lower the threshold for migraine activation. For people prone to migraines, this may mean everyday winter routines like commuting or stepping outside can bring on pain without warning.

• Dry winter air quietly worsens dehydration and nerve irritation — Indoor heating dries out the air, which increases fluid loss through breathing and skin. Even mild dehydration reduces blood volume and thickens circulation, making it harder for oxygen and nutrients to reach your brain efficiently. This physiological stress could increase susceptibility to headache pain and worsen existing migraine patterns.

• Vitamin D decline may compound neurological sensitivity — Reduced sun exposure lowers vitamin D levels, which are linked to migraine frequency. Vitamin D is involved in nerve stability and inflammation control, and a deficiency could remove a protective buffer against pain signaling. This may make winter a biologically high-risk season for migraine flare-ups, even in people who feel otherwise healthy.

• Sleep disruption adds another layer of vulnerability — Shorter days can interfere with circadian rhythm, the internal clock that regulates sleep-wake cycles. Irregular sleep patterns may destabilize neurological function and heighten pain sensitivity. When sleep quality drops, your brain may become less resilient to stress and more reactive to migraine triggers.

• Lifestyle shifts may intensify the problem — Winter often brings reduced physical activity, irregular meals, and higher caffeine intake. Each of these factors could strain your nervous system and contribute to migraine risk.² On their own they seem minor, but together they may create a cumulative load that pushes susceptible individuals toward more frequent and severe attacks.

• Barometric pressure changes may trigger migraine attacks in some people — Changes in atmospheric pressure may alter the balance between internal sinus pressure and external air pressure.⁴ When this balance shifts, sensory nerves inside your head may become irritated. Your brain may interpret this irritation as a threat signal, potentially activating migraine pathways even in the absence of other triggers.

• Seasonal shifts may destabilize internal timing systems that regulate pain — Consistent daily timing acts like an internal anchor for your nervous system. When daylight hours shorten or fluctuate, that timing weakens. Hormone release, sleep-wake signaling, and neural recovery become less coordinated. This loss of rhythm may reduce your brain's capacity to dampen incoming stress signals, making migraine episodes easier to trigger and harder to shut down.

• Behavioral compression may increase neurological load rather than dispersing it — During winter months, activities tend to cluster into shorter daylight windows. Movement decreases, meals become less regular, and caffeine use often shifts earlier or later in the day. These compressed patterns stack stressors closer together instead of spreading them out, which may raise baseline neurological tension and lower the threshold for migraine activation.

Stable sleep timing, predictable meals, regular hydration, and routine activity may reduce the amount of sensory interpretation the brain must perform. This may free up metabolic resources and lower the likelihood that minor stressors will escalate into pain.

• Awareness converts vulnerability into control — Identifying seasonal patterns may give you leverage over your symptoms. When you anticipate periods of vulnerability, you can adjust behavior before symptoms escalate. This shift — from reacting to migraines to managing their timing — may reduce fear, lower baseline stress, and help restore a sense of agency over your nervous system.

When your brain learns what to expect, it scans less for danger. That reduction in vigilance may lower overall neurological load and reduce migraine frequency. According to the American Migraine Foundation, anticipating seasonal triggers can be a useful tool for people trying to manage migraine preventatively.

• Excess LA may act like a mitochondrial toxin — LA breaks down easily when exposed to heat, oxygen, or light. Once inside your body, these oxidized fragments may damage mitochondrial membranes and interfere with energy production. When your cells can't generate enough adenosine triphosphate (ATP), your brain may become hypersensitive to normal stimuli like light, sound, or pressure changes. That sensitivity may help turn everyday sensations into migraine pain.

• Damaged cardiolipin may disrupt energy flow at the cellular level — Cardiolipin is a specialized fat that lines the inner membrane of your mitochondria and holds the energy-producing machinery together. When LA replaces healthier fats in this structure, cardiolipin may lose its shape and function. Energy production may become inefficient, and oxidative stress may increase.

This may create conditions that favor migraine activity because your brain may no longer have the energy buffer it needs to stay calm under stress.

• Impaired cleanup may allow dysfunctional cells to linger — Healthy mitochondria rely on a process called apoptosis, which removes damaged cells before they cause problems. Oxidized LA may interfere with this cleanup system. When faulty cells stick around, inflammation may persist and energy production may stay impaired. Over time, this may build a neurological environment that favors chronic migraines rather than recovery.

• Seed oils are a primary source of excess LA — The largest sources of LA come from soybean, corn, safflower, sunflower, canola, and cottonseed oils. These oils dominate restaurant meals, packaged foods, and fried items. Even foods marketed as "healthy," including many olive and avocado oils, often contain seed oil blends. Conventionally raised pork and chicken also carry high LA levels because the animals accumulate it in their tissues.

• Lowering LA may allow mitochondria to recover — When you reduce LA intake, damaged fats in your tissues may gradually get replaced with more stable fats. This process takes time, but some people notice benefits within weeks as mitochondrial function improves and inflammation eases. Your nervous system may become less reactive, and migraine frequency may decline alongside that improved energy stability.

1. Lower LA to support your mitochondria — If you do only one thing, make it this. Excess LA may damage mitochondria and disrupt how your brain produces energy. It may also act like estrogen in your body, which may increase neurological sensitivity and migraine risk.

To support your brain and overall health, keep LA intake within 2 to 5 grams per day. LA is an essential fat, so the goal is a moderate intake, not zero. That means avoiding seed oils such as soybean, corn, sunflower, safflower, canola, and cottonseed.

It also means avoiding fried foods and most restaurant meals, because they almost always rely on these oils. I recommend using stable fats like grass-fed butter, ghee, or tallow instead. To track your intake, I recommend you download my Mercola Health Coach app when it's available. It has a feature called the Seed-Oil Sleuth, which monitors your LA intake to a tenth of a gram.

2. Support mitochondrial resilience with key nutrients — Migraines may increase when your cells lack the raw materials needed to make energy. Vitamin D may support nerve stability and inflammation control. B vitamins, especially riboflavin, folate, B6, and B12, help convert food into usable energy inside mitochondria. Magnesium helps regulate nerve signaling and excitability. CoQ10 supports the electron transport chain, which helps power your cells.

If you struggle with frequent migraines, increase your intake of magnesium-rich foods — like leafy greens — and ask your healthcare provider whether a magnesium supplement, such as magnesium glycinate or malate, is appropriate for you. For severe cases, ask your healthcare provider whether intravenous magnesium, given under medical supervision, is an option.

3. Support energy alongside, not instead of, symptom relief — Many people focus only on pain relief and may overlook energy instability. When your mitochondria struggle, your brain may become hypersensitive to light, temperature shifts, and pressure changes.

By supporting energy production as well, you may reduce the need for constant coping strategies. This approach may give you control instead of reaction. Keep using any acute or preventive migraine treatment your healthcare provider has recommended.

4. Create temperature stability for your nervous system — Rapid shifts between cold outdoor air and warm indoor spaces may stress blood vessels and sensory nerves. If you notice migraines after going outside, layer clothing so your head, neck, and chest stay warm.

This may reduce the sudden vascular changes that may contribute to migraine pain. I also recommend minimizing dramatic indoor temperature swings, especially at night, because temperature stability may help your nervous system relax.

5. Lock in sleep timing to support melatonin and help calm your nervous system — Your circadian rhythm helps regulate hormone release, temperature regulation, and pain sensitivity. When that rhythm drifts, migraine thresholds may drop. Predictable sleep timing may help support biological order.

Melatonin plays a central role here. Melatonin is primarily produced in your mitochondria in response to near-infrared light exposure. It does far more than regulate rest — it helps protect brain cells, temper inflammation, and stabilize energy production inside mitochondria.

When melatonin release is disrupted, migraine risk may rise. A 2019 systematic review found that melatonin was associated with reductions in headache frequency of 51%, intensity of 53%, and duration of 46%.*⁵

To support this system, get bright outdoor light early in the day to anchor your circadian rhythm, then protect darkness at night by dimming lights, avoiding blue light, and sleeping in a fully dark room. This may support the natural rise and fall of melatonin that helps keep your nervous system resilient.

• Researchers looked at the link between obesity, diet, and aggressive breast cancer outcomes — Researchers fed mice a diet where 60% of calories came from fat for 12 to 20 weeks. Compared to mice on normal diets (standard chow with only about 4% to 6% of calories from fat), these animals showed a triple threat: stickier blood, more of a glue-like protein called fibronectin, and leakier blood vessels in their lungs.

Together, these changes created a perfect storm that made it easier for cancer cells to travel and take hold.

• Mice on high-fat diets had far more cancer cells settle in their lungs — The high-fat diet didn't just grow tumors faster; it helped more cancer cells settle in the lungs. Even when tumor sizes were the same, mice on the high-fat diet had nearly five times more cancer cells in their lungs than mice on the standard diet.

Most of those cells were isolated, single cells — meaning they had freshly arrived and were in the early stages of forming new tumors. The authors note this effect appeared in aggressive, highly metastatic breast cancer models but not in a low-metastatic one, so the high-fat diet amplified spread mainly when the tumor was already prone to it.

• High-fat diets made blood-clotting cells more sticky and aggressive — Platelets, which normally help stop bleeding, became hyperactive. They released more clotting chemicals, changed shape to form more projections, and started binding not just to injured tissue but to tumor cells and blood vessel walls. These platelets acted like bodyguards for cancer, helping it move and survive in places it shouldn't.

• Tumor cells stuck more easily to blood vessels in mice fed high-fat diets — In the lungs of high-fat diet mice, tumor cells had an easier time attaching to blood vessel walls. Platelets helped cancer cells slip between the vessel lining and surrounding tissue, making it easier for tumors to seed new areas. This process was significantly higher in the high-fat group.

• Fat cells in obese animals secreted high levels of a compound that worsened fibronectin buildup — The animals' fat tissue pumped out more of an inflammatory chemical called tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) that made platelets build up even more fibronectin.

• A one-week switch to a healthier diet was enough to reduce many of these changes — When mice were taken off the high-fat diet for just seven days, platelet activity dropped, fibronectin levels in platelets normalized, and fewer cancer cells homed to the lungs. These findings suggest diet may influence cancer behavior quickly.

• Women whose blood clotted faster had cancer come back sooner — In an observational analysis of 82 women with triple-negative breast cancer, those with the fastest clotting times (the top quarter on a test called aPTT) had an estimated average time to relapse about 3.4 years shorter than the other patients (8.5 vs. 11.9 years). Their diets and fibronectin levels weren't measured, so it doesn't show that diet caused faster clotting.

1. Shift your macronutrient balance — more carbs, less fat — A high-fat diet, defined in the study as 60% of daily calories from fat, disrupts how your body burns glucose and instead forces it to rely on fat for energy. That imbalance may contribute to the kind of changes seen in this study.

I now recommend keeping fat intake between 30% and 40% of your daily calories. (Note that this is a different range from the diets tested in the study, which compared 60% fat with about 4% to 6% fat.) That means prioritizing healthy, digestible carbs like whole fruit, cooked root vegetables, white rice, and small amounts of well-tolerated whole grains, as long as your gut is healthy and you tolerate them.

2. Eliminate vegetable oils from your diet — The real problem isn't just fat. It's linoleic acid (LA), a polyunsaturated fat found in vegetable oil and nearly every processed and restaurant food. High LA intake can disrupt mitochondrial function and may weaken your immune system. Your goal is to keep your total LA intake within 2 to 5 grams per day. LA is still an essential fat, so don't aim for zero.

To do this, eliminate canola, corn, soybean, safflower, sunflower, and grapeseed oil. Use grass fed butter, ghee, or tallow instead. Even olive and avocado oil should be used sparingly, as they are often cut with cheaper vegetable oils and contain high amounts of monounsaturated fat, which may cause similar mitochondrial stress.

3. Track what you eat — and what's in it — You're probably eating more LA than you think. Use the Food Buddy feature in the PAX app, with its Seed-Oil Sleuth tool, and enter your typical daily foods. Then look at the grams of LA. That's your baseline. From there, reduce high-LA foods and swap them for options with better fat profiles. For example, instead of sautéing vegetables in canola oil, cook them with ghee. Instead of store-bought salad dressing, use lemon juice and grass fed butter.

4. Get serious about inflammation — The research showed that fat tissue in obese mice released high levels of a powerful inflammatory chemical that triggered fibronectin buildup in platelets. That suggests excess body fat may help create an environment that favors cancer spread.

If you're carrying extra weight, especially around your midsection, focus on gentle daily movement like walking (ideally about an hour a day), increasing your carb intake from healthy sources, and reducing inflammatory triggers. This isn't about crash diets. It's about restoring balance in your metabolism so your body functions optimally.

• Antidepressant and antianxiety medication use was already higher years before IBD was identified — People who eventually developed IBD were more likely than matched individuals to use antidepressants as well as antianxiety, sleep and sedative medications even five years before their bowel disease diagnosis. Medication use rose around one year before diagnosis, reached its highest point shortly afterward and remained elevated five years later.

The increase wasn't seen across every psychiatric drug category. Antidepressants and medications for anxiety, sleep and sedation drove the pattern, while antipsychotics, mood stabilizers and ADHD medications did not show the same clear rise.

• Crohn's disease showed a stronger psychiatric connection than ulcerative colitis — Although the overall pattern appeared across all forms of IBD, researchers found that the association tended to be stronger in people with Crohn's disease and unclassified IBD than in those with ulcerative colitis.

Over 10 years, the difference in psychiatric disorder incidence was 4.23 percentage points for Crohn's disease, 2.43 points for ulcerative colitis and 4.69 points for unclassified IBD. That represented one additional psychiatric disorder for every 24 people with Crohn's disease, compared with one additional case for every 41 people with ulcerative colitis and every 21 people with unclassified IBD.

• Age changed when psychiatric risk appeared — Adults showed increased psychiatric risk both before and after their IBD diagnosis, whereas people whose IBD began in childhood showed a clear increase only after diagnosis. Yet the absolute 10-year psychiatric burden was highest among those with childhood-onset IBD.

Higher long-term absolute risk also appeared among people with nine years or less of education, frequent health care visits and a parent with a psychiatric disorder. These differences help identify groups who deserve particularly close attention to changes in mood, anxiety or behavior after an IBD diagnosis.

• Family background didn't account for the entire association — Researchers separately examined 26,807 people with IBD who had at least one full sibling without the disease. After diagnosis, 15.6% of those with IBD developed a psychiatric disorder compared with 12.6% of their IBD-free siblings.

Comparing siblings is useful because brothers and sisters share many genes and early-life environmental influences. The association became somewhat weaker in this comparison but remained present, indicating that inherited and shared family factors alone don't account for what researchers observed.

• Changes inside the body could start before an IBD diagnosis is made — The study didn't prove the biological cause of the psychiatric connection, but the researchers offered several explanations for why it appears so early. They pointed to a preclinical phase, a period when inflammation, microbial shifts and intestinal barrier changes are already underway even though IBD hasn't been formally diagnosed.

Researchers also discussed earlier evidence of changes in inflammatory proteins, increased intestinal permeability and gut dysbiosis, meaning an unhealthy shift in the communities of microbes living in your digestive tract. Importantly, they noted that the usual delay between symptom onset and IBD diagnosis is less than one year, making diagnostic delay alone unlikely to account for a psychiatric pattern that begins years earlier.

1. Lower linoleic acid (LA) intake first to reduce stress on your gut and mitochondria — LA is a polyunsaturated fat found in seed oils, ultraprocessed foods, nuts and seeds. Excess LA interferes with mitochondrial energy production and increases oxidative stress, creating an environment that makes gut recovery more difficult. Keep your LA intake below 5 grams a day, ideally closer to 2 grams.

Remove seed oils and ultraprocessed foods first, then use fats such as grass fed butter, ghee or tallow instead. Once you've reduced that burden, focus on getting enough carbohydrate to support cellular energy and gut repair. Most adults need 250 grams a day from whole-food sources such as fruit, white rice, potatoes and root vegetables.

If your gut is severely compromised, don't start with a large fiber load. Choose gentler carbohydrates such as whole fruit and white rice, along with gut-supportive foods such as bone broth. As your digestion improves, gradually introduce more fiber-rich foods rather than overwhelming an already irritated gut.

2. Build a gut environment that supports Akkermansia and butyrate production — Akkermansia muciniphila is a beneficial gut bacterium that helps maintain your intestinal barrier and a balanced microbiome. Ideally, it accounts for roughly 3% to 5% of your gut microbial population. Butyrate is another important part of gut recovery. It's a short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) produced when beneficial gut bacteria break down certain carbohydrates.

A review of research suggests butyrate may help support gut health in IBD — animal studies point to reduced inflammation and a stronger gut barrier, though human clinical trials aiming to raise butyrate levels in people have so far produced mixed results.*³

A stronger barrier helps keep bacteria and other unwanted substances inside your intestines instead of allowing them to cross into tissues where they provoke an immune response. Once your digestion tolerates them, gradually introduce foods that nourish beneficial bacteria and support natural butyrate production.

Blueberries provide polyphenols, while garlic, asparagus, bananas and leeks contain fermentable carbohydrates that feed your gut microbes. If you have a severely compromised gut, take this slowly. Start with gentler carbohydrates, then expand your fiber intake as your digestive health improves.

A postbiotic Akkermansia product is another option some people consider as part of a general gut-support routine, but talk to your healthcare provider before adding any new supplement. Give your body about six months away from seed oils first. This allows time for mitochondrial recovery while you create a healthier intestinal environment for beneficial microbes and the compounds they produce.

3. Restore your microbiome after necessary antibiotics — Antibiotics sometimes become necessary for a dangerous bacterial infection, but they don't discriminate perfectly between harmful and beneficial organisms. That disruption leaves your microbiome depleted and increases the risk of digestive problems afterward.

If you need an antibiotic, some research suggests Saccharomyces boulardii, a probiotic yeast, may help support microbial recovery and may help reduce the risk of antibiotic-associated diarrhea in some people,⁴ though this is not a substitute for medical guidance.

The larger goal is to avoid unnecessary antibiotic exposure while taking deliberate steps to rebuild your intestinal ecosystem when treatment is unavoidable. Your microbiome is an ecosystem, and recovery takes time rather than one quick intervention.

4. Pay attention to stress because your gut and brain constantly communicate — IBD doesn't exist in isolation from your brain and nervous system, and the study's findings reinforce that connection. The study identified psychological stress and disrupted gut-brain communication as factors that could contribute to the connection between IBD and psychiatric disorders.⁵

Chronic digestive symptoms themselves also create stress, especially when you're dealing with abdominal pain, unpredictable bowel movements or fear of losing bowel control.

Build deliberate periods of recovery into your day. Take a walk outside, practice slow breathing, spend quiet time in nature or choose another calming activity that reliably helps your body shift out of a high-stress state. You don't need an elaborate routine. Even short periods that you repeat consistently give you a practical way to address the stress side of the gut-brain relationship.

If you notice that digestive flare-ups consistently occur alongside periods of intense stress, poor sleep or emotional strain, treat that pattern as useful information. Track it alongside your digestive symptoms so you can identify triggers and make changes earlier rather than waiting until your symptoms become severe.

5. Optimize vitamin D while protecting your skin during recovery — Vitamin D supports immune regulation and intestinal barrier health, and sunlight is the preferred source. Exposure around solar noon provides the strongest UVB rays needed for your skin to produce vitamin D efficiently. There's an important timing issue if your diet has been high in LA, however.

Avoid intense midday sun until you've eliminated seed oils for about six months. LA becomes incorporated into your tissues, including your skin, where ultraviolet exposure increases oxidative stress and leaves your skin more vulnerable to damage.

Once you've reduced your LA burden, gradually build your sun exposure instead of forcing long sessions. Your goal is to support vitamin D and cellular energy while avoiding sunburn. Test your vitamin D levels every six months to determine if you're in the optimal range.

Talk to your healthcare provider about whether this testing is appropriate for you. Aim for a blood level between 60 and 80 ng/mL (150 to 200 nmol/L). If you're low in vitamin D, adjust your sunlight exposure or consider vitamin D3 supplementation.

• Animal foods contain bioavailable phosphorus — However, the presence of fat, protein, and other minerals slows the rate at which it appears in the bloodstream. This slow, steady pattern mirrors the body’s natural design and allows the kidneys, bones, and hormones to maintain equilibrium without effort.

• The industrial food system changed the phosphorus dynamic almost overnight — Manufacturers discovered that phosphate additives were incredibly useful for preserving moisture, improving texture, adjusting acidity, stabilizing mixtures, and extending shelf life.³ They added them to a wide range of best-selling groceries, including prepared frozen foods, dry food mixes, packaged meats, breads, soups, and yogurts,⁴ and colas rely on phosphoric acid for their tangy flavor.⁵

In fact, research shows that if you eat a diet that's mainly comprised of foods with phosphorus additives, your phosphorus intake can be about 736 milligrams a day higher — a 41% increase — than the same meals made from additive-free foods.⁶

• Total phosphate intakes now often run two to three times above dietary requirements⁷ — Added phosphate is also hidden, dissolves rapidly, and is absorbed far more efficiently than natural phosphorus — estimates range from about 70% to more than 80%.^8,9 This speed and efficiency of absorption may strain the regulatory systems designed to maintain mineral balance.

• Your heart may suffer as a result — It may need to work harder to push blood through stiffened vessels, which can raise blood pressure and cardiovascular risk long before a person notices anything is wrong.

According to a 2024 review, higher serum phosphate levels are consistently associated with increased risk of death and cardiovascular disease — not only in people with kidney disease but also in the general population, even within the normal range — and with more coronary artery calcification.¹¹

• Testing for phosphate levels can be hard — The most troubling part is that these changes can occur even when phosphate levels remain within the "normal" range on a blood test. Standard reference ranges may not capture the subtle long-term effects of chronic overload. As explained in one study, diagnosis remains to be a complicated matter due to the presence of various hormones, minerals, and cofactors that influence serum phosphate levels.¹²

• Excess phosphate may speed up aging — A diet high in phosphate additives may contribute to faster aging without tripping a diagnostic alarm, which is why phosphate overload is easy to miss.

How does high phosphate intake cause advanced aging? While there's no solid evidence yet, researchers theorize that it creates cytotoxic effects in multiple organs. In addition, apoptosis is triggered, causing unwanted cell death, which accelerates aging.¹³ In mice genetically prone to very high phosphate, lowering phosphate reversed many signs of premature aging, and a high-phosphate diet brought them back.

• Excess phosphate may strain kidneys over time — In people with chronic kidney disease, high phosphorus levels may directly harm the kidneys and speed the loss of kidney function.¹⁵ Even healthy kidneys may struggle to keep up with a constantly high phosphate load. A 2022 review notes that clearing large amounts of phosphate can lead to tiny calcium phosphate particles forming inside the kidney, which may trigger inflammation and, over time, a decline in kidney function.¹⁶

• The damage slowly creeps up on you — Phosphate overload may be an under-recognized kidney stressor in the modern diet, although mainstream groups like the American Kidney Fund still describe high blood phosphorus mainly as a symptom of kidney disease rather than a cause.¹⁷

And because the early stages of kidney dysfunction are nearly impossible to feel,¹⁸ many people don't realize the connection between their food choices and their kidney health until they are already experiencing measurable decline.

• Colas have been linked to kidney risk — In one case-control study, drinking two or more colas a day was associated with about twice the risk of chronic kidney disease, and the authors reported similar results for artificially sweetened colas.¹⁹

• When FGF-23 stays chronically elevated, it may become harmful in its own right — Research links high FGF-23 to left ventricular hypertrophy, vascular dysfunction, and disordered mineral metabolism.²² It's also been associated with other conditions, such as end-stage kidney disease, cardiovascular mortality, and all-cause mortality.²³

What makes this finding important is that FGF-23 appears to respond to phosphate additives. How strongly dietary phosphate drives FGF-23 in humans varies from study to study.²⁴ However, in a small feeding study of 10 healthy adults, switching from additive-free foods to the same foods with phosphate additives for one week raised FGF-23 by 23%.²⁵ Researchers view this rise as a sign that the body is working to keep up with a higher mineral load.

• Testing for FGF-23 isn't mainstream — Most doctors never test for FGF-23, and most patients never hear the term. Researchers consider it a promising biomarker, mainly in kidney disease, though it's rarely measured in routine practice.²⁶

• Soda consumption has been linked to weaker bones — A meta-analysis found that sugar-sweetened beverages, including carbonated drinks like cola, were associated with lower bone mineral density in adults, including women.²⁸ The authors noted that phosphoric acid, acidity, caffeine, and added sugar may each play a role.²⁹ Over decades, this cumulative stress may weaken the skeleton in ways people rarely associate with their beverage choices.

Colas sit at the center of the phosphate problem not just because of sugar, but because of their phosphate content. The tangy, biting flavor people recognize comes directly from phosphoric acid, one of the most absorbable forms available.

A 12-ounce cola contains a modest amount of phosphorus — roughly 25 to 60 milligrams — but in a highly absorbable form. (For comparison, U.S. adults average about 1,200 to 1,600 milligrams a day from food.)³⁰ And because sodas are consumed quickly and often without food, the impact may be more pronounced.

• This creates a perfect storm — Diet soda removes the sugar but leaves the phosphoric acid fully intact. Many people who avoid sugar may still be getting a steady dose of highly absorbable phosphate.

• Phosphate is rarely listed on food labels — Nutrition facts panels almost never list the amount of phosphorus or phosphate in a product. The only clues appear in the ingredient list as chemicals with the term "phos-" in their names.

Some foods contain five or six different phosphate additives, each contributing to the overall load. Most consumers have no idea how to interpret these words, and many assume they are harmless because they appear in foods marketed as healthy or low-fat. As noted in one study:³²

"The USDA [United States Department of Agriculture] Branded Foods Products Database (BFPD) contains label information about food and beverage content for foods sold in the U.S. Picard et al. reported that of the 3,466 foods in the BFPD, 52% contained inorganic and organic phosphate additives, but only a small fraction listed phosphate content on the label."

• Inorganic phosphate is hidden everywhere — Even people who avoid junk food often consume phosphate through items like flavored yogurts, nut milks, deli meats, vegan cheeses, and protein powders. The modern food system has found a way to slip phosphate into nearly every category, and the cumulative effect is what may matter most over time.

• Dietary suggestions — Look for organic fresh meats, ideally grass fed beef, bison, or lamb, instead of injected or marinated meats. Other changes you can make include choosing raw, grass fed whole dairy instead of processed cheeses or creamers, and water or tea instead of sodas. In the video above, bioenergetics expert Georgi Dinkov provides some recommendations, specifically when it comes to choosing cuts of meat.

• Your body can respond quickly — In the feeding study above, FGF-23 rose within a single week of eating foods with phosphate additives,³³ which suggests mineral-regulating hormones respond quickly to what you eat. Shifting away from ultraprocessed food, especially sodas, moves your body closer to the mineral environment it was designed to thrive in.

• Understanding phosphate isn't about fear — Ultimately, it's about awareness. Once people know where it hides and how it behaves, they naturally begin choosing foods that support long-term health rather than undermine it.

• The team found notable differences — After analysis, 80 regions of the genome showed differences in methylation between the high- and low-intake groups. Most of these differences showed hypomethylation in the women consuming the most ultraprocessed foods. Note that this was a small exploratory study, and the authors did not adjust these results for multiple comparisons, which raises the chance that some differences are false positives.

Basically, hypomethylation means that the molecular "off" switches that keep genes quiet were less active, possibly leaving those genes more open to being turned on. The researchers didn't measure gene activity directly, but when this pattern shows up in genes involved in metabolism, it may influence how your body processes energy.

• Methylation differed even when metabolic markers didn't — The women in the study had an average age of 31 (most were between 26 and 36), with an average body mass index (BMI) of 24.7. No significant differences in total body fat, waist size, or blood sugar were noted between groups.

In other words, methylation differences were present even though traditional markers of metabolic health did not differ between groups. Because the study captured a single point in time, it can't show which came first or whether diet caused the differences.

• Examining the genes involved — When the researchers looked at the regions with the largest methylation differences, several stood out, including REPIN1-AS1 and FOXP1-AS1. Both have been linked in earlier research to metabolic regulation and cancer-related pathways. REPIN1-AS1 may help regulate REPIN1, a gene involved in how your body stores fat and uses glucose — so, changes in this region could, in theory, influence how efficiently you burn or store energy.

FOXP1-AS1 appears to help regulate FOXP1, a gene involved in immune and brain development. The authors noted that FOXP1 "has been linked to autism and hematologic cancers."³ They cautioned, however, that further studies are needed to confirm any link between these genes and actual health outcomes.

• Diet quality and methylation — The study noted that women who ate fewer ultraprocessed foods also consumed healthier food in general. The authors list folate, B-complex vitamins, choline, and polyphenols among the nutrients that help regulate DNA methylation.

• How higher ultraprocessed food intake related to methylation — Even after adjusting for variables like age, sex, body weight, maternal education, and screen time, a pattern emerged — children consuming higher proportions of ultraprocessed foods showed suggestive DNA methylation differences at seven specific genetic locations, called CpG sites.

None of these differences met the study's standard threshold for statistical significance, and the authors describe the associations as weak, noting that methylation "might not be a key mechanism" behind the health effects of ultraprocessed foods in children. Still, the main findings were consistent in direction across cohorts, and the related genes are mainly involved in pathways tied to thyroid hormone and liver function.

• Consumption of ultraprocessed food is widespread among children — Intake varied widely across the cohorts studied — from about 24% of food servings in the multicountry HELIX cohort to 61% of daily energy in the U.K.'s ALSPAC cohort. The authors also cite earlier estimates that ultraprocessed foods supply about 65% of calories for U.K. children and 66% for U.S. children.

Lower figures have been reported elsewhere — about 19% in Colombia, and 15% among Romanian adults — but neither country was part of this study, so it did not test methylation at those intake levels.

• What the flagged sites may mean — One finding involved a site near the ATF7 gene, which was more methylated in children with higher ultraprocessed food intake. ATF7 encodes a stress-responsive regulator that plays a role in fat cell development and immune memory.

Higher methylation at this site has been associated in other research with a neurodevelopmental disorder in children, and separate studies suggest ATF7 is involved in diet-related weight gain and insulin resistance. In plain terms, eating more processed foods may be linked to changes around genes that help regulate metabolism and immune balance, though the effect sizes here were small.

• Another flagged site was near the NHEJ1 gene — This gene is one of the main players in repairing breaks in DNA. Higher methylation near a gene's starting point can affect how it's expressed, though the researchers did not find a link between this site and gene activity in children's blood.

• The study also found lower methylation near the PHYHIP gene — PHYHIP makes a brain protein involved mainly in the early development of visual function after birth. Lower methylation at this site has also been linked in earlier research to higher BMI in mothers.⁵

• Other ways ultraprocessed food may affect children — The authors also pointed to research linking food additives to thyroid function, which helps control growth, energy, and metabolism, while noting that methylation may not be the main pathway:⁶

"[S]tudies have reported that some food additives are related to thyroid hormone dysregulation and an increased risk of subclinical thyroid dysfunction. A recent report on the HELIX data showed that metabolites associated with UPF intake were associated with C-peptide levels in children, a well-known marker of β-cell function and insulin resistance.

However, a wide range of non-methylation mechanisms that include the gut microbiome, oxidative stress, and inflammation are likely to be more affected by UPF intake and by the contaminants (acrylamide, etc.) and additives (emulsifiers, sweeteners, etc.) that they contain."

1. Revamp your pantry — Begin by changing what you stock at home because what you keep on hand shapes your family's eating habits. Replace fast-grab snacks like chips, cookies, and processed bars with healthier choices that truly nourish you — fresh fruit, pastured eggs, homemade, grass fed yogurt. When junk food isn't in sight, it's far easier to make healthier choices.

2. Build every meal around protein and healthy carbohydrates — These two components help stabilize blood sugar levels and improve satiety, preventing you from eating too much (as well as keeping you away from junk food). Aim for about 0.8 grams of protein per pound of your ideal body weight from quality sources like pastured eggs, grass fed beef, or wild-caught, low-fat, warm-water fish, and pair them with easily digested carbohydrates like whole fruit and white rice.

3. Choose healthier versions of foods you enjoy — You don't need to give up your favorite textures or flavors, just upgrade them. For example, swap sweetened yogurt for plain yogurt made from raw, grass fed milk, topped with fresh fruit, chips for air-popped popcorn, and soda for sparkling water with lemon or lime.

You'll still enjoy the crunch or fizz you crave but without the synthetic additives and seed oils high in linoleic acid (LA), which may undermine your cellular health. Ideally, keep your total LA intake below 5 grams a day.

4. Redesign your kitchen with a focus on health — Keep the healthiest foods within easy reach and the temptations out of sight. Move fresh fruit to eye level, store cut vegetables in clear containers, and stash processed snacks where you won't see them often. Your brain responds to visual cues — when whole foods are visible, you're far more likely to eat them.

5. Read ingredient lists carefully — You don't need to memorize every chemical or ingredient — just scan for patterns that stand out. For example, long ingredient lists often signal heavy processing. Watch for artificial sweeteners, emulsifiers, and seed oils such as soybean, corn, or sunflower oil. A shorter ingredient list typically means fewer industrial formulations and more real food.

6. Plan your treats properly — Instead of cutting out your favorite foods completely, schedule them intentionally. Pick one meal or event each week to enjoy something special, fully and without guilt. When you plan these moments, you remove the emotional baggage that often drives binge eating and regain a sense of control over your food choices.

7. Build a support network — Changing habits is easier when others understand your goals. Share your intentions with friends or family or join a community focused on whole-food eating. If you want a personalized plan, work with a registered dietitian nutritionist (RDN) who can align strategies with your specific health goals and make your progress sustainable.

• Nine genera of gram-positive bacteria explained about two-thirds of the link — Gram-positive is a classification based on cell wall structure, and it matters here because gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria are recognized by different arms of the innate immune system. That said, nine genera stood out from the enormous variety of microbes found in farm environments.

A combined score based on these bacteria explained two-thirds of the inverse association between farm exposure and asthma in a mediation analysis. In plain terms, these nine bacterial genera accounted for a large share of the statistical link between farm life and lower asthma risk. Importantly, this relationship remained independent of gram-negative farm-associated bacteria.

Fungi and bacteriophages appeared alongside the beneficial bacterial genera but didn't independently predict the protective association. The researchers did not test whether these organisms play a supporting ecological role — what the analysis showed is that they co-occurred with the beneficial bacteria without carrying the association themselves. That distinction gives researchers a much narrower target than the broad idea that exposure to any farm microbe is beneficial.

• The bacteria were connected to specific metabolic pathways — The researchers used genomic prediction tools (PICRUSt2) that match bacterial genes to known metabolic functions, allowing them to forecast what the identified bacteria were equipped to produce or process. That analysis revealed nine bacterial pathways whose enzymes were encoded by the bacterial genera linked to the farm effect.

Using mass spectrometry, a laboratory technique that identifies molecules by their chemical characteristics, researchers also detected corresponding metabolites in cowshed dust. Metabolites are small compounds created or processed during biological activity. Finding them in actual barn dust helped connect the bacterial genetic findings with substances children could encounter in the farm environment.

• Farm bacteria were predicted to produce or process compounds that human cells recognize — Corresponding metabolites were also detected in cowshed dust, including kynurenine, a metabolite of the amino acid tryptophan involved in immune tolerance; xanthine, a purine compound involved in cellular energy metabolism; and two omega-3 fatty acids, alpha-linolenic acid and stearidonic acid.

Some of these compounds interact with two receptors on human airway and immune cells — AhR and PPARγ — that appear to help regulate whether inflammatory responses escalate or stand down. These receptors function as molecular sensors: when particular compounds bind to them, they shift the balance of activity inside the cell.

This finding matters because the study didn't identify bacteria and then simply assumed they affected immunity. It connected bacterial groups with their metabolic machinery, detected relevant metabolites in cowshed dust and identified human receptors capable of recognizing those compounds. That gives researchers several measurable steps along the biological pathway rather than one unexplained association.

• Children's genes interacted with the bacterial exposure-asthma relationship — Researchers looked for small differences in the children's genes (single nucleotide polymorphisms) that affect how the AhR and PPARγ receptors work. These genetic variants interacted with the combined bacterial score in relation to asthma. That finding suggests the farm effect isn't simply about how many bacteria a child encounters.

The response may also depend on how bacterial metabolites interact with biological receptors in the child. This helps explain why the same environmental exposure doesn't necessarily produce an identical response in every person and gives researchers a more personalized framework for studying environmental influences on immune function.

• The researchers replicated their results using independent populations, including the PASTURE birth-cohort populations in France and Finland — This is an important strength because a finding that appears in separate groups is harder to dismiss as something unique to one sample. Their analysis therefore connected environmental exposure, specific bacteria, bacterial metabolism and human genetics across multiple populations.

The work still doesn't prove that deliberately exposing children to these bacteria will prevent asthma, and the researchers didn't test a bacterial treatment. Instead, it identifies specific components of the farm environment for laboratory researchers to investigate next.

But the biology the study maps out doesn't depend on waiting for a bacterial treatment. The same receptor families — AhR and PPARγ — that respond to farm-derived microbial compounds are also reported to respond to metabolites produced by a healthy gut microbiome, though this study did not examine diet, gut bacteria, or asthma outcomes. That overlap is a reasonable prompt to look at the everyday choices that shape your own microbial environment, wherever you live.

1. Feed beneficial gut bacteria with healthy carbohydrates — Your gut bacteria depend on carbohydrates that survive digestion in the upper gut and reach the colon intact. If your digestion is healthy, focus on whole fruits, root vegetables and other minimally processed carbohydrate sources. Aim for around 250 grams of healthy carbohydrates each day so your cells have enough fuel to produce energy efficiently.

If you have a damaged gut and struggle with bloating or irregular bowel habits when consuming fiber, start slowly with easier-to-digest foods such as fruit and white rice, then gradually expand the variety of foods as you tolerate them. As your gut recovers, beneficial bacteria produce short-chain fatty acids such as butyrate, which help maintain the intestinal barrier and support a healthier gut environment.

Butyrate has also been reported to act on PPARγ — one of the same receptor families highlighted in the featured farm-exposure research. That is a shared receptor target, not a demonstrated equivalence: The study examined inhaled farm-derived compounds rather than dietary butyrate, and it did not test whether feeding gut bacteria changes asthma risk. The goal is to create conditions where beneficial bacteria thrive rather than forcing large amounts of fiber into a gut that isn't ready for it.

2. Increase the variety of whole foods you eat — You don't need access to a farm to expose your gut to a broader range of foods and the compounds they contain. Instead of eating the same few foods every week, challenge yourself to gradually increase variety while paying attention to how your digestion responds.

Whole fruits, root vegetables, herbs and other minimally processed foods each provide different carbohydrates and compounds for your microbial ecosystem. If you tolerate fermented foods, options such as traditionally fermented vegetables and grass fed dairy like yogurt can also support microbial variety and bacterial metabolites. Build diversity gradually. More isn't automatically better if your gut is damaged and you're still working to tolerate fiber.

3. Eliminate foods that undermine your gut environment — One of the simplest ways to change what reaches your gut is to remove ultraprocessed foods, packaged snacks, fast food and seed oils high in linoleic acid, or LA. I recommend keeping LA below 5 grams per day, with 2 grams as the ideal target. Avoid nuts and seeds as well because they're concentrated sources of LA.

Replace industrial fats with grass fed butter, ghee or tallow. This step also reduces your reliance on highly processed foods that provide little of the carbohydrate diversity you want your beneficial gut bacteria to receive.

4. Avoid wiping out microbes unnecessarily — Modern life encourages you to treat bacteria as something that should constantly be eliminated, but the farm-effect study paints a much more nuanced picture. Specific environmental bacteria were associated with much of the protective farm effect identified by the researchers.⁴ At home, ordinary natural soap is sufficient for routine handwashing; you don't need antibacterial soap for everyday use.

Take the same measured approach to antibiotics. Use them when they're truly necessary rather than treating every illness as a reason to eliminate bacteria indiscriminately. Choosing organic, grass fed meat when available is one way to limit dietary exposure to antibiotic residues, though the featured NEJM Evidence study did not examine dietary antibiotic exposure.

Think of microbial exposure as an ecosystem question: the goal isn't to eliminate bacteria but to maintain conditions where beneficial species have an advantage.

5. Make your everyday environment less sterile and more natural — If you're raising children in a city or suburb, you don't need a barn in the backyard to give them regular contact with the natural world. Outdoor play, gardening, time in parks and ordinary contact with soil, pets, and plants provide opportunities to interact with a less sanitized environment.

The research doesn't establish these activities as substitutes for farm exposure, but it reinforces an important principle — environmental microbial exposure interacts with human biology in measurable ways.

Pair that outdoor exposure with the foundations that support your own cellular energy: adequate food, appropriate carbohydrates, regular movement and natural daylight. Your microbiome and immune system don't exist in isolation. Supporting the environment inside your body while allowing normal contact with the environment outside it gives you a practical strategy regardless of where you call home.

• Bone diseases — Vitamin D promotes calcium absorption, which is essential for strong bones. Severe deficiency can cause rickets in children and osteomalacia in adults. Holick presented research — a study of bone samples from 675 German adults who died in motor vehicle accidents³ — showing that even seemingly healthy individuals sometimes have evidence of osteomalacia, highlighting the subtle but significant impact of vitamin D deficiency on bone health.

• Immune system weakness — Vitamin D plays a role in immune function. Deficiency has been associated with an increased risk of infections, including respiratory illnesses.

Holick presented data, including his own study of more than 190,000 patients early in the pandemic, showing that vitamin D deficiency is associated with an increased risk of COVID-19 — a 54% higher risk of infection in that study — and with more severe outcomes.⁴ He also highlighted the role of vitamin D in supporting both innate and adaptive immunity, emphasizing its importance in overall immune health.

• Chronic diseases — Studies have linked vitamin D deficiency to an increased risk of chronic diseases such as heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, and certain types of cancer. Holick presented data from various studies showing a correlation between low vitamin D levels and an increased risk of these conditions.

• CKD reflects long-term injury to the kidneys' filtering system — As the filters in your kidneys become damaged, the remaining ones work harder to maintain filtration. This compensatory mechanism keeps you feeling stable even as the underlying decline continues.

Over time, the added workload can exhaust the remaining filters and contribute to a drop in the kidneys' overall filtration rate. Unlike acute kidney injury, which develops suddenly and may be reversible, CKD progresses gradually over months or years and typically involves lasting loss of function.⁴

• Clinicians measure this decline through two main markers — The first is the estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), which shows how much blood your kidneys filter each minute. Think of it as a measure of how efficiently your kidneys are cleaning your bloodstream. An eGFR that stays lower than 60 for three months or more indicates reduced kidney function, while lower than 15 signals kidney failure.

The second is albumin in the urine, measured through the albumin-to-creatinine ratio (ACR). Albumin is a type of protein that should stay in your blood, not leak into your urine. When it shows up there, it may mean your kidney's filtration barrier has become too porous, allowing larger molecules to slip through.

Together, eGFR and ACR help show how well your kidneys are working and how much structural damage has occurred — information that helps your clinician assess how advanced your condition is and how quickly it may progress.⁵

• Kidney disease is classified into five stages — These stages are based on how much filtering power your kidneys have left:^6,7

• CKD affects more than the kidneys — Reduced filtration can alter how your body regulates sodium, potassium, phosphorus, and acid, which can disrupt nerve, muscle, and heart function. It also can interfere with hormone systems that control blood pressure, red blood cell production, and bone metabolism. These changes can raise your risk of complications such as anemia, high blood pressure, bone loss, vascular calcification, and heart disease.⁸

• CKD prevalence has more than doubled over the past three decades — In 1990, an estimated 378 million adults were living with chronic kidney disease. By 2023, that figure was estimated to have risen to 788 million (uncertainty range 743 million to 843 million). The study estimates that about 14% of the world's adult population now has some degree of CKD, making it one of the most common chronic conditions worldwide.

• CKD has now become the ninth leading cause of death worldwide, up from 17th in 1990 — In 2023, chronic kidney disease was responsible for an estimated 1.48 million deaths across the globe (uncertainty range 1.30 million to 1.65 million). When researchers adjusted for population growth and aging, the death rate from CKD was reported to have still risen by 6.1% since 1990.

• The study also suggests how closely your kidneys are tied to your heart — Researchers evaluated impaired kidney function as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease and analyzed how many cardiovascular deaths are linked to it.

They found that kidney impairment was estimated to account for 11.5% of cardiovascular deaths worldwide, ranking seventh among all environmental, behavioral, and metabolic risk factors. It falls just behind high blood pressure and dietary risks and ahead of high blood sugar and high body mass index (BMI).

• Most affected adults have early-stage disease, not kidney failure — The majority of people captured in this dataset were not on dialysis or awaiting transplant. Globally, the combined prevalence of stages 1 to 3 CKD reached 13.9% in 2023.

Only a small fraction of adults were in stages 4 and 5 or on kidney replacement therapy. This suggests many people live with measurable kidney damage long before dialysis becomes a possibility, and those early years may offer the widest window for clinicians to slow progression.

• Three metabolic risks were linked to a large share of the disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) lost to CKD — DALYs combine years of life lost to early death with years lived in poor health. High fasting plasma glucose was estimated to account for about 32% of CKD DALYs, high systolic blood pressure for about 25%, and high BMI for about 24%.

Diet quality, physical inactivity, exposure to extreme temperatures, and lead stored in bone also contributed to the burden, but elevated blood sugar, blood pressure, and body weight were identified as the biggest risk factors for kidney disease.

• Underdiagnosis can delay early intervention — These risks may be more manageable if kidney disease were detected and treated earlier, yet underdetection remains a central problem. Albumin in the urine is a simple, powerful marker of kidney damage, but guideline-recommended testing is still uncommon.

According to the study, only about 35% of people with diabetes and 4% of those with hypertension undergo albuminuria testing, even in high-income settings. Even when chronic kidney disease is present, about 30% of affected individuals do not have the diagnosis recorded in their medical chart.

• Low-income regions face the steepest burden with the fewest resources — Data on albuminuria and kidney function are sparse in many low-income countries, and access to dialysis and transplant remains extremely limited.

CKD now carries particularly heavy disease burdens in regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa and the Middle East, and Latin America and the Caribbean, even though many people there never reach dialysis.

• Diabetes — Diabetes is the leading cause of kidney failure in the United States, accounting for approximately 44% of new kidney failure cases.¹⁰ According to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), about one in three adults with diabetes has kidney disease.¹¹

When blood sugar remains high for long periods, the small blood vessels in the kidneys gradually thicken and narrow, restricting normal blood flow. As circulation declines, the filters sustain damage, allowing albumin, a protein that normally stays in the bloodstream, to leak into the urine and contribute to inflammation that can gradually damage the delicate filtering units.¹²

• High blood pressure — The NIDDK reported that nearly 108 million adults in the U.S. (almost half the adults) have high blood pressure, and about one in five of those affected may have some degree of kidney disease.¹³

Elevated pressure inside the small renal vessels can gradually injure their walls, leading to scarring that may weaken filtration and fuel a self-perpetuating cycle of rising blood pressure and declining kidney function.¹⁴ Learn more in "Did You Know? High Blood Pressure Causes Kidney Damage."

• Chronic use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) — NSAIDs such as ibuprofen and naproxen can contribute to kidney damage by inhibiting prostaglandins, which are essential for maintaining blood flow to the kidneys.¹⁵ Long-term or frequent use of NSAIDs has been linked to the development of early CKD in a Korean study of older adults.¹⁶

To help protect your kidneys, talk with your doctor about any medications you take regularly, including NSAIDs, and to explore non-drug options whenever possible. Do not stop or change a prescribed medication without medical guidance.

• Kidney stones — A population-based cohort study published in BMC Nephrology found that 11.2% of individuals with kidney stones developed chronic kidney disease over time, compared to a significantly lower incidence in those without stones.

After adjusting for other risk factors, people with kidney stones were 1.82 times more likely to develop CKD than those without. The researchers concluded that kidney stones may be an independent risk factor for CKD, reinforcing the need for regular monitoring and early intervention in patients with a history of stones.¹⁷

• Obesity and metabolic stress — Excess body weight can raise both blood pressure and blood sugar, overactivating hormonal and inflammatory pathways that may wear down kidney function. Fat tissue also releases pro-inflammatory cytokines that can harm kidney tissue directly.¹⁸

Additionally, obesity can cause the kidneys to work harder to filter blood for the larger body mass, leading to glomerular hyperfiltration, a state where individual nephrons may become overworked and eventually scarred.¹⁹

Metabolic syndrome, characterized by the combination of abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, elevated blood sugar, and abnormal cholesterol levels, was associated with a modestly higher risk of kidney disease in a community-based study of people with high blood pressure.²⁰

1. Balance your sodium-to-potassium ratio — Maintaining a healthy sodium-to-potassium ratio is important for regulating blood pressure. However, the goal isn't to eliminate salt altogether, as cutting salt too aggressively may backfire by increasing insulin levels, worsening your cholesterol ratios, and putting your body into a stress state that may make high blood pressure harder to control. The real issue isn't salt itself but where it comes from.

Most dietary sodium today comes from ultraprocessed food, such as boxed snacks, canned goods, deli meats, and fast food, which are stripped of potassium, a mineral necessary to balance sodium.

Replacing these with whole, unprocessed foods such as ripe fruit, root vegetables, and well-cooked leafy greens may help restore your sodium-potassium balance and support healthy kidney function. If you already have CKD, check with your healthcare provider before increasing potassium-rich foods, since potassium may need to be limited at some stages.

2. Get your vitamin D levels into the optimal range — Vitamin D is involved in regulating the renin-angiotensin system, a hormone network that directly controls blood pressure. When vitamin D levels fall too low, this system may become overactive, which may raise blood pressure and increase strain on the kidneys. One way to help restore balance is through sensible sun exposure.

Make sure you're getting regular sun exposure, but avoid peak hours (10 a.m. to 4 p.m.) if you consume linoleic acid (LA) from industrial seed oils. LA is a polyunsaturated fat that oxidizes easily, builds up in your skin and may increase your risk of skin damage.

Cut these oils from your diet for four to six months before getting peak sun exposure. Get your vitamin D levels tested at least twice a year and aim for a level between 60 and 80 ng/mL (150 to 200 nmol/L). If you don't get regular sunlight, consider supplementing with vitamin D3 to maintain healthy levels year-round, ideally with your healthcare provider's guidance, since kidney disease can affect how your body handles vitamin D and calcium.

3. Move more — If you're already active, aim for about an hour of moderate movement each day, like walking, cycling, or swimming. If you're just beginning, start small. Even a 10-minute walk after meals may help improve circulation, stabilize blood sugar, and ease pressure on your kidneys. What matters most isn't intensity, but consistency. Every bit of movement may support healthier kidneys.

4. Limit your oxalate intake — If you're prone to kidney stones, it would be wise to limit your intake of oxalate. Common high-oxalate foods to watch for include spinach, almonds, peanut butter, sweet potatoes, and figs.

Pairing high-oxalate foods with calcium-rich options may help limit absorption in the gut. Calcium binds to oxalate, forming a compound that exits the body through your stool instead of your kidneys. Good sources include cheese made with animal rennet, eggshell calcium, and low-oxalate greens like kale.

If you occasionally eat high-oxalate foods, boiling them can help. The heat draws oxalates into the cooking water, which should be discarded. Staying well hydrated is equally important, as drinking plenty of water dilutes oxalates in your urine and may reduce the risk of stone formation.

5. Watch your phosphorus intake — Excess phosphorus intake, particularly from processed foods and phosphate additives, can force the kidneys to work harder to filter it from the blood. When kidney function begins to decline, phosphorus can build up, disrupting calcium balance and contributing to hormonal changes that further stress the kidneys.²¹

To lower your intake, avoid packaged and processed foods, colas, and fast food meats that often contain added phosphates. Choose fresh, whole foods instead and be sure to read ingredient labels carefully for terms like "phosphate" or "phosphoric acid." Also, limit dairy if your phosphorus levels are high because dairy products naturally contain organic phosphorus that the body can absorb. If you have CKD, a renal dietitian can help tailor phosphorus targets to your stage.

6. Drink plenty of pure water — Staying well hydrated may help reduce the risk of kidney stones by diluting substances in your urine that contribute to stone formation. Let thirst be your guide for how much to drink, but a simple visual cue works just as well. Your urine should be a pale straw or light yellow color. If it turns dark yellow or amber, that may be a sign you need more water. If you have advanced CKD or heart failure, ask your doctor about fluid limits before increasing your water intake.

7. Address urinary tract infections (UTI) promptly with your healthcare provider — In people with CKD, recurring infections have been linked to faster disease progression and a higher likelihood of reaching kidney failure.²² Some antibiotics used to treat UTI may need to be adjusted when kidney function is reduced, so make sure your provider knows about your kidney health.

One option to discuss with your healthcare provider is methylene blue, used only as a pharmaceutical-grade capsule or tablet, prescribed by a qualified professional and prepared by a compounding pharmacy. Learn more about it in "Benefits and Side Effects of Methylene Blue — A Comprehensive Guide."

8. Get regular screening if you have risk factors — If you have high blood pressure, diabetes, or a family history of kidney disease, ask your doctor to include eGFR and urine albumin tests during your regular checkups. These simple screenings may reveal early kidney damage long before symptoms appear, giving you and your clinician the chance to act earlier.

• Multivitamins combine several nutrients into one product — A multivitamin/mineral (MVM) is a supplement that contains a mix of vitamins and minerals in a single pill, gummy, or powder. There's no official rule for what a multivitamin must contain, so the exact mix of nutrients and amounts varies widely from brand to brand.

• A vitamin is just one nutrient, not a combination — Vitamins like C, D, or B12 are individual nutrients your body needs in small amounts. A multivitamin bundles several of these vitamins together, often along with minerals like calcium or zinc, into one product.

• Supplements are the bigger umbrella category — Vitamins are just one type of supplement. The broader category also includes minerals, herbs, amino acids, and other nutritional products. In other words, all multivitamins are supplements, but not all supplements are multivitamins.

• Not all multivitamins are the same type — Some are "basic," providing modest amounts of nutrients close to daily recommended levels. Others are "high potency," with much higher doses, or "specialized," combining vitamins and minerals with other ingredients aimed at a specific goal, like immune support or energy.

• Supplements aren't reviewed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) before they hit shelves — Unlike medications, dietary supplements don't need FDA approval before they're sold. Manufacturers are responsible for making sure their products are safe and accurately labeled, which is part of why quality can vary so much between brands.

• How did researchers test the effects of multivitamins? COSMOS was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial that followed participants for three years. Participants were assigned to receive a daily multivitamin-mineral supplement, a cocoa extract supplement, both supplements, or matching placebos.

• What was evaluated — Rather than focusing solely on whether participants developed heart disease or other major illnesses, researchers measured how well they were able to manage everyday tasks and symptoms over time. Participants completed annual health assessments that examined:

Scores ranged from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating better overall function and fewer symptoms.

• Daily multivitamin users reported better functional health scores — After three years, participants taking a multivitamin experienced significantly better symptom burden and clinical summary scores than those receiving a placebo. Symptom burden improved by an average of 0.45 points, while clinical summary scores improved by 0.30 points.

Although these improvements were relatively small, they suggest that participants experienced fewer symptoms that can limit daily function, including fatigue and shortness of breath.

• A "hearty" benefit for those with thinning arteries — Improvements were seen in 122 participants with carotid stenosis, a narrowing of the carotid arteries that carry blood from the heart to the brain.

In this subgroup, symptom burden scores improved by an average of 6.75 points, while clinical summary scores improved by 6.01 points. According to senior author Dr. Yanbin Dong, a cardiologist and director of the Georgia Prevention Institute at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University:

"This means those who had a history of carotid stenosis and took multivitamin minerals will have a small clinical benefit of improving cardiovascular and functional health over time."⁹

• Researchers believe multivitamins may help address common nutrient shortfalls — The authors suggest that multivitamins may support healthy aging by correcting micronutrient insufficiencies, or low levels of essential vitamins and minerals. These nutrients help support energy production, muscle function, blood vessel health, immune function, and inflammation control.

• Looking beyond prevention studies — Rather than asking whether the multivitamin prevented disease, this analysis looked at something more immediate: how people felt and functioned day to day. As Bayu B. Bekele, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at the Georgia Prevention Institute, explained:

"What makes this work unique is our focus on functional health, how people actually feel and function in their daily lives rather than just the prevention of major diseases ...

For older adults, these findings suggest that a daily multivitamin could be a helpful, low-risk addition to a healthy lifestyle to support physical well-being as they age, although it is not a substitute for a good diet or exercise."¹⁰

• Several aspects of brain health were evaluated — The studies examined memory, attention, processing speed, decision-making, and overall cognitive function. They compared people taking multivitamins with those receiving placebos or standard care to see whether supplementation influenced thinking skills over time.

• Memory showed the most consistent improvements — Of all the cognitive abilities studied, memory benefited most often from multivitamin use. Several studies reported improvements in:

• The vitamins that stood out — B vitamins, particularly B6, B12, and folate, were among the nutrients most often linked to better cognitive outcomes. These vitamins help keep homocysteine, an amino acid associated with cognitive decline, at healthy levels. The review also highlighted vitamins C and E, which act as antioxidants that help protect brain cells from damage caused by everyday wear and tear.

• Other ways multivitamins may help the brain — The review found that multivitamins may help keep homocysteine levels in check, improve blood flow to the brain, reduce oxidative stress, and support communication between brain cells. Together, these effects may help support memory, attention, and overall cognitive function as people get older.

• The analysis included 958 older adults — Researchers analyzed blood samples from participants in the COSMOS trial, evenly split between men and women, with an average age of 70. Samples were collected at the start of the study and again after one and two years.

• Researchers tracked five epigenetic clocks — Epigenetic clocks are tools that estimate a person's biological age by measuring DNA methylation, a chemical marker on DNA that changes in predictable patterns as the body ages.

• Benefits were strongest in those aging fastest — Participants who already showed signs of accelerated biological aging at the start of the study saw the largest slowdown after taking a multivitamin, suggesting the supplement may help most in those who need it most.

• Cocoa extract showed no effect — Unlike the multivitamin, daily cocoa extract supplementation did not slow any of the five epigenetic clocks measured in the study.

• Nearly a third of Americans are at risk of a vitamin deficiency or anemia — A 2017 analysis in Nutrients examined NHANES biochemical data from thousands of U.S. children and adults and found that 31% of the population was at risk of at least one vitamin deficiency or anemia, and that risk persisted even among people whose reported dietary intake looked adequate on paper.¹⁴

• A six-month clinical trial found a daily multivitamin helped prevent similar declines in older men — Researchers at Oregon State University's Linus Pauling Institute followed 35 healthy men age 68 and older in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, published in Nutrients in 2023.¹⁵

Half took a daily Centrum Silver Men's Formula multivitamin/multimineral; half took a placebo. Over six months, vitamin B6, vitamin E, beta-carotene, and vitamin D levels dropped in the placebo group but held steady or improved in the multivitamin group, which also avoided a decline in monocyte oxygen consumption, a marker of cellular energy metabolism. As the researchers put it:

"Several of the participants assigned to the placebo group had blood nutrition biomarkers fall during the study ... We were amazed to find that the men who took the placebo showed reduction in cellular oxygen consumption."¹⁶

• A three-year trial linked daily multivitamin use to measurably better memory — Published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2023, a randomized clinical trial found that multivitamin users showed memory improvements equivalent to roughly three years of age-related decline compared to placebo.

The study, which followed more than 3,500 adults over age 60 for three years as part of the COSMOS-Web study, reported the largest gains in people who had cardiovascular disease.¹⁷

Note: This is a separate analysis from the COSMOS functional-health findings described earlier — same parent COSMOS trial and multivitamin intervention, but this ancillary study (COSMOS-Web) tracked online cognitive test performance in a subset of participants, rather than self-reported physical function.

Dr. Adam Brickman, a professor of neuropsychology at Columbia University, and the study's senior author, was careful to frame the finding in context. In an article published by Business Insider, he said:

"We're not suggesting that people should get their vitamin and nutrient intake from supplements — the primary source of that should be from whole and healthy foods," he said. "I think that multivitamins, along with a lot of other things that we could potentially do as we age, might have a modest but meaningful effect on how we age, cognitively."¹⁸

In a Columbia University Irving Medical Center release on the same study, he added: "Supplementation of any kind shouldn't take the place of more holistic ways of getting the same micronutrients."¹⁹

1. Choose standardized, verified formulas — Look for multivitamins that list exact doses of active ingredients rather than vague blends. A label that specifies milligrams per serving is far more trustworthy than one that just lists an ingredient name.²⁰

2. Check for third-party testing — Seals from organizations like the U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP) or NSF International confirm that a multivitamin contains what the label claims and is free from harmful contaminants.²¹

3. Watch for fillers and additives — Some multivitamins pad their formulas with sugar, artificial flavoring, or binders that dilute the active ingredients. Simpler formulations often deliver more of what you're paying for.²²

4. Pay attention to timing — Some nutrients are better absorbed with food, while others work taken at specific times of day. Check the label or talk to a healthcare provider about optimal timing for your multivitamin.²³

5. Be mindful of interactions — Some multivitamins can interact with medications or other supplements. If you're taking multiple products or prescription drugs, it's worth checking with a doctor or pharmacist before adding something new.²⁴

6. Reassess your needs periodically — Nutrient needs change with age, health status, and diet. What worked for you five years ago may not be what your body needs today, so it's worth revisiting your multivitamin routine every so often.²⁵

1. Steer clear of seed oils — Highly processed seed oils, including canola, soybean, sunflower, safflower, corn, and grapeseed oil, are loaded with linoleic acid (LA), a polyunsaturated fat linked to mitochondrial dysfunction when consumed in excess.

Swap them for grass-fed butter, ghee, or tallow, and choose grass-fed beef or lamb over chicken and pork, which tend to carry higher LA levels from conventional feed.

2. Get active — You don't need intense workouts to see benefits. Simple, regular movement like daily walking, light strength training, or resistance bands helps your body use energy from food more efficiently, especially if you spend a lot of the day sitting.

3. Get some natural sunshine — Sunlight exposure triggers your body's own vitamin D production, something a pill can't fully replicate. The optimal window is between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., when UVB rays needed for vitamin D synthesis are strongest.

But timing matters: LA from seed oils accumulates in your skin, and when it interacts with UV rays, it can oxidize and trigger inflammation and DNA damage. If you've been eating a lot of seed oils, it's worth cutting them out for about six months before spending extended time in peak sun.

4. Enjoy the right carbohydrates to fuel your cells — Carbs aren't the enemy; your body runs efficiently on glucose. Focus on easily digestible carbs like fruit and white rice, then gradually reintroduce root vegetables, legumes, and whole grains. Aim for around 250 grams of healthy carbs daily to support your metabolism, while skipping ultraprocessed and fast foods.

• The exercise group experienced a strong reduction in symptom severity — Researchers evaluated symptom scores, sleep, quality of life, and overall clinical improvement to determine whether exercise produced measurable change.

Those enrolled in the structured exercise sessions had a far greater reduction in symptom burden than those who continued with treatment as usual — an average drop of about 7 points on a 72-point ADHD symptom scale, compared with almost no change in the usual-care group. A subset of 11 participants also received cognitive skills training alongside the exercise protocol, which means part of the improvement may reflect a combined effect rather than exercise alone.

Participants in the exercise group were encouraged to notice bodily sensations during exercise, with a physiotherapist on hand to explain unfamiliar reactions, so they could understand them rather than interpret them as stress signals.

This approach is intended to ease anxiety around physical effort and build trust in your body's cues. Over time, it may help your nervous system settle into a calmer baseline and quiet some of the internal noise that often worsens ADHD symptoms, although the trial did not measure these effects separately.

• Improvements extended beyond focus to sleep and quality of life — The same trial reported that insomnia scores improved in the exercise group, while the control group's scores worsened slightly over the same time frame.

Better sleep gives you more mental clarity the next day, and the study suggests that targeted movement may help restore that rhythm. Quality-of-life scores also improved by more than 10 points in the exercise group, while the usual-care group's scores declined. When your body feels stable and energetic, your attention and emotional balance often follow.

• Clinicians and participants agreed the improvement was substantial — Among the exercise group, 65.5% of participants had a "clinically meaningful improvement," while none in the control group achieved this level. Patient self-ratings pointed the same way — 44.4% of the exercise group rated themselves much or very much improved, compared with none in the control group.

Again, keep in mind that this was a small trial run at a single clinic. Only 41 participants were included in the main analysis after a 35% dropout rate, and the clinicians rating improvement knew who had exercised.

• The program was built around executive function and body awareness — The program was designed to increase internal motivation and support goal-directed behavior, two areas where ADHD creates friction.

By mixing aerobic intervals, strength work, and flexibility training, the program aims to engage the planning, impulse control, and sustained attention that ADHD makes harder, although the trial did not measure brain activity. In simple terms, a structured movement program may help train your brain to organize itself more effectively.

Sessions targeted 60% to 90% of maximum heart rate using chest-strap monitoring to maintain consistent effort. Exercise in this range is generally thought to increase blood flow to the brain, delivering more oxygen and glucose (the brain's preferred fuel) to support cognitive performance,⁴ although the trial itself did not measure this.

• Movement correlated with lower stress symptoms, with a stronger link in ADHD groups — Adolescents with and without ADHD traits wore accelerometers for a full week to track activity levels and completed questionnaires about stress symptoms, screen use, and ADHD traits.

Students with self-reported ADHD traits showed consistently higher psychosomatic stress than those without, but the link between more moderate-to-vigorous activity and fewer symptoms was also stronger in this group.

In other words, each extra bit of movement was associated with a larger drop in symptom scores for those dealing with attention-related challenges. Keep in mind that this was a one-time snapshot rather than a trial, so it can't show that the movement itself caused the difference, and only about 65 of the 1,139 students reported ADHD diagnoses or symptoms.

• Overall stress-symptom scores were lower in active students — The psychosomatic scale used in the study measured symptoms including headaches, stomach aches, tension, sleep difficulty, low mood, and dizziness. These items were combined into a single score, and more active students had lower overall scores, suggesting that movement is tied to both physical and emotional well-being.

• Sedentary time and screen use were linked with worse symptoms — The study found that high sedentary time and high screen time were associated with more stress-related symptoms in the sample as a whole.

When the researchers looked at students with ADHD traits separately, more sedentary time was still linked to more symptoms but screen time was not, and neither sitting nor screen time showed a stronger link in the ADHD group. Where students with ADHD traits stood out was physical activity, which showed a stronger link with fewer symptoms.

More movement went hand in hand with fewer symptoms, while more sitting went hand in hand with more. That said, these patterns offer a useful lens for evaluating your own day — if long stretches of sitting leave you tense, more movement may help your body decompress.

• Exercise may support executive functions that stress can strain — The study referenced earlier findings showing that physical activity supports planning, working memory, and self-regulation — skills that act as your brain's internal management system.

When stress builds, these skills can feel harder to access, leaving you scattered and overwhelmed. Again, physical activity is generally thought to improve blood flow and oxygen delivery to the brain, which may be one reason even short bursts of activity help some people think more clearly, though this study did not measure those mechanisms.

• Students with high hyperactivity scores showed a different pattern — Adolescents with abnormal hyperactivity scores — meaning more impulsivity, distractibility, and restlessness — reported a greater stress-related burden.

But in this group, more physical activity during school hours was linked to more psychosomatic symptoms, not fewer, which is the opposite of the overall pattern. The researchers suggest that these students may increase physical movement as a reaction to school stress or to long lessons of uninterrupted sitting, using it as a kind of pressure release valve.

Note that the study didn't examine biological pathways, but one possible explanation is improved autonomic regulation — your body's ability to shift from tension into a calmer state. More active students reported fewer stress symptoms overall, and when your nervous system settles into a calmer pattern, it may become easier to manage your thoughts, behaviors, and reactions and break cycles of stress.

1. Build a predictable movement routine that works with your energy levels — If you struggle with restlessness, tension, or scattered thoughts, start with short, structured sessions. In the START trial, adults who followed a moderate-intensity, interval-based program reported fewer ADHD symptoms, including lower inattention scores.⁶

Mimic that pattern by giving yourself clear start-and-stop points, such as five minutes of brisk walking followed by one minute of slower movement. This kind of structure may help your brain shift into task mode and quiet some of the internal noise.

2. Break long sedentary stretches before they create tension — The study on adolescents showed that longer sitting time and higher screen time matched up with higher stress-symptom scores, which include headaches, tension, and low mood. Interrupt these patterns early by standing and moving instead of sitting as much as possible.

Set a reminder every 30 minutes to stand, stretch, or walk for five minutes. These micro-breaks may help keep stress from building up in your muscles and nervous system. Think of this as pressure release so stress doesn't accumulate and disrupt your sleep later.

3. Match your movement to the state of your nervous system each day — If you wake up tense, choose slower rhythmic movement like walking, cycling, or light strength training. If your thoughts feel chaotic, interval-style moderate movement brings structure to your attention. If you're struggling with insomnia, daytime activity may help stabilize your system and support better sleep at night. This approach personalizes the routine to your needs so it becomes a tool rather than a chore.

4. Consider your magnesium intake — In addition to regular daily movement, simple nutritional and environmental upgrades may help support your nervous system. Neither of the featured studies discussed above examined magnesium, so think of it as general nutritional support rather than a treatment for ADHD.

Magnesium is of particular interest because it plays a role in nervous system function and muscle relaxation, and getting enough of it may support sleep quality.⁷ However, many people find it hard to get enough magnesium from food alone, due in part to soil depletion and poor absorption.

If you decide to take a magnesium supplement, one practical way to find your dose is to start with magnesium citrate — it's well-absorbed but will trigger loose stools when you've taken too much. So, slowly raise your dose until that happens, then back off slightly. That's your personal threshold. Once you know it, switch to forms that are gentler on your digestion, like glycinate or malate. If you have kidney problems or take prescription medications, talk with your health care provider before starting.

5. Reduce chemical and environmental stressors that interfere with focus and mood — Your nervous system deals with more than internal stress — it also responds to what's around you. Pair magnesium with cleaner daily habits: choose organic foods when possible, switch to natural cleaners, avoid artificial food dyes, and reduce exposure to synthetic fragrances.

In addition, replace plastic storage containers with glass or stainless steel, avoid microwaving in plastic, and choose natural materials over synthetic ones whenever possible. Lowering your exposure to compounds found in plastics, fragrances, and ultraprocessed foods may support clearer thinking and steadier energy. Even small steps may reduce background stress on your brain, making it easier to stay consistent with routines that improve focus, sleep, and emotional balance.

• Several factors can irritate the stomach lining — Helicobacter pylori, a bacterium that infects the stomach and small bowel, is one of the most common human infections worldwide and the most common cause of gastritis.² In a 2025 systematic analysis of Global Burden of Disease 2021 data, researchers identified H. pylori infection as a major risk factor and noted that regions with a higher gastritis burden also tended to report higher infection prevalence.³

• Certain medications and alcohol irritate the lining directly — Overuse of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) ranks among the most common causes of acute gastritis. These drugs suppress prostaglandins, compounds your stomach relies on to maintain its mucus layer, bicarbonate output, and blood flow. Alcohol acts on the lining more directly by chemically eroding it, and whether that produces an acute or chronic problem depends partly on how much and how often you drink.⁴

• Other infections and physical stress lower the lining's defenses — Viral infections associated with the stomach flu typically cause a short-term reaction that resolves by itself, and less commonly, parasitic and fungal infections can inflame the lining as well. Major surgery, trauma, or serious illness prompts your body to pull blood supply away from the digestive system and redirect it elsewhere, which lowers the lining's defenses against the chemicals inside it.⁵

• Whatever the trigger, symptoms do not always follow — When they do appear, it may mean the inflammation is more severe or has been going on a while, since they tend to surface once the lining is worn down enough that it can no longer defend itself against your own stomach acid and enzymes. The most common ones include:⁶

• Chronic inflammation gradually changes the lining — Left in place for years, chronic gastritis can cause the lining to thin and lose function, which makes it harder for your body to absorb iron, folic acid, and vitamin B12. In rare cases, long-running gastritis prompts cells in the lining to restructure into a different type of tissue altogether, a change called gastric intestinal metaplasia that is considered precancerous.⁷

1. Try garlic if you tolerate it well — A meta-analysis pooling eight randomized controlled trials with 867 adults examined allicin, a garlic-derived compound, as an add-on to standard H. pylori therapy. Eradication rates were higher in the allicin groups than in the control groups, at 93.33% versus 83.56%, although the authors noted that the overall quality of the trials was limited.⁹ Allicin was studied as an addition to standard antibiotic treatment, not as a replacement for it.

A small clinical trial examined how ordinary raw garlic affected H. pylori activity inside the stomach. Fifteen patients who tested positive for the bacterium ate two medium cloves, about 3 grams, with lunch and dinner for three days. Urea breath testing showed a significant drop in bacterial urease activity after the garlic period.

During a separate three-day period without garlic, breath test readings did not change significantly. The study was small and brief, so it cannot show that raw garlic eradicates the infection, but the findings came from an amount of garlic commonly used in food rather than a concentrated supplement.¹⁰

2. Consider probiotic foods alongside standard treatment — Fermented foods such as yogurt, kefir, kimchi, and sauerkraut provide beneficial bacteria that may support digestion and maintain a healthier gut environment.¹¹ Introduce them into your diet gradually and in small amounts. Their microbial density makes them highly active, so monitor how you respond to each one individually.

Research suggests strains such as Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium may help reduce H. pylori colonization and gastric inflammation while making antibiotic therapy easier to tolerate. When added to triple therapy, probiotics were associated with higher eradication rates and fewer gastrointestinal side effects, including nausea and diarrhea.¹²

3. Explore green or black tea with honey — In a study of 150 patients with dyspepsia, both tea and honey consumption were associated with lower H. pylori positivity. Among those who drank green or black tea at least once a week, 45.2% tested positive, compared with 64.8% of the other participants. After accounting for other factors, regular tea consumption remained associated with significantly lower odds of infection.

Animal and laboratory studies offer possible context for this association. Green tea catechins reduced H. pylori colony counts in Mongolian gerbils, while green tea inhibited bacterial growth and helped limit gastric mucosal inflammation in experimental models. However, no clinical trial has shown that green or black tea can eradicate H. pylori in humans.¹³

4. Track foods that aggravate your symptoms — Beyond choosing foods that are easier on your stomach, it also helps to identify which ones consistently trigger your symptoms. Keeping a food diary can help you connect flare-ups with specific meals or ingredients.

In a cross-sectional study of patients with chronic gastritis at three hospitals in Beijing, about 58% reported that their symptoms were related to what they ate. Stomachache and gastric distention were the two most common complaints, and both were associated with meat, barbecue, fried foods, sour foods, sweets, snacks, and salty foods.¹⁴

5. Eat smaller, lighter meals at regular times — In a cross-sectional study of 526 patients with chronic gastritis, irregular meal timing and inconsistent meal sizes were associated with stomachache, gastric distention, and several other digestive symptoms.

Irregular meal sizes showed one of the strongest associations with both stomachache and gastric distention, while irregular mealtimes were linked to nearly every symptom assessed. Eating moderate portions on a more consistent schedule may be easier on your stomach.¹⁵

1. Stop smoking and limit alcohol — In a 2025 nationwide cross-sectional study of 12,902 adults across 52 Chinese cities, H. pylori infection was more common among people who drank alcohol and those who smoked. After researchers adjusted for other socioeconomic and lifestyle factors, alcohol consumption remained associated with 16% higher odds of infection.

Smoking was associated with higher infection rates in the initial analysis, with 31.09% of smokers testing positive compared with 26.25% of nonsmokers.¹⁶

2. Avoid overusing NSAIDs — Use ibuprofen and similar medications only as directed, and avoid taking them more often or for longer than necessary. If you rely on an NSAID for a diagnosed condition, speak with your health care provider before changing the dose or stopping. There may be alternatives for managing your symptoms that are easier on your stomach lining.

3. Reduce stress — A 2024 systematic review and meta-analysis pooled 16 randomized controlled trials covering 1,550 patients with functional dyspepsia and found that psychotherapy-based approaches — cognitive behavioral therapy, hypnotherapy, and mindfulness — significantly reduced digestive symptoms and anxiety compared with usual care.¹⁷

Massage, meditation, yoga, and breathing exercises are all reasonable starting points. If the stress stems from surgery, trauma, or serious illness, follow your physician's treatment plan for the underlying condition.

4. Consider using essential oils — Peppermint¹⁸ and ginger¹⁹ oils are sometimes used for digestive discomfort, although evidence specific to gastritis is limited. Clove oil has also drawn interest because of its eugenol content.

In a laboratory study, eugenol oil extracted from clove buds inhibited H. pylori, including antibiotic-resistant strains, and disrupted the protective biofilms formed by the bacterium. Biofilm formation fell by about half at the lower concentration tested and by roughly 73% at the higher concentration.²⁰

• Major disasters triggered multiple independent searches for answers — Gurley examined the 2021 Surfside condominium collapse, the Boeing 737 MAX crashes, Hurricane Katrina, Fukushima and the Challenger disaster. In each example, multiple groups pursued the cause, from journalists and government investigators to scientists, whistleblowers and victims’ families.

Gurley emphasized that these groups didn’t always cooperate. Sometimes they collided or challenged one another. That independence was useful because it gave the public several paths to evidence rather than one institution’s explanation.

• Root-cause analysis follows a step-by-step process — Gurley highlighted Corrective and Preventive Action (CAPA), a framework built around five steps: “detect, investigate, confirm root cause, correct, and prevent.” Prevention depends on first establishing what produced the failure. CAPA isn't an abstract idea.

Gurley noted that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires it in pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturing, where companies must investigate the cause of a quality problem and take action to correct it and keep it from recurring.

Think of it like fixing repeated water damage in your house. Replacing wet drywall addresses the damage, but it won’t stop another leak. You first need to determine whether the source is a pipe, roof or foundation. Gurley applies the same logic to pandemic prevention: “You don’t know how to fix it if you don’t know actually what happened.”

• Independent investigators exposed failures that institutions resisted — Gurley repeatedly contrasts “searchers,” who pursue the cause, with “blockers,” institutions or people who resist scrutiny. After Challenger, physicist Richard Feynman conducted his own investigation rather than simply review information supplied to the presidential commission. He famously demonstrated the vulnerability of the shuttle’s O-ring material to cold during a televised hearing.

Gurley sees an important lesson here: expertise alone isn’t enough. Investigators also need independence and access to evidence. His examples show why records, firsthand testimony and competing analyses matter when the organization under investigation has an interest in defending its past decisions.

• The DEFUSE proposal provides a specific lead investigators could test — Gurley gives particular attention to DEFUSE, a research proposal from EcoHealth Alliance that involved coronavirus researchers in the U.S. and China. According to Gurley, the proposal described plans involving insertion of a furin cleavage site at the S1-S2 junction of a bat coronavirus.

The proposal was submitted in 2018 to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which declined to fund it; whether any of the proposed work was carried out with other funding remains unknown.²

A furin cleavage site is a section of a virus’s spike protein that certain enzymes cut, which affects how the virus enters cells. Gurley argues that DEFUSE warrants scrutiny because SARS-CoV-2 also has a furin cleavage site. Importantly, the existence of a proposal doesn’t establish that the proposed experiment took place or that it produced SARS-CoV-2. Gurley presents it as an investigative lead that calls for primary records and further examination.

• Gurley argues that early messaging narrowed the search too quickly — He contends that influential virologists and scientific publications helped establish animal spillover as the favored explanation while lab-origin questions became associated with conspiracy theories. He describes this as a failure of scientific inquiry because investigators need freedom to test competing explanations.

Gurley points to later-released communications and the subsequent debate over early scientific papers as reasons to scrutinize how that consensus formed. His concern centers on the investigation itself: “There’s no one that should be telling you you can’t search.”

• Gurley refuses to declare either origin theory proven — When directly asked which origin scenario he believed was most likely, Gurley answered, “I intentionally didn’t take a side on that here,” adding that the root cause had not been found. He even said he would support researchers who wanted to continue searching for evidence of animal spillover.

That distinction keeps an open investigation from becoming a predetermined verdict. For pandemic prevention, the useful question is which explanation survives a thorough examination of primary evidence, and what safeguards that evidence says to change before another outbreak occurs. The same discipline Gurley wants applied to COVID-19 works on a much smaller scale, too.

1. Ask what caused the problem before trying to fix it — When something goes wrong, the first instinct is often to make the immediate problem disappear. Instead, ask what produced it. If the same problem keeps returning, that’s an especially strong reason to look deeper. You can apply this to your health as well as everyday life.

If you repeatedly feel exhausted, for example, simply finding ways to push through the fatigue addresses the symptom rather than explaining why it keeps occurring. Start with the question, “What changed, and what could be driving this?” Keep a simple log of sleep, meals, stress and energy for two weeks, then bring it to your health care provider so testing can target likely causes rather than the symptom alone.

2. Separate evidence from interpretation — Whether you’re reading about COVID-19, nutrition or another controversial subject, distinguish what has actually been documented from what someone concludes about it. Those are two different things.

Try a simple test whenever you encounter a strong claim: “What evidence would I need to see to believe this?” Then ask what evidence would change your mind. This keeps your standard consistent even when you strongly prefer one explanation.

3. Go back to the original information — Headlines, social media posts and commentary add layers of interpretation between you and the underlying evidence. When an issue affects an important decision, trace the claim back as far as you reasonably can.

Look for the original research, document, interview or other primary source. You won’t always have the expertise to evaluate every technical detail, but you’ll often spot missing context, stronger qualifications or differences between what the source says and what someone says it says.

You can practice this with the COVID-19 origins debate itself. Drafts and the submitted version of the DEFUSE proposal have been made public through a leak and Freedom of Information Act requests, so you can read what it actually described instead of relying on summaries.²

4. Consider who has an interest in the answer — Gurley’s examples show why independence becomes important when an organization has to investigate events connected to its own decisions. The same principle helps you assess information in other areas.

If you’re evaluating health advice, a product recommendation or an institutional claim, ask who funded the work, who benefits from the conclusion and whether independent sources reached similar findings. A conflict of interest doesn’t automatically make a claim false. It tells you where independent verification becomes especially valuable. In the COVID-19 debate, that applies to any researcher or institution whose own work could be implicated by one of the origin scenarios.

5. Match your solution to the root cause — Once you identify a cause, choose an action that addresses it rather than repeatedly managing its effects. Gurley’s CAPA framework follows this basic logic: identify the failure, determine its cause, correct it and prevent its recurrence.

You can turn that into a personal checklist: What happened? What evidence explains why? What can I change? How will I know whether the change worked? Whether you’re evaluating pandemic policy, your health or a recurring problem at home or work, that process gives you a clearer path from identifying a problem to actually solving it.

• Early treatment is crucial, in Bowden's experience — She treated thousands of COVID-19 patients and reports that those given drugs like ivermectin and monoclonal antibodies early turned around quickly. Recounting her experience with monoclonal antibodies:

"[M]onoclonal antibodies came about, and those worked great. I mean, I could get as many doses I wanted. I'd get them the next day. I'd just contact the manufacturer, say, I need 200 doses to be at my doorstep. Great. They worked wonderfully. People turned around very quickly."

• Authorities pushed back against treatments Bowden saw working — In her view, one reason is that these early treatments undermined the vaccine-focused public health strategy. Powerful organizations insisted vaccines were the only real solution, dismissing alternatives. If patients could recover without the vaccine, she argues, fewer people would rush to get vaccinated, and Big Pharma wouldn't like that.

"So this is following the rollout of the COVID shots. The government is upset because people are not buying it. People are not getting them. There's very low uptake, very low interest. There's suspicion of these shots," Bowden says.

"So in March, they started their PR campaign. The government, they went after ivermectin. The FDA put something on their website about, you can't use ivermectin for COVID. Biden doled out $11.5 billion to groups around the country. Initially, it started with 275.

It went up to 17,000 influencers, church groups, sports leagues, all sorts of people just funneling out taxpayer money to go after doctors like myself that were spreading 'misinformation' and to push people to get these COVID shots."

• Bowden's experiences illustrate the same tragedy — She tells the story of a sheriff's deputy in Texas who became severely ill with COVID-19. His wife went to court to get the hospital to allow ivermectin, a drug with decades of use that Bowden describes as very safe.

"This is a man that has served for 29 years trying to protect and save the public. Father of six. And he contracted COVID. And this was in the fall of 2021. And that was the third and the largest surge of the pandemic. That's when this was following the rollout of the COVID shots.

So, this was eight months following the rollout of COVID shots, and they clearly weren't working. And this man, he got sick. He tried to get ivermectin. He couldn't find a doctor willing to prescribe it. He ended up in the hospital, and he went downhill like so many people did," Bowden said.

• Early treatment made a difference in her practice — Bowden says every one of her patients who got early treatment survived, and that she was able to help even some who came to her very sick in the second or third week of illness. She shares one story of a former patient:

"Everybody that got early treatment survived. I even had some really, really sick people come in in the second and third week. So, second, third week is when the inflammatory cascades set in and people get really sick.

I had a man come in with oxygen saturation in the 60s, and he was not a healthy guy. He had a history of a heart attack. He had a history of throat cancer. He was a veteran … But I had nurses that could do IVs, so we gave him high-dose steroids and IV.

We gave him antibiotics, breathing treatments, high-dose IV, vitamin C. We gave him high-dose ivermectin and we brought him in every day as an outpatient because I didn't have a hospital bed in my office. He survived. And I had a lot [of patients] like that."

[Editor's note: This is Bowden's account of one patient who received a combination of treatments, including high-dose intravenous vitamin C, under her direct medical supervision. It reflects her clinical experience rather than a controlled study, and it isn't possible to say which part of the regimen made the difference.]

• Few hospitals were open to these treatments — Bowden shared that Houston's United Memorial Medical Center allowed ivermectin, and she credits the critical care doctor who used it there, Dr. Joseph Varon, with saving a lot of lives. Bowden notes that Varon now heads the Independent Medical Alliance, formerly known as the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC).

"This hospital, UMMC, allowed him to use ivermectin. There was a whole protocol called the MATH+ protocol, started by FLCCC, which is now Independent Medical Alliance.

It included high-dose steroids, high-dose ivermectin, high-dose vitamin C, breathing treatments — all these very basic, not dangerous things that weren't being done elsewhere. He saved a lot of lives. He worked crazy hours — I think he worked over two and a half years straight without even a break. I was fortunate to have him as an ally," she says.

• Authorities pursued disciplinary action against Bowden — Bowden, despite the patient outcomes she reports, found herself portrayed as irresponsible or even dangerous. She shares with Carlson:

"I'm still fighting to keep my license. I mean, I still have the Texas Medical Board coming after me …"

Later in the interview, Bowden clarified that she doesn't believe the board is trying to take her license, but rather to fine her and mark her record — a settlement offer she refused.

[Editor's note: After this interview, in October 2025, the Texas Medical Board issued Bowden a public reprimand over the 2021 ivermectin case and denied her request for a rehearing that December. Bowden has since challenged the reprimand in court.]¹

• Big Tech amplified censorship — Companies that ran social media platforms banned doctors who spoke about their COVID treatment experiences. Like many others, Bowden was banned from then-Twitter. Even Carlson says his show still faces censorship on YouTube when it covers COVID shots. He says:

"So, one of the primary platforms we use for distribution is YouTube, which, in general, has been great, actually, if I'm being honest. A lot less censorship than I got in any television job I ever had. So, we're really grateful to YouTube. I never thought I'd say that.

But the one area where we get censored by YouTube is when we talk about COVID shots, which I think is really interesting. So, this will probably be censored on YouTube."

• Safety data was supposed to be for the public's protection — Instead, Bowden says, it was largely ignored. The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) has historically served as an early warning system, and spikes in reported adverse reactions are meant to prompt investigation.

That said, regulators did act on some early COVID signals — pausing the Johnson & Johnson shot in April 2021 over rare blood clots and adding myocarditis warnings to the mRNA shots that June — but Bowden argues that the overall surge in reported injuries never led them to pull the shots. Bowden shares her experience:

"According to VAERS, there have been 38,000 deaths from these COVID shots. So, under normal circumstances, the FDA would have pulled it, but instead they've doubled down. They put the shots on the childhood vaccine schedule. All babies are expected to get three COVID shots by the time they're 9 months old."

1. Educate yourself about your rights — Learn exactly what you're entitled to when you visit hospitals or doctors. You have the right to refuse any medical treatment and to ask detailed questions about all options. Know these rights well and clearly state them whenever you seek care. Your decisions will guide doctors toward your desired health goals — not theirs.

2. Document everything clearly — Keep accurate records of your medical history, conversations with doctors, and treatments you're receiving or refusing. If you're ever hospitalized, having these detailed records helps ensure your decisions are respected. Clearly documented notes make it harder for medical providers or hospitals to ignore your wishes. Bowden makes a related point in her interview:

"If you have to go to the hospital, be prepared. Have somebody with you … There is a patient bill of rights. You have rights in the hospital. Make sure you know those rights."

I encourage you to print out the Caregivers and Consent document so hospital staff know your wishes about what they can and cannot do to you. You have a legal right to informed consent and to refuse treatment, though how a specific document is honored can vary by state and facility. For more information on this topic, read "How to Save Your Life and Those You Love When Hospitalized."

3. Build relationships with doctors who respect your choices — Find health care providers who openly discuss all treatment options and not just those officially approved.

If you're someone who's skeptical about certain medical advice, find a doctor who listens, respects your concerns, and works with you. A good relationship with an open-minded doctor helps you feel safer and makes you less vulnerable to pressure from hospitals or authorities.

4. Seek alternative care options when necessary — If you're being denied care that you believe will help you, don't hesitate to look elsewhere. Find independent clinics, direct primary care doctors, or specialists like Dr. Bowden who advocate for patients first.

Being proactive and choosing providers who prioritize patient-centered care helps you avoid hospitals that may prioritize political or financial incentives over your health.

5. Stay informed and speak up — Educate yourself about medical news, research, and treatment options, particularly from doctors who report success with their patients but are often censored. Share credible information you've learned with your friends and family and speak out clearly whenever you encounter misinformation or censorship.

Your voice matters — speaking up helps protect everyone's right to medical freedom and accurate health information.

• She began her career with a solid foundation in internal medicine — Dr. Moday pursued a fellowship in allergy and immunology, spending a decade in private practice addressing allergies, chronic asthma, and immune deficiencies. "I felt that I wasn't using really all that I had learned, and there was a lot more to learn. It was not holistic enough for me," she shared.¹

• Fellowship with Dr. Weil — This sentiment drove her to search for a more comprehensive understanding of health via an integrative medicine fellowship with Dr. Andrew Weil in Arizona and subsequent certification in functional medicine in 2014.

• Going beyond conventional immunology — This pivotal transition allowed Moday to expand her focus beyond conventional immunology, embracing a holistic framework that considers nutrition, behavior, and environmental factors as components of health. By bridging these disciplines, she now addresses chronic medical issues with a more nuanced approach.

• Microbiomes are vital to your immune system — Moday explained how these trillions of microorganisms are not merely passive inhabitants but active participants in training your immune system and maintaining overall health. “[The microbiome] literally trains our immune system, but it also informs and acts as a go-between,” she said.²

• These microbes foster a balanced immune response — Disruptions in the gut microbiome have been associated with chronic inflammation, autoimmune disorders, and metabolic conditions such as diabetes and obesity.³

• We also discussed leaky gut —This is a condition where the epithelial lining of your digestive tract becomes permeable. This increased permeability may allow unwanted substances like endotoxins (lipopolysaccharides, or LPS) and food antigens to enter your bloodstream, which may trigger immune responses associated with autoimmune conditions. Gut dysfunction is a common feature of autoimmune disease.⁴

• This oxygen gradient isn’t static — It requires a constant supply of cellular energy to maintain. If that energy supply falters, more oxygen can seep in, which may suppress your beneficial bacteria. As beneficial bacteria dwindle in numbers, more harmful, oxygen-tolerant species may gain ground, and this imbalance has been associated with a range of other health concerns.

• An overlooked aspect of gut health — Maintaining this oxygen gradient is one of the most important, yet often overlooked, aspects of gut health. It's not just about what you eat, but about creating the right environment for your beneficial bacteria to thrive. This is where the importance of cellular energy production comes into play. Without it, the system may be less able to support beneficial bacteria.

• What do we have to thank for maintaining this system? — Some of the hardest-working cells in your body — colonocytes and goblet cells. Colonocytes line your colon walls, performing many vital functions. They’re like the bouncers at an exclusive club, deciding what gets in and what stays out. They also play a crucial role in maintaining that all-important oxygen gradient.

• Goblet cells are the maintenance crew — They secrete a mucus that acts as a protective coating, shielding your gut lining from harmful substances and pathogens. Colonocytes and goblet cells form a strong defense for your gut.

The health of these cells is directly linked to your overall gut health and, by extension, your general well-being. When they work well, they help build a strong gut barrier, absorb nutrients, and balance the microbiome. But when compromised, it can lead to digestive and systemic health concerns.⁵

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• The importance of a balanced gut microbiota — This illustration depicts the delicate balance of gut microbiota and its impact on health. On the left, “Eubiosis” shows a healthy gut environment with beneficial bacteria, strong barrier integrity, and positive metabolic outcomes. On the right, “Dysbiosis” illustrates how factors like antibiotics and an inappropriate diet can disrupt this balance, which may lead to inflammation and compromised gut health.

• Origins of the mitochondria — Interestingly, mitochondria themselves are believed to have originated from primordial bacteria through an evolutionary process known as endosymbiosis. While mitochondria are present in colonocytes, bacteria within your gut microbiome do not possess mitochondria and instead survive on glycolysis. This symbiotic relationship underscores the intricate connections between your cellular biology and microbial inhabitants.

• Environmental toxins may affect your mitochondria — However, despite your colon's naturally low-oxygen environment, modern-day exposure to environmental toxins may disrupt this balance. We're all exposed to microplastics, excess linoleic acid (LA) from industrial seed oils, and electromagnetic fields (EMFs). These may impair mitochondrial energy production, which is necessary for maintaining your colon's oxygen-free state.

• What happens when mitochondria are compromised? Colonocytes may be less able to consume the limited oxygen, which can lead to an increase in oxygen within your colon. This shift may create an environment conducive to the growth of facultative anaerobes — oxygen-tolerant bacteria, some of which are pathogenic.

When your mitochondria don't have enough energy, the colonocytes may not thrive, and the oxygen in your colon may progressively increase. This can lead to a decrease in beneficial bacteria and a rise in pathogenic bacteria.

• Endotoxins, specifically LPS, are another factor in this equation — There's a significant difference between endotoxins produced by obligate anaerobes and those from facultative anaerobes. The endotoxin from obligate anaerobes is much less pernicious. Meanwhile, pathogenic facultative anaerobes produce more harmful LPS, which may lead to chronic inflammation and contribute to various health conditions, including autoimmune diseases and metabolic syndrome.⁷

• The primary obstacle lies in the fragility of these bacteria — They are highly sensitive to oxygen and require specialized protective capsules to survive the journey through the digestive tract.

• Some available supplements may not deliver live bacteria to the colon — This may limit how well they support the gut's beneficial bacteria.⁸

• HOMA-IR as a detection tool — HOMA-IR involves measuring fasting blood glucose and insulin levels to provide an indicator of insulin resistance. This method is relatively low-cost and accessible, which is why some clinicians use it to look for early signs of insulin resistance. Moday agreed, noting its utility in her practice and that many people may have some degree of insulin resistance. Talk to your health care provider about whether this testing is appropriate for you.

• The dangers of oxidative stress — Oxidative stress, driven by an imbalance between free radicals and antioxidants, is linked to cellular damage and disease progression. Our conversation highlighted the nuanced relationship between oxidative and reductive stress, particularly in the context of mitochondrial health.

Free radicals, such as superoxide and hydroxyl radicals, are highly reactive molecules that damage cellular components. Antioxidants neutralize these free radicals, preventing oxidative stress. However, I emphasized that in many cases, free radicals are generated from reductive stress, where an excess of electrons leads to the formation of harmful reactive oxygen species (ROS).

• Addressing environmental toxin exposure is a multifaceted endeavor — Moday recommended simple, actionable steps such as avoiding plastic containers, opting for stainless steel or glass alternatives, and minimizing the use of processed foods laden with additives and preservatives.

• Addressing lifestyle habits is crucial — While proper health care and nutritional guidance are vital, without addressing sleep, stress, and overall lifestyle, patients often struggle to achieve meaningful results. Health coaches provide the necessary support, accountability, and personalized strategies to help individuals navigate these changes effectively.

• Moday believes health coaching should be integrated into a comprehensive health care approach — By collaborating with health coaches, patients receive a holistic support system that addresses both physical and emotional aspects of health. This collaborative model can improve patient outcomes and support long-term well-being.

• The Good Friends Hypothesis — Moday expanded on this by introducing the “Good Friends Hypothesis,” which emphasizes the importance of maintaining a diverse and beneficial microbiome through appropriate microbial exposure. “In the ‘90s, someone came up with the idea that children should not be introduced to peanut antigens until they were 3 or 4 years old. But that was problematic,” she said.¹¹

• Research on early allergen introduction — It has been suggested that delaying exposure to these allergens during critical developmental periods may have inadvertently heightened immune sensitivity in some children. Research has examined whether early introduction may support immune tolerance and lower the risk of allergies.^12,13 Talk to your child's pediatrician before introducing allergenic foods, especially if they have severe eczema or an existing food allergy.