Fox News88%
Common chemicals, from food additives to pesticides, may be wrecking your gut health, study says98%
By Andrea Margolis0%
12/5/2025, 8:17:59 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 15 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Appeal to Emotion, and Hasty Generalization, with Availability Heuristic as the most egregious example at 47.5% saturation with 297 hits. Analysis detected 1,700 faulty-reasoning hits from 625 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 97.7% and a BS Rank of 98% (373 of 16,813 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 97.80% of the article peer group.
Researchers say they've identified 168 chemicals that may affect gut bacteria, substances that people can encounter in a range of everyday environments.
Experts from the University of Cambridge published a study Tuesday in the journal Nature Microbiology that found many everyday substances can hinder the growth of beneficial gut bacteria, and it goes beyond pesticides.
The scientists studied how 1,076 chemical contaminants affected 22 bacterial species, creating a machine-learning model to forecast how likely chemicals were to harm gut health.
The chemicals included bisphenol AF (BPAF), perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), glyphosate, chlordecone, imazalil and dozens more.
The substances span a wide range of uses, from flame retardants and fungicides to insecticides and plastic additives.
Potential exposure to these chemicals can happen through food, drinking water and environmental contact, according to the study, although real-world levels and their health implications remain uncertain.
"When this system becomes imbalanced, it can contribute to a wide range of health problems involving digestion, weight regulation, the immune system and mental health," a news release about the study said.
Study author Indra Roux said her team was "surprised" to learn the chemicals had such damaging effects.
"We've found that many chemicals designed to act only on one type of target, say insects or fungi, also affect gut bacteria," Roux said.
"The gut isn't just a digestion machine. It's a central command center for immunity, metabolism and inflammation."
"For example, many industrial chemicals like flame retardants and plasticizers that we are regularly in contact with weren't thought to affect living organisms at all, but they do," Roux added.
Kiran Patil, another author of the paper, said the aim is to move "to a future where new chemicals are safe by design."
"Now [that] we've started discovering these interactions in a laboratory setting, it's important to start collecting more real-world chemical exposure data to see if there are similar effects in our bodies," Patil said.
Dr. Will Bulsiewicz, a gastroenterologist who was not involved with the study, told Fox News Digital the research is "a wake-up call."
"The gut isn't just a digestion machine. It's a central command center for immunity, metabolism and inflammation. If we disturb it, we invite trouble," he said.
"If these microbes are weakened, the gut barrier becomes vulnerable, the immune system becomes overactive and chronic inflammation — the root of so many modern health issues — starts to rise," Bulsiewicz added.
"We don't need panic, but we do need progress."
He said the focus shouldn't just be on chemicals but on the broader need for microbiome testing on consumer goods and rethinking how chemicals used in homes, farms and the food system are designed and evaluated.
Momo Vuyisich, a biochemist and chief science officer at health testing company Viome, told Fox News Digital he recommends consumers focus on eating organic foods in light of the research.
He advised people to "dramatically reduce the intake of antibiotics, pesticides and food additives such as emulsifiers and preservatives."
For packaged foods, he suggested reading ingredient lists and avoiding items with additives like benzoate, polysorbate and aspartame.
Vuyisich emphasized that microbiome disruption "can negatively affect every single part of the human body. It significantly contributes to our physical, mental, cognitive and immune health."
He said early changes in the microbiome may be detectable through specialized testing, including tools his company develops, though such tests are not universally recommended by clinicians.
Experts not involved in the study note that while the laboratory results provide valuable clues, additional research is needed to determine whether these findings reflect real-world risks to human health.
The research was funded by the European Research Council and the Medical Research Council UK.
Fox News Digital reached out to the American Chemical Society in Washington, D.C., for comment on the study.
Analysis
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