Send a textRead the companion articleWhat if your gut isn’t just digesting your food—but shaping your thoughts, emotions, and resilience.The microbiome is finally stepping into the spotlight, and with it comes an uncomfortable truth: antibiotics don’t just kill harmful bacteria. They erase communities that regulate immunity, mood, and long-term health.In this episode, we explore the gut as a living ecosystem—an internal democracy thrown into chaos by modern medicine’s blunt tools. We look at how microbiome damage shows up as brain fog, anxiety, depression, autoimmune illness, and vulnerability to future infections—and why this isn’t your imagination.There’s hope. From fiber-based bacterial survival strategies to precision therapies and personalized gut medicine, the science is advancing fast—even if regulation hasn’t caught up. Until it does, your daily choices matter more than you think.Reference: The researchers on a quest to protect the gut from antibioticsThis is Heliox: Where Evidence Meets EmpathyIndependent, moderated, timely, deep, gentle, clinical, global, and community conversations about things that matter.  Breathe Easy, we go deep and lightly surface the big ideas. Support the showDisclosure: This podcast uses AI-generated synthetic voices for a material portion of the audio content, in line with Apple Podcasts guidelines. We make rigorous science accessible, accurate, and unforgettable. Produced by Michelle Bruecker and Scott Bleackley, it features reviews of emerging research and ideas from leading thinkers, curated under our creative direction with AI assistance for voice, imagery, and composition. Systemic voices and illustrative images of people are representative tools, not depictions of specific individuals. We dive deep into peer-reviewed research, pre-prints, and major scientific works—then bring them to life through the stories of the researchers themselves. Complex ideas become clear. Obscure discoveries become conversation starters. And you walk away understanding not just what scientists discovered, but why it matters and how they got there.Independent, moderated, timely, deep, gentle, clinical, global, and community conversations about things that matter. Breathe Easy, we go deep and lightly surface the big ideas. Spoken word, short and sweet, with rhythm and a catchy beat.http://tinyurl.com/stonefolksongs