Sisyphus is condemned by the Gods to roll a stone up a hill. It rolls right back down, starting the exhausting torture, again. And for eternity. One of many modern interpretations of this myth is summarized by the adage “it is madness to keep doing the same thing and expect different results.” When it comes to disease, don’t expect to get better, unless you change what led to the breakdown of your health.
Take gallbladder stones. Better yet, take them out, if you blame them for abdominal pain and other sundry gastrointestinal problems. You may see some initial relief, but your symptoms will persist, unless you address the real problem: thicker bile out of the liver because of metabolic problems. Often, poor metabolism is due to an unbalanced microbiome, which will get worse taking the gallbladder out due to compromised digestion and the corrosive effect of bile acid constantly dripping down the intestines unopposed by food.
But your Sisyphus-like act may not end there: many other health issues come from poor lifestyles. Subpar relationships, toxic environments, and poor diets are the main factors that need to be corrected. Genetics? Look up “EPIGENETICS.” It is the science that our gene function may be modulated for the better by optimizing those factors. In other words, we are not condemned to a fate dictated by inheritance.
Take time to read the references below. They point out “other stones” you do not want to get stuck rolling uphill.
References
Increasing gallstone disease prevalence in U.S. linked to rising occurrence of metabolic disorders
Gastroenterology Advisor (7/2/25, Rao) reports a study suggests that “development of gallstones and metabolic disorders, including obesity, metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease, diabetes, and hypertension, are related.” Researchers found that “patients with vs without gallstone disease were more likely to have prior smoking (33.1% vs 25.2%) and low physical activity (13.2% vs 10.7%).” Furthermore, “patients with vs without gallstone disease had higher BMI (32.8 vs 29.3), waist circumference (107.8 vs 99.8 cm), controlled attenuation parameter (CAP; 279 vs 260 dB/m), and other metabolic indicators.” The researchers also “noted that presence vs absence of gallstone disease increased risk for fatty liver (48.4% vs 33.9%), obesity (80.2% vs 59.1%), hypertension (60.2% vs 39.9%), and diabetes (24.0% vs 12.7%).” Results of the multivariate logistic regression analysis “showed a significant association between metabolic disorders and gallstone development.” The study was published in the Journal of Digestive Diseases.
Artificial sweeteners associated with faster cognitive decline
Healio Minute, September 12, 2025
- Mean consumption of low- and no-calorie sweeteners was 92.1 mg a day.
- Daily consumption was linked to memory, verbal fluency and global cognition declines.
- Alternatives like tagatose may mitigate these risks.
Consumption of low-calorie and no-calorie sweeteners was linked to accelerated rates of cognitive decline among middle-aged adults over an 8-year follow-up period, according to data published in Neurology.
‘It just piles on’: Environmental stressors, gut-brain dysfunction drive eating behaviors
Healio Minute, October 03, 2025
- Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder is common among individuals with disorders of gut-brain interaction.
- Social determinants of health also impact the brain-gut-microbiome system.
Recent research has highlighted the effects of disorders of gut-brain interaction and environmental stressors — including social determinants of health — on two distinct eating behaviors.
Studies published in Gastroenterology and Clinical Gastroenterology & Hepatology characterized the interactions between stress, the gut microbiome and eating patterns, and demonstrated how these interactions drive both excessive eating and restrictive food intake.
“On a positive note, one thing we did notice is that social support and a sense of community and common humanity seems to buffer people against this intersection between stress and the microbiome,” study author Laurie Keefer, PhD, a clinical health psychologist and professor of medicine, psychiatry and biomedical sciences at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, told Healio. “Isolation and loneliness represent a growing epidemic, and we’re seeing the impacts on health. Obesity is a perfect example of that.”
‘A downward spiral’
Disruptions to gut-brain communication can manifest as cravings for calorie-dense foods, or conversely, as restrictive eating. Recent research has focused on the overlap between disorders of gut-brain interaction (DGBI) and restrictive eating habits unrelated to body image.
To further assess this association, Imran Aziz, MD, MBChB, MRCP, and colleagues conducted a population-based online survey of 4,002 adults (median age, 46; 50% women) in the United Kingdom and United States. The survey included the Rome IV diagnostic questionnaire for DGBI, as well as the Nine-Item Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) Screen. The researchers also collected data on demographics, BMI, non-gastrointestinal somatic symptoms and quality of life, among other factors.
Aziz noted ARFID is distinct from more widely known eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia.
“ARFID is an eating disorder where people severely limit what or how much they eat, leading to weight loss, nutritional problems or difficulty functioning in daily life,” Aziz, senior clinical lecturer in gastroenterology at University of Sheffield School of Medicine and Population Health, told Healio. “Unlike anorexia or bulimia, it’s not about body image — instead, people might have little interest in food, be extremely picky about textures or tastes, or fear that eating will cause choking or stomach pain.”
Results of the survey showed nearly half (42.6%) of participants had symptoms associated with at least one DGBI, and 34.6% of those with DGBI (34.6%) had positive screens for ARFID compared with just 19.4% without DGBI (adjusted OR = 1.67; 95% CI, 1.43-1.94). The most common symptoms in positive screens were lack of interest in eating (21.5%), sensory-based avoidance (18.1%) and fear of aversive consequences (9.9%).
“The relationship is complex and appears to work both ways,” Aziz said. “Digestive symptoms like pain, vomiting and unpredictable bowel movements can make people afraid to eat certain foods or eat at all. At the same time, not eating enough variety or quantity can make digestive problems worse and create more anxiety around meals, forming a harmful cycle.”
Participants with DGBI and ARFID also were more likely to be underweight compared with those with DGBI alone (7.9% vs. 1.5%), and they exhibited more non-GI somatic symptoms, had poorer mental and physical quality of life, and higher health care utilization.
“The restrictive eating worsens nutrition, while digestive symptoms make people avoid food even more, creating a downward spiral,” Aziz said.
Aziz encouraged clinicians to use simple screening tools and have discussions to identify ARFID in patients with DGBI, and to provide these patients access to multidisciplinary care that includes dietitians and mental health providers.
He also urged clinicians not to make assumptions about ARFID based on a patient’s BMI.
“Many people assume eating disorders only affect underweight individuals, but most patients in our study with both conditions were normal weight, overweight or obese,” Aziz said. “Doctors can’t rely on appearance alone to spot these problems.”
‘We can’t just keep blaming the individual’
Gut-brain communication also influences the microbiome, and can be affected by social determinants of health, which include psychosocial and environmental factors such as economic stability, access to health care, social support, neighborhood disadvantage and discrimination.
Keefer and colleagues conducted a systematic review of current literature to better understand the role these factors play in the development, progression and management of obesity.
They found that stressful life circumstances can drive physiological changes in the gut microbial composition, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis signaling and the reward network.
“We know that in the gut, particular chemical messengers like serotonin are very much influenced by the presence of stress and can affect the way the gut and the brain communicate, causing symptoms,” Keefer said. “There’s also what we call ingestion-related decision-making: what we choose to eat, when we choose to eat it and how we feel when we eat a particular food. When we’re stressed, we crave different types of food.”
This cycle of disruption, cravings and reward can influence eating habits in a way that is not easily overcome by individual willpower, she added.
“Our study found that the neighborhood you live in, and whether you felt and experienced chronic poverty or discrimination — racism in particular — can create a risk profile above and beyond anything an individual can do,” Keefer said. “We have all these interventions — do some yoga, eat more vegetables — but it’s not just about the individual. It’s about the societal stressors that affect individuals.”
Stress also can cause individuals to sacrifice sleep, exercise and quality nutrition even in ideal circumstances, adding that unsafe environments worsen this association.
“One of the things we found was these effects are worse when people live in neighborhoods where it’s not safe to go for a walk due to fears of gun violence, drugs or robbery,” Keefer said. “There are all sorts of things we’re seeing in terms of people’s psychological coping, in addition to what’s already going on at the microbiome level.”She added that the interaction of “ingestion-based” behavior with the brain’s reward system can often be self-reinforcing.
“The more sugar you eat, the more sugar you want,” Keefer said. “Your mood is depressed, and the sugar makes you feel good temporarily. Therefore, you eat it again to manage your stress. It just piles on.”
Community-based activities that foster support, encouragement and collaboration should be a major component of interventions aimed at managing obesity in marginalized populations, she noted.
“The other big takeaway from this paper is that we can’t just keep blaming the individual,” Keefer said. “We need to stop saying their weight problem or their eating behavior is all because of what they’re doing. We can treat individuals, but we also need to make an institutional commitment to changing the obesogenic environment and the role stress plays in eating behavior, not just weight.”
Soft drink consumption may contribute to major depressive disorder via gut microbiota alterations
HealthDay (10/2/25, Gotkine) reports a study found that “soft drink consumption may contribute to major depressive disorder (MDD) through alterations in gut microbiota.” The researchers observed that “soft drink consumption predicted MDD diagnosis and symptom severity, with stronger effects seen in women. Consumption was linked to increased Eggerthella but not Hungatella abundance in women. In a mediation analysis, Eggerthella significantly mediated the association between soft drinks and MDD diagnosis and severity, accounting for 3.82 and 5.00% of the effect, respectively.” Researchers said the results have “been found in other studies as well, that women tend to be more vulnerable than men to the effects of unhealthy diet and pro-inflammatory diets.” The study was published in JAMA Psychiatry.
Ultraprocessed diet may increase body fat, reduce sex hormones in healthy men
The Washington Post (8/28/25, O Connor) ”Eating ultra-processed foods caused otherwise healthy men to quickly gain body fat and led to reductions in their sex hormones.” When the study participants “were assigned to eat a diet of ultra-processed foods that contained the number of daily calories they needed for their age, weight, height and physical activity levels, they still gained weight and body fat – which did not happen when they consumed a diet of largely unprocessed foods… When men ate the high-calorie, ultra-processed diet, they had lower levels of follicle-stimulating hormone, or FSH, a hormone produced in the brain that plays a critical role in male fertility.” Such trends “toward lower testosterone levels” continued “when men ate the normal-calorie, ultra-processed diet and a reduction in sperm motility when they ate the ultra-, high-calorie diet.” The study was published in Cell Metabolism Online
Reducing the intake of ultra-processed foods can significantly aid in weight loss and improve overall health.
Study participants doubled weight loss when their diets were primarily minimally processed foods than with ultra-processed foods that met nutritional standards.
By ALICE CALLAHAN | The New York Times, 8/4/2025
New research suggests that people can lose more weight by avoiding ultraprocessed foods, even those that are typically considered healthy.
The study, published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine, is the largest and longest clinical trial yet to examine the effects of ultra-processed foods on weight. Participants lost twice as much weight when they followed diets made up of minimally processed foods, like pasta, chicken, fruits and vegetables, as they did when they followed diets with ultra-processed foods that met nutrition standards, such as ready-to-heat frozen meals, breakfast cereals, protein bars and shakes.
Federal officials have been sounding the alarm about ultra-processed foods, which account for about 70% of the food supply in the United States. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, said that ultra-processed foods were “poisoning” Americans, and called them a primary culprit of high rates of obesity and chronic diseases.
Although numerous studies have linked ultra-processed foods to obesity, most have been observational, meaning they can’t prove that the foods directly cause weight gain.
Two previous trials found that adults consumed about 500 to 800 more calories per day when their diets were made up of ultra-processed foods than when they were made up of minimally processed foods. But those studies were small and short; the larger of the two, conducted at the National Institutes of Health, included 20 participants who followed each diet for just two weeks. Critics have argued that the results might have been different if the trials were longer, or if they included healthier ultra-processed foods. The new study, though still small, was designed to address some of those concerns, said Samuel Dicken, a research fellow at University College London, and the lead author of the study.
Losing weight and body fat
Dicken and his colleagues recruited 55 participants, most of whom were women, ranging in age from their early 20s to their mid-60s, he said. All had body mass indexes in the overweight or obesity ranges, and before the study, about two-thirds of their calories came from ultra-processed foods — more than the average for adults in Britain.
The researchers designed two diets and provided the meals. Both diets met U.K. nutrition guidelines, with limited sugars, saturated fats and sodium, but one was composed mostly of minimally processed foods, like overnight oats, plain yogurt and scratch-made spaghetti Bolognese; the other was mostly made up of ultra-processed foods considered healthy, like whole grain breakfast cereals, plant-based milk, flavored yogurt and frozen lasagna.
Half the participants followed the minimally processed diet for two months, after which they returned to their normal diets for one month. Then they followed the ultraprocessed diet for two months. The other half followed the diets in the opposite order. All could eat as much or as little as they liked.
This kind of “crossover” study design is strong because it can show how each diet affected each participant, rather than averaging the responses across a group, said Brenda Davy, a professor of nutrition at Virginia Tech, who was not involved in the study.
Most of the participants lost weight on both diets. But on average, they lost more weight during the two months on the minimally processed diet — about 4 pounds compared with just 2 pounds on the ultra-processed diet. Dicken and his colleagues estimated that if the weight loss had continued over one year, even as it naturally slows with time, it could have added up to 9% to 13% of body weight on the minimally processed diet, compared with just 4% to 5% on the ultra-processed diet.
The participants also lost more than twice as much body fat on the minimally processed diet than they did on the ultra-processed diet.
Fewer calories per bite, and fewer food cravings
It was somewhat surprising — and encouraging — that people lost weight on the ultra-processed diet, said Kevin Hall, a nutrition scientist and a co-author of the study. This was likely because the study’s ultra-processed diet was more nutritious than the typical diets of the participants, he said. But participants still lost more weight on the minimally processed diet — a finding that aligns with those of previous studies.
That may be because minimally processed foods tend to have fewer calories per bite, said Filippa Juul, a nutritional epidemiologist at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University who was not involved in the study. And those foods generally have a harder texture that requires more chewing, so people may eat more slowly and consume fewer calories before feeling full, she said.
The participants also reported feeling like they had better control of food cravings on the minimally processed diet. That’s surprising, Dicken said, because “when people lose weight, they tend to want to eat more.” Better craving control may help them keep the weight off longer, Dicken added.
Juul speculated that perhaps following a diet of mostly minimally processed foods may “reset cravings” and reduce “food noise,” helping people eat only when they are hungry.
A growing body of evidence
The study was relatively short, Walter C. Willett, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health who was not involved in the study, wrote in an email. “We need about a year, at minimum, for serious weight loss studies because early changes often reverse or don’t continue,” he added.
The researchers could not measure exactly what and when people ate, or how much they consumed, and the participants reported eating some foods besides those provided. And most of the participants were women; men or children may have responded differently, Davy said.
Still, the study suggests that even if a person follows a healthy diet, there’s an added benefit to choosing minimally processed foods over ultra-processed ones, Juul said. Evidence consistently suggests that diets high in ultra-processed foods can make it harder for people to stay at a healthy weight, she added.
Avoiding ultra-processed foods can be a challenge, though, since they are so ubiquitous and tend to be cheaper than minimally processed foods, Juul said. She advises choosing foods with recognizable ingredients. Food manufacturers could help by making more minimally processed products that are convenient, affordable and appealing, she added. “It’s a shift in food culture that’s needed.” You don’t have to cut out ultra-processed foods entirely, Davy said. But try to cook at home as much as you can, focusing on fresh fruits and vegetables, lean proteins and whole grains — “those things that we know are good for us,” she said.
