Support The Right Bacteria to Restore Your Gut Health

Dr. Coetzee has spent the past few years researching how a handful of “keystone” gut bacteria strains hold the microbiome, and by extension your mood, metabolism, and immune system, together. He walks you through why these bacteria have quietly disappeared from most modern guts, why that decline tracks so closely with rising rates of anxiety, depression, and autoimmune disease, and what early clinical data shows about how to bring them back.

Glyphosate and the Shikimate Pathway

Gut bacteria use a biochemical pathway called the shikimate pathway to produce tryptophan and tyrosine, the raw materials your brain converts into serotonin and dopamine. However, glyphosate, a chelating agent that strips the manganese these bacteria need to run that pathway, collapses it. Even people who eat an organic diet are affected, since glyphosate is water-soluble and shows up in rainwater, tap water, and even organic legumes. Without the shikimate pathway intact, the gut can’t supply the amino acid building blocks your brain relies on for a stable mood.

Why Insulin Resistance Blocks Your Brain From Getting Happy Chemicals

Even when the gut produces enough tryptophan and tyrosine, those amino acids need insulin to cross the blood-brain barrier. People with prediabetes or insulin resistance often can’t shuttle these amino acids into the brain efficiently, which helps explain the well-documented link between blood sugar dysfunction and higher rates of depression and anxiety. Getting mood support right means looking upstream at gut health and metabolic health, not just at neurotransmitters in isolation.

The Three Keystone Bacteria Strains Almost Everyone Is Missing

Akkermansia muciniphila, Roseburia, and Faecalibacterium prausnitzii are three anaerobic “keystone” strains that behave less like typical probiotics and more like an accessory organ system, helping produce GLP-1, build new immune cells, regulate gut pH, and crowd out opportunistic bacteria and fungi without antimicrobials. Dr. Coetzee’s team screened 17,000 stool tests and found that 65% of people showed depleted levels of these strains, a number that tracks closely with today’s rates of chronic disease. Because these bacteria are anaerobic, they’ve historically been almost impossible to encapsulate in a supplement, until recent advances made it possible to deliver all three from a single donor source.

In early clinical work, patients taking these keystone strains for 8 to 12 weeks have shown measurable drops in eczema, psoriasis, and histamine reactions, symptom improvement across constipation- and diarrhea-predominant IBS, easing of some Crohn’s disease symptoms, and patients who previously reacted to dozens of foods were able to reintroduce them without symptoms. And while maintenance looks different for everyone, leading a healthy lifestyle can drastically reduce the need to continue taking the supplements.

Listen to this episode and start rebuilding your gut today!

Guest Bio

Dr. Oscar Coetzee has over 25 years of experience in psychology and nutrition and currently serves as VP of Clinical Education and Practitioner Support at Designs for Health. He has held faculty positions at Georgetown Medical School, Notre Dame University, and the University of Bridgeport, and holds multiple degrees including a PhD in Holistic Nutrition and a Doctorate of Clinical Nutrition. A pioneer in nutritional science, his work focuses on metabolic syndrome, intestinal permeability, type 2 diabetes, sports performance, and chronic inflammatory diseases, driven by a commitment to integrated patient care.

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