Your Gut Bacteria Is Under Attack by Pesticides and Everyday Chemical Pollutants
Dr. Joseph Mercola - Take Control of Your Health
Briana Mercola
4.6 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 23 December 2025
⏱️ 8 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
- Researchers have identified 168 everyday chemicals, including pesticides, flame retardants, and plastic additives, that are toxic to beneficial gut bacteria and may disrupt essential body functions
- Certain banned or restricted substances, like hexachlorophene and DDT, were also shown to damage gut microbes and promote inflammation and metabolic dysfunction
- Pesticides such as glyphosate, chlorpyrifos, and atrazine alter gut microbial balance and reduce protective species, allowing harmful bacteria to thrive and weakening your immune defenses
- Gut bacteria exposed to pesticides not only change how they grow but also how they process nutrients, interfere with detox pathways, and trigger inflammation in the gut, liver, and other organs
- Practical solutions like choosing organic produce, eating probiotic and prebiotic foods, filtering drinking water, and avoiding plastic containers can help protect and restore gut health
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | What if the chemicals in your water bottle, couch foam, and salad greens were quietly reshaping |
| 0:05.5 | your gut bacteria and raising your risk for inflammation and metabolic dysfunction? |
| 0:09.7 | Welcome to Dr. Mercola's cellular wisdom. Stay informed with quick, easy-to-listen |
| 0:15.1 | summaries of our latest articles, perfect for when you're on the go. No reading required. |
| 0:19.6 | Subscribe for free at Mercola.com for the latest health insights. |
| 0:23.6 | Hello and welcome to Dr. Mercola's cellular wisdom. I'm Ethan Foster. |
| 0:29.0 | Today we're looking at new research showing how pesticides and everyday industrial compounds |
| 0:33.7 | disrupt your gut microbiome, what that means for your immunity and metabolism, |
| 0:39.2 | and what steps you can take to reduce exposure. I'm here to guide the questions and keep this |
| 0:44.2 | practical and clear. I'm Alara Sky. This episode centers on two major research efforts. The first |
| 0:50.3 | from the University of Cambridge in Nature Microbiology tested 176 common contaminants |
| 0:56.9 | against 22 bacterial species, typically found in healthy people. |
| 1:01.6 | The list included more than 800 pesticides, nearly 200 pesticide breakdown products, dozens |
| 1:07.5 | of industrial chemicals, and several food-borne mycotoxins. |
| 1:11.8 | The punchline. |
| 1:13.3 | 168 chemicals were toxic to beneficial gut bacteria, and some were strikingly aggressive. |
| 1:19.8 | That matters because you depend on these microbes to regulate metabolism, immune tone, and signaling pathways. |
| 1:27.2 | Cambridge researchers reported that flame retardants and plasticizers, compounds people assumed were biologically inert, could inhibit growth in many strains, tetrabromobisphenol. |
| 1:39.3 | A suppressed 19 of 22 strains, and the antiparacitic close-in-tel showed a similar pattern. Most concerning |
| 1:46.5 | was hexaclorophene, an old antibacterial and fungicide restricted decades ago, which suppressed |
| 1:53.1 | 20 of 22 strains. This underscores a gap in safety testing. Chemicals are routinely assessed |
| 1:59.3 | for target effects, like killing insects, but not |
... |
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