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Scientific American The Surprising Complexity of Nurturing a Healthy Gut Efforts to fertilize healthy gut bacteria, in pigs, were successful–but they appeared to come with unintended consequences. This article was produced in partnership with the author by Scientific American Custom Media, a commercial division separate from the magazine’s board of editors. February 18, 2021 Adapted from Springer Nature 2020, Nat Commun 11, 5773 The bewildering array of probiotic drinks in supermarkets these days is testament to the diverse and sometimes surprising health benefits of nurturing specific gut microbes. Consumption of probiotics directly supplies beneficial bacteria to the gut. A more subtle approach is to fertilize the gut with foods that contain components known to encourage the growth of good bacteria. A new study on pigs has shown that this strategy is not as straightforward as it at first might appear.