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Andreea Nitescu RD MSc, 128 City Road, London (2026)

20/07/2026

You’ve heard of probiotics. You’ve probably heard of prebiotics.

But have you heard of 𝐝𝐮𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬?

The term "duplibiotic" was proposed in a 2021 scientific review to describe an unabsorbed compound that may influence the gut microbiome through two complementary actions:
→ a prebiotic effect, supporting the growth or activity of certain beneficial microbes
→ an antimicrobial effect, inhibiting or limiting certain potentially harmful or less desirable microbes

In other words, these compounds liekly don't simply “feed the microbiome.” They may help shape the microbial ecosystem more selectively.

Many of the proposed examples are polyphenols — plant compounds found in foods such as:
🫐 Berries
🍎 Pomegranate
🍵 Green tea
🍫 Cocoa
🌿 Herbs and spices

Because many polyphenols are only partially absorbed in the small intestine, a proportion can reach the colon, where they interact with gut microbes. The relationship is bidirectional: polyphenols can influence microbial activity, while microbes transform polyphenols into smaller metabolites that may have biological effects.

A 2024 human study published in npj Biofilms and Microbiomes, a Nature Portfolio journal, discussed cranberry extract through this duplibiotic lens. The researchers observed an increase in certain Bifidobacterium species alongside a reduction in Bacteroides abundance — though responses varied between participants.

And that variability matters.

A food or compound does not affect every microbiome in exactly the same way. The outcome may depend on the starting microbial community, dose, food matrix, microbial functions and the individual’s wider diet and physiology.

Duplibiotics are therefore an emerging concept, not a new supplement category or a guarantee that a food will “feed good bacteria and kill bad bacteria.”

But the idea highlights something important: microbiome modulation is more complex than simply adding more bacteria or more fibre.

Sometimes, the most interesting compounds may work in two directions at once.

Have you heard the term "duplibiotic" before?

Sources: PMID: 34268328, PMID: 38448452

20/07/2026

Every summer — when the heatwave hits — I feel like reaching for something cold and yumm.

But since ice cream often contains emulsifiers and a whole lot of sugar, I make my own yogurt popsicles at home with gut health-friendly ingredients.

The recipe I used for this batch (makes 6):
• 150 g blueberries
• 1 small ripe banana
• 8 heaped tablespoons Greek yogurt
• 1 heaped tsp raw honey
Blended, poured in popsicle silicone molds and frozen overnight.

Yumm 🤌

15/07/2026

Could mast cells be contributing to some cases of treatment-resistant IBS?

A small pilot study investigated 20 people whose IBS had not responded to conventional treatment.

The researchers found:

👉 19 out of 20 reported symptoms associated with mast-cell mediator release.

👉 Of the 12 participants who underwent additional laboratory testing, 11 had abnormal surrogate markers suggestive of increased mast-cell activity.

Importantly, this was not the same as formally diagnosing the participants with Mast Cell Activation Syndrome.

Mast-cell activation is a biological process. MCAS is a specific clinical syndrome with defined diagnostic criteria.

So this study cannot tell us that most people with IBS have MCAS.

It was also very small, involved a highly selected treatment-resistant group and used indirect markers of mast-cell activity.

But the findings ARE highly suggestive: this particular group had a strong mast-cell signal, which raises an important question:

Could mast-cell mediator activity be contributing to symptoms in a subset of people with persistent IBS?

This matters because mast cells can release histamine and other mediators that influence intestinal secretion, motility, permeability, pain signaling and interactions between the gut and nervous system.

This study is suggestive, not definitive.

But it gives us a compelling reason to investigate the IBS–mast cell connection more closely.

PMID: 21298604

✨ If you’re struggling with persistent IBS symptoms and want a personalized, evidence-informed approach, I work with patients to investigate the factors that may be contributing to their symptoms and build a practical intervention protocol around them.

Use the links in my profile to book a consultation.

15/07/2026

Rhubarb pie season is coming to an end, so obviously I had to make one more pie.
This one has a crust made with a mix of organic white wheat, organic whole wheat and organic whole spelt flour — a little nutty, a little rustic, and very much my idea of a perfect summer pie.

Rhubarb is such an underrated plant. Yes, it’s tart and nostalgic and amazing with pastry, but it’s also full of interesting phytochemicals.

The pink and red colour in rhubarb stalks comes largely from anthocyanins — antioxidant pigments also found in foods like berries and red cabbage. Redder rhubarb often means more anthocyanins, although colour is a useful but imperfect proxy.

Rhubarb also contains flavonols, including quercetin- and kaempferol-type compounds, which are heavily studied for antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and microbiome-modulating activities.

And then there are stilbenes — rhaponticin and rhapontigenin-type compounds — which are part of the same broader phytochemical family as resveratrol.

Rhubarb is also famous in herbal medicine because of anthraquinone-type compounds, including emodin, rhein, aloe-emodin, chrysophanol and physcion. These are biologically potent and are one reason rhubarb root extracts can act more like botanical laxatives.

But eating rhubarb pie is not the same thing as taking a medicinal rhubarb extract. In the stalks, the digestive benefit is more mundane but still useful: fiber adds bulk and supports bowel regularity.

Rhubarb also contains tannins and proanthocyanidins, which contribute to that astringent edge, plus polysaccharides and fiber that may support gut and microbiome health.

So yes, this is dessert. But it’s also a seasonal love letter to one of the most fascinating plants of early summer. I personally love it.

Important reminder: only eat the stalks — not the leaves.

26/06/2026

𝐁𝐨𝐫𝐧 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟗𝟗𝟎? 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐛𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐤 𝐦𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐛𝐞 𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬’ 𝐝𝐢𝐝.

New research in Nature Medicine looked at data from the UK Biobank and All of Us, including over 160,000 people, and found that each recent generation is aging faster on the inside — and that this is linked to rising cancer rates before age 55.

🔹 What does “age gap” mean?

“Age gap” refers to how old your biology looks compared to your actual birthday.

Using blood biomarkers and the PhenoAge clock, researchers found that people from more recent birth cohorts had a higher biological age gap than earlier generations.

In the UK cohort, people born between 1965–1974 had a 23% higher biological age gap than those born between 1950–1954.

In the US cohort, people born in the 1990s had a 92% higher biological age gap than those born in the late 1960s.

Same chronological age. Older biology.

🔹 Why does this matter for early-onset cancer?

A bigger biological age gap was linked to a higher risk of developing several cancers before age 55 — independent of genetics.

For each standard deviation increase in age gap, researchers found:

• Lung cancer risk: +57%
• Gastrointestinal cancer risk: +17%
• Uterine cancer risk: +31%

Importantly, this association held up even after adjusting for telomere length and polygenic risk scores for aging and cancer.

In other words: biological age gap may be capturing something genes alone don’t.

🔹 Your organs may age on different timelines, too.

Using plasma proteomics, researchers also found that organ-specific aging predicted cancer risk independently of whole-body aging.

For example:

• Faster immune system aging was linked to an 89% higher risk of early-onset lung cancer
• Faster adipose tissue aging was linked to a 60% higher risk of early-onset colorectal cancer

Translation: it may not just be “how old is your body?” — it may also be “which organ system is aging fastest, and why?”

🔹 Why would faster aging drive cancer earlier?

One leading theory is that age-related decline reshapes tissue microenvironments and immune surveillance before the body’s natural tumour-suppressive aging mechanisms have fully kicked in.

In mid-adulthood, a body that is biologically “ahead of schedule” may be more permissive to tumour initiation — not yet old enough to shut it down, but old enough to let it start.

🔹 This isn’t about willpower. It’s about cumulative exposure.

Researchers point to earlier and more sustained exposure to factors such as:

• Obesity and metabolic dysfunction
• Sedentary time
• Circadian disruption
• Environmental chemical exposure
• Chronic low-grade inflammation

These don’t act alone. They compound across decades, which may be why birth cohort matters as much as current habits.

🔹 The actionable part: biological age is modifiable.

This study found that age gap is dynamic, not fixed.

Many of its drivers — including metabolic health, inflammation, and body composition — are the same levers nutrition and lifestyle interventions already target.

The science of slowing the gap, not just chronological aging, may be one of the most promising levers we have for early-onset cancer prevention.

⏳ Want to understand your health through a longevity lens?
Work with me as a longevity-focused Registered Dietitian & Molecular Biologist.
Consultations available via the link in my profile.

25/06/2026

With this heatwave, eating hot food is almost unbearable so I always tend to gravitate towards salads and cold platters in the summer.

Here's the famous French Niçoise salad with tuna, boiled eggs, lettuce, green beans, olives, tomatoes, boiled potatoes – and cucumbers for a twist, served with a vinaigrette dressing.

Healthy & balanced meals don't have to be complicated 🤌

03/06/2026

We talk a lot about the gut microbiome in longevity — but what about the skin microbiome?

A new 2026 study published today in the journal Microbiome used multi-omics analysis to explore how skin microbes may relate to visible skin aging.
doi: 10.1186/s40168-026-02433-6

One of the most interesting findings was that Stenotrophomonas maltophilia was enriched in individuals with a “younger” skin phenotype, defined using AI-predicted skin age and skin elasticity.

Why is this interesting?

Because this microbe appeared to interact with pathways involved in redox balance — especially the glutathione cycle.

Glutathione is one of the body’s key antioxidant systems, and oxidative stress is a major biological driver of skin aging.

In cell experiments, metabolites from S. maltophilia increased glutathione synthesis and upregulated genes involved in antioxidant defense and stress resilience, including GCLM, PGD, SOD2, and NQO1.

This does NOT mean we should all be putting random bacteria on our skin.

But it does suggest something important:

Your skin is not just a surface.
It is an ecosystem.

And the microbes living there may influence skin biology through metabolites, antioxidant pathways, pigmentation pathways, and host-microbiome signaling.

As a dietitian and molecular biologist, this is exactly why I find microbiome research so exciting. Longevity is not just about calories, collagen, or creams — it is about the biological systems that regulate resilience, inflammation, oxidative stress, and repair.

The gut microbiome gets most of the attention, but the skin microbiome deserves a seat at the longevity table too.

31/05/2026

Summer is one day away – but it's been feeling like summer for quite a few days already: hot, bright and cheerful.

On warm days I often don't feel like eating hot food, so I often gravitate to diverse salads or platters.

Today, I had this colorful mix of:
• potato salad with green beans and peas
• roasted chicken
• boiled egg
• beetroot
• bell peppers
• cucumber
• black olives
• pickled gherkins

It was delicious, refreshing and quick to whip up from leftovers.

Yumm!

31/05/2026

🔹 Your colon cells need fuel.
And under normal conditions, mature colonocytes get an estimated 70–80% of their energy from 𝗯𝘂𝘁𝘆𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲 oxidation.

But here’s the important part:
you don’t make much butyrate yourself.

Your gut microbes do — but not always in one step.

Dietary fibres and resistant starches feed a microbial food web: some bacteria break them down into smaller sugars and fermentation products, while others convert those into butyrate.

Butyrate is a short-chain fatty acid produced by gut microbes as part of a microbial food web.

Complex carbohydrates are broken down into smaller compounds, and certain bacteria convert these into butyrate.

Your colon cells can then oxidize butyrate for energy — making it part of the basic energy economy of the colon, not just another “gut health” buzzword.

🔹 Meet butyrate.
Butyrate production depends on your microbial ecosystem.

Key butyrate-producing groups include bacteria within genera such as Faecalibacterium, Roseburia, Eubacterium, Anaerobutyricum and related taxa.

If you don't have the right microbes, your gut is not producing enough butyrate to fuel the day-to-day activities of your colon cells.

🔹 Not all gut microbes make butyrate.
But these microbes can't survive if you're not feeding them. If your diet is low in dietary fiber and resistant starch, you may be starving your butyrate-producing bacteria.

🔹 Can I take a probiotic to add these bacteria?
Not quite — at least, not in the way people often imagine.

Most standard probiotics do not contain the major butyrate-producing bacteria we typically look for, such as Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, Agathobacter rectalis, or Roseburia intestinalis.

These organisms are often highly oxygen-sensitive and difficult to formulate as conventional probiotics.

But some probiotics may still support butyrate production indirectly.

Certain strains of Bifidobacterium, Lactobacillus, and newer candidates such as Akkermansia muciniphila may help produce substrates, alter pH, support barrier function, or shape the gut environment in ways that favor butyrate-producing microbes.

So the goal is not always to “add butyrate bacteria.”

Usually, it is to support the ecosystem that allows them to thrive.

🔹 Can I take a butyrate supplement?
Yes — but formulation matters.

Butyrate exists in supplement form, usually as salts such as sodium butyrate, calcium/magnesium butyrate, or as tributyrin.

Some people may benefit from supplemental butyrate, but a key question is whether the formulation actually delivers meaningful butyrate to the lower gut.

Free butyrate and some simple butyrate salts may be absorbed earlier in the digestive tract, which can limit how much reaches the colon.

𝗧𝗿𝗶𝗯𝘂𝘁𝘆𝗿𝗶𝗻 is different: it is a triglyceride made of three butyrate molecules attached to glycerol. It is generally considered a more efficient delivery form because it can act as a prodrug, releasing butyrate during digestion rather than simply providing free butyrate upfront.

That said, supplements are not a replacement for feeding the microbial ecosystem.

Long-term butyrate production still depends on having the right microbes, the right substrates, and the right gut environment.

✨ Feeling lost with persistent gut symptoms?
I use evidence-based, microbiome-informed strategies to support gut health.

Consultations available via the link in the comment section.

29/05/2026

Removing the polyp may be necessary — but it may not be enough.

New research in Cell Host & Microbe suggests that long after adenoma removal, the gut microbiome can still resemble a higher-risk colorectal cancer terrain — and lifestyle may matter even more in that post-polyp window.

The takeaway: colonoscopy matters, but so does what happens after.

Here's the study:
PMID: 42202778

Andreea Nitescu RD MSc

20/07/2026

20/07/2026

15/07/2026

15/07/2026

26/06/2026

25/06/2026

03/06/2026

31/05/2026

31/05/2026

29/05/2026

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