{"id":231797,"date":"2026-02-21T09:11:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T15:11:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/will-probiotics-work-for-you-models-map-gut-metabolism-to-predict-success"},"modified":"2026-02-21T09:11:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T15:11:21","slug":"will-probiotics-work-for-you-models-map-gut-metabolism-to-predict-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/will-probiotics-work-for-you-models-map-gut-metabolism-to-predict-success","title":{"rendered":"Will probiotics work for you? Models map gut metabolism to predict success"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/will-probiotics-work-for-you-models-map-gut-metabolism-to-predict-success.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A new study demonstrates that computer models of gut metabolism can predict which probiotics will successfully establish themselves in a person\u2019s gut and how different prebiotics affect production of health-promoting short-chain fatty acids. The findings are published in <a href=\"https:\/\/plos.io\/4bjWQTc\" target=\"_blank\"><i>PLOS Biology<\/i><\/a> by Sean Gibbons of the Institute for Systems Biology, US, and colleagues.<\/p>\n<p>Probiotic and prebiotic supplements show highly variable results across individuals, making it difficult to predict who will benefit from these interventions. This variability comes from complex interactions between introduced probiotics, each person\u2019s existing gut microbiota, and their diet.<\/p>\n<p>In the new work, researchers first tested a metabolic model on data from two previous studies in which participants diagnosed with <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/news\/2023-08-bacteria-treatment-insulin-resistance-diabetes.html?utm_source=embeddings&utm_medium=related&utm_campaign=internal\" rel=\"related\">type 2 diabetes<\/a> were given a placebo or probiotic\/prebiotic mixture designed to improve glucose control and healthy participants were given a placebo or a probiotic treatment designed to treat recurrent Clostridioides difficile infections, respectively.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new study demonstrates that computer models of gut metabolism can predict which probiotics will successfully establish themselves in a person\u2019s gut and how different prebiotics affect production of health-promoting short-chain fatty acids. The findings are published in PLOS Biology by Sean Gibbons of the Institute for Systems Biology, US, and colleagues. Probiotic and prebiotic [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1523,1495],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-231797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-computing","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231797\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}