Bad Gut Bacteria: The Surprising Link to Energy, Mood, and Digestive Health—and How to Fix It

Bad gut bacteria can sap your energy, impact mood, and disrupt digestion, leaving you feeling tired after meals, moody, or bloated. The gut microbiome’s balance influences how efficiently you convert food into energy, how you regulate mood-related chemicals, and how smoothly your digestion functions. When bad gut bacteria take over, these processes can falter. A practical way to gauge this is with the Gut Microbiome Health Index—a 0 to 100 score developed through a collaboration with EAFIT University in Colombia—so you can see where you stand and track improvements over time. InnerBuddies offers a white-label Gut Health Operating System with modular capabilities designed to identify and counteract bad gut bacteria. The platform includes a Gut Microbiome Health Index, built on an exclusive IP deal with EAFIT University, plus Bacteria abundances for a top 40 list showing how you compare against a healthy cohort. It also categorizes Bacteria functions into positive and negative groups and scores you against a healthy baseline on each functional category. For deeper insight, Target Group analysis dives into how relevant pathways perform for Healthy Aging, Endurance Sport, Power Sport, Skin & Hair Health, and more. See how this can power your own testing products on the InnerBuddies microbiome test product page. To turn knowledge about bad gut bacteria into action, InnerBuddies offers practical, science-backed steps you can start today. Prioritize a diverse, fiber-rich diet to feed beneficial microbes and shrink the relative share of harmful ones. Incorporate fermented foods and a wide range of plant-based foods while limiting highly processed items and added sugars that can fuel “bad” bacteria. Alongside lifestyle factors like regular sleep and stress reduction, you can leverage personalized nutrition advice that uses your three-day food diaries in combination with stool data to tailor recommendations. The platform also provides personalized probiotics and prebiotics guidance designed to support your goals based on your unique gut microbiome composition. Whether you want consumer-ready gut test solutions or a partner-ready platform, InnerBuddies has you covered. Consumers can access direct gut test options as well as ongoing insights through a Gut Health Membership, while partners can tap into a scalable B2B platform via our become-a-partner program. All B2B capabilities are available to consumers as well, offering a seamless path to improved gut health. Explore the consumer options at the product page, sign up for ongoing insights at the subscription page, or learn about partnering at the B2B page.