Gut Transit Time: The Hidden Driver of Your Microbiome and Health

A 2023 Gut review shows how the time stool spends in the gut (gut transit time) strongly shapes the gut microbiome and can influence disease risk, including IBS, IBD, colon cancer and even neurological conditions. Many factors—diet, sex, age, activity, stress, medications, and genetics—affect transit time, and integrating transit measurements into microbiome studies could improve prevention, diagnosis and treatment of gut- and beyond-disease.