01/19/2026
Dr Karen Corbin, Scientist and Registered Dietitian, joins me to unpack one of the most fascinating questions in nutrition science right now: can your gut microbiome influence how many calories you absorb from food?
We explore what it means for weight management, metabolic health, and long-term disease risk, plus why the future of microbiome research depends on better study designs, more rigorous phenotyping, and a shift from “who’s there” to what microbes are actually doing.
What We Cover:
- Can two people eat the same food, yet absorb meaningfully different calories because of their microbiome?
- Why a high-fibre, microbiome-supporting diet may increase faecal energy loss, and what that could mean over time
- Where the “missing” calories might go, including the role of microbial biomass and fermentation
- Why association-heavy microbiome research has limits, and what better human studies need to look like
- Karen’s practical framework: “Have I fed my gut microbiome today?” and the four key upgrades
- What the evidence says about probiotics vs food-first prebiotics for metabolic health
- Why early-life factors matter, but why it is still worth changing your diet today
- Where microbiome science is heading next, including metabolite signatures, objective diet measures, and gut–brain links
You can find this conversation on YouTube, Spotify, Apple etc just search The Proof with Simon Hill.
Enjoy,
- Simon
