How Gut Health Shapes How We Think, Feel, Function — and Reach’s New Investment Frontier

One morning in April, I woke up unusually groggy. I brushed it off as a bad night’s sleep, skipped my usual Pilates class, and pushed through the day. But by 10 a.m., a wave of crushing fatigue knocked me flat. That same exhaustion hit the next day. And the day after. Before long, I was sleeping over 12 hours a day and could barely stand for more than a few minutes at a time.

Frustrating weeks of bloodwork, imaging, and specialist visits followed. Every test came back “normal” yet I felt anything but. Perplexed, I turned to my new friend: Dr. Perplexity. I plugged my symptoms, labs, and history into Deep Research Mode and asked for the most probable diagnoses.

It flagged something unexpected: small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. Neither I nor my doctors considered that my gut could be the culprit. But sure enough, a gastroenterologist confirmed the diagnosis, and began treatment that finally brought relief.

I share this story not to highlight the incredible potential of AI in health care (though I absolutely believe it), but because the gut was the last place my doctors and I thought to look, since my symptoms were largely cognitive. 

Many Americans feel uninformed about their gut health. When an Ipsos poll quizzed over 1,000 U.S. adults about the gut, 85% received a failing grade and none got an A. Below are a few questions from the quiz; see how you fare!

True or False?