Ghost Wipes, Diet Soda vs. Regular Soda & Should You Avoid Pork, Ham & Bacon? | Ask Me Anything

WATCH THE FULL-LENGTH EPISODE HERE ON YOUTUBE! 

This Ask Me Anything covers a lot of ground - and honestly, it's one of the more fun ones we've recorded.

First up, Mary Kate asked about something I call the "ghost wipe" - when you barely need to wipe after a bowel movement. She'd heard another podcast claim that having to wipe at all means you've eaten something that disagreed with you. My take: it's a decent proxy for hydration, fiber intake, and lowered inflammation, but it's not the whole picture. Frequency and formation matter more - I still say two to three well-formed bowel movements a day, though I've softened that to a range of one to three depending on how someone eats. The real message: your poop is a window into the rest of your health, and if you're using a lot of toilet paper, that's worth paying attention to.

Next, someone asked about sugar substitutes, and I wanted to settle this once and for all. There's a real difference between something like stevia or monk fruit, which come from actual plants, and something like sucralose (Splenda) or aspartame (Equal), which are synthesized compounds. I walked through a landmark 2022 randomized controlled trial that gave people different sweeteners and tracked what happened to their microbiome and blood sugar - all four changed the microbiome in different ways, with aspartame, saccharin, and sucralose having the most negative impact on blood sugar. The wildest part: when researchers gave the same people's stool samples to sterile mice, the mice showed the same microbiome changes, which rules out a lot of the "it's just correlation" pushback. My real-world take: if you're choosing between regular soda and diet soda, I'd rather see someone drink the regular version occasionally than build a daily artificial sweetener habit chasing zero calories.

Last, pork. Someone had stopped eating it after hearing scary stories about trichinosis and parasites, and wanted an evidence-based answer instead of internet fear. I walked through the biblical "unclean" argument some corners of the health world make, and why I don't think it holds up as a modern health rule - it was public health advice suited to a specific place and time without refrigeration or safe cooking temperatures. Today, properly sourced, properly cooked pork isn't the risk it's made out to be. The bigger issue is processed pork - bacon and deli meat - which is true of any processed meat, not just pork specifically. Quality and how an animal was raised matter far more than the species.

A few of my favorite things we cover in this episode: 

• Mary Kate's question: the "ghost wipe" as a gut health proxy, and why two to three bowel movements a day is the target (Dr. Cole opens up the range to one to three)
• Anonymous question: breaking down every sugar alternative — Splenda, Sweet'N Low, Equal, stevia, monk fruit, sugar alcohols — and the 2022 randomized controlled trial that changed the microbiome conversation
• Anonymous question: biblical "unclean" eating, trichinosis fears, and why the quality of the animal (not the species) is what actually matters for pork

Products Mentioned:

• Longevity RX Probiotic Trillion (Dr. Cole's own gut protocol) - shop.drwillcole.com
• Squatty Potty, incl. the travel/Porta-Squatty version - squattypotty.com
• Max Lugavere's podcast, The Genius Life 
• The Biblio Diet (book, Jordan Rubin & Dr. Josh Axe) - Amazon
• Jordan Rubin episode (referenced, biblical eating discussion) 
• Heal Your Cells, Ketotarian, The Inflammation Spectrum, Intuitive Fasting, Gut Feelings - https://drwillcole.com/books-home-page/
• Submit a question: speakpipe.com/drwillcole

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Happy listening, and we hope you learned a little bit more on the art of being well!

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In Health,

Dr. Will Cole