Bacteria in your colon are pumping electrons out of their cells
The current wasn't coming from some exotic deep-sea organism. It was flowing out of common gut bacteria, the same kinds that ferment yogurt and break down fiber. More than a hundred species in the human gut carry the genes for it.
Until 2018, scientists thought only specialized bacteria in mines and lake beds could push electrons through their own walls. And nobody had checked the bacteria inside a person. The Berkeley team measured exactly how many electrons a single cell pumps out per second.
The team that counted them wasn't looking for electricity. They were studying how a dangerous food-poisoning germ survives inside the gut…
A food-poisoning germ led UC Berkeley to the gut's electrical system
Samuel Light and Daniel Portnoy at UC Berkeley were studying Listeria. While screening its genes, they found an eight-gene cluster that shuttles electrons from inside the cell, through the wall, and out. It ran on flavin, a form of B2.
Their findings, published in Nature in 2018, measured up to 500 microamps of current streaming from the cells. Then the team searched other genomes. The same genes turned up in more than a hundred species already living in the human gut, including Lactobacillus, a bacterium behind yogurt and sauerkraut.
The electrical signal showed up in a living animal too. In 2019, Wang and colleagues inserted electrodes into a mouse's cecum. Conventional mice produced the electrical signal. Germ-free animals did not. The current was measurable, and it came from the microbes. But why would bacteria in your colon pump electrons through their own walls?
Scientists Tested Human Brains for Plastic. Every Single One Came Back Positive
A study published in Nature Medicine looked for tiny plastic particles inside human brain tissue.
They found them in every sample they tested.
The brain held far more plastic than the liver or kidneys, about 10 times more.
Brains from 2024 contained roughly 50% more than brains from just eight years earlier.
And in people diagnosed with dementia, levels were up to 10 times higher.
Scientists haven't proven that plastic causes memory decline. But the numbers are climbing, and they're climbing fast.
The most common type they found is the same plastic used in everyday bottles, cups and food packaging.
If you want to know where most of it comes from, and how to cut down starting today:
Your colon has almost no oxygen, so bacteria breathe through their walls
When you inhale, oxygen catches the electrons your cells produce while burning food. Without it, those electrons pile up and energy production stops. Deep in the colon, oxygen is nearly absent. Bacteria there face the same problem every suffocating cell does.
The system Light found is simpler than the one used in deep-sea mines. Gut bacteria shuttle electrons from inside the cell, through proteins in the wall, to flavin, a form of vitamin B2, floating outside. Flavin catches the electrons and carries them away.
So the bacteria breathe and stay alive, all thanks to one B vitamin. And the supply of it depends on what you eat.
Riboflavin feeds the bacteria that make both electricity and butyrate
Riboflavin is the electron shuttle. Without enough of it, the system slows. One bacterium that depends on it is Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, the biggest butyrate producer in the human colon, a compound that feeds and protects your gut wall.
In the RIBOGUT trial, published in Antioxidants and Redox Signaling in 2023, 105 healthy volunteers took riboflavin or a placebo for two weeks. When the supplement groups were combined, butyrate rose. The doses were 50 to 100 mg a day, far above what food provides.
But your gut bacteria pull their riboflavin from whatever you eat, not from a capsule. The daily target is 1.1 to 1.3 mg. A handful of everyday foods can cover most of it.
Six foods that deliver the B vitamin your gut bacteria need
Each delivers a meaningful share of the day's 1.1 to 1.3 mg in a single serving.
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Plain yogurt (one cup) 0.5 mg riboflavin plus live Lactobacillus |
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Eggs (two large) 0.4 mg, easy to add to any meal |
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Crimini mushrooms (cooked, one cup) 0.5 mg, a rich non-animal source |
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Almonds (one ounce) 0.3 mg in a small handful |
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Spinach (cooked, half cup) 0.2 mg plus fiber for gut bacteria |
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Salmon (three ounces) 0.4 mg, up to a third of the daily value |
One serving covers up to half of the day's target. The simplest way to start takes two minutes.
Add mushrooms or yogurt to one meal this week
A cup of cooked mushrooms or a bowl of plain yogurt delivers close to 40 percent of the day's riboflavin. Stir either into a meal you already eat.
| 🚫 Store milk and yogurt on a lit shelf — light breaks riboflavin down before you eat it | ✅ Keep dairy in opaque containers or in the back of the fridge where light can't reach |
Riboflavin is water-soluble. Any extra leaves your body in urine. You can't overdo it from food. Feed your gut bacteria the fuel, and they handle the rest.
More than a hundred species in your gut produce electricity.
A cup of yogurt keeps them charged.
Samuel Light, the study's lead author, suspects the same electron-transfer system gives sauerkraut and aged cheese part of their tang — the Lactobacillus that ferment those foods fire electrons while they work.
