Journal

The science of Akkermansia, in plain English.

Environment · 6 min read

What Akkermansia eats, and what happens when the food runs out

Akkermansia lives in the gut's mucus layer and eats the protein it is made of. A 2016 study showed what a fibre-free diet does to that layer — and it is not subtle.

Environment · 6 min read

Does prebiotic fibre actually raise Akkermansia? The human answer is no, or not yet

Inulin is sold everywhere as food for Akkermansia. In the clearest human trial, the bacteria that rose were Bifidobacterium and F. prausnitzii — and Akkermansia was not among them.

Mechanism · 8 min read

Why we don't make claims (and why that's the point)

Most supplement brands promise outcomes. We describe research and stop. The EU rulebook behind that choice, and why we would keep the habit anyway.

Longevity · 8 min read

Urolithin A, explained

Your body cannot make urolithin A. Gut microbes build it from pomegranate ellagitannins, and randomised human trials have measured what it then does.

Gut · 7 min read

The mucin layer: your gut's quiet workhorse

The mucus lining your gut is a two-layer barrier: one layer for the bacteria, one kept clear. Akkermansia lives in the outer layer and helps rebuild it.

Metabolic · 7 min read

The mouse study that started a field

In 2013, one mouse study turned an obscure gut bacterium into a research field. What Everard found, and the metformin clue that arrived alongside it.

Gut · 5 min read

Raspberry and the gut barrier: the everyday one

Raspberry is the quiet member of the range, built around the mucus layer that Akkermansia lives in, and around an evidence base that is honestly thinner.

Longevity · 6 min read

The pomegranate trail: from a Mediterranean fruit to a mitochondrial molecule

Pomegranate → Akkermansia → urolithin A. One of nutrition science's most closely traced food-to-microbe-to-metabolite chains, and it ends in human trials.

Mechanism · 6 min read

From a Belgian lab to your doorstep: how we source

Three ingredients traced honestly: the bacterium from the lab holding the EU Novel Food authorisation, freeze-dried European berries, and no preservatives.

Mechanism · 7 min read

How freeze-drying works (and why long space missions needed it)

Freeze-drying takes water out without heat, which is why it suits a pasteurised bacterium whose value sits in fragile surface proteins. The physics, plainly.

Metabolic · 5 min read

Bilberry: the metabolic berry

The wild European bilberry carries two to four times the anthocyanins of a cultivated blueberry, which is why it is the berry we paired with Akkermansia.

Mechanism · 7 min read

Amuc_1100: the protein doing the work

One outer-membrane protein from Akkermansia reproduced much of the whole bacterium's effect in mice, which explains why the pasteurised form works at all.

Metabolic · 7 min read

Akkermansia and type 2 diabetes: what the 2025 trial actually found

A 2025 trial in Cell Metabolism gave Akkermansia to 58 people with type 2 diabetes. Its headline result was negative. The interesting part is what happened in a subgroup, and why that is not proof.

Mechanism · 7 min read

Akkermansia and the immune system: an honest look

Akkermansia keeps appearing in immune research, including a 2018 cancer-immunotherapy study. Here is what that work shows, and the line we will not cross.

Mechanism · 6 min read

What is Akkermansia muciniphila?

Isolated in 2004 and named for the gut mucus it feeds on, Akkermansia muciniphila is now among the most studied bacteria in metabolic research.

Metabolic · 6 min read

The pasteurised paradox: why dead bacteria worked better than live ones

In the first human trial of Akkermansia, the pasteurised form beat the live one. Why non-living bacteria are the more useful kind, and what the EU authorised.

Metabolic · 7 min read

The protein, the receptor, the hormone: Akkermansia and GLP-1

In 2021, researchers traced a protein secreted by Akkermansia to a receptor on gut L-cells and, from there, to the release of the hormone GLP-1.