I heard you on some SIBO videos talk of some clients who came in with high cholesterol, and when eradicating SIBO, their cholesterol numbers regulated. Can you explain this connection? Am I to assume SIBO is causing systemic inflammation leading to vessel damaging, and cholesterol is produced in excess because of vessel injury? What are other direct or indirect connections?

Chris Kresser: In short, among the mechanisms that we’ll discuss, one is intestinal permeability, and the other is infection. Another is gut inflammation. With SIBO, you have a good risk of gut inflammation, and you have a good risk of intestinal permeability. With intestinal permeability, endotoxins that are present in Gram-negative bacteria and the gut can cross through into the bloodstream and LDL particles. This is not commonly known, but LDL particles are antimicrobial. The liver will actually produce more LDL particles to deal with the endotoxemia and the toxins in the blood, and that will raise LDL particle number. That’s probably the most likely mechanism, in my opinion.