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Happiest Health’s October issue: diet, exercise, sleep, good for Gut health The Digestive Health special examines poopmaxxing, probiotics and supplements, while the wider issue covers AI-driven skin anxiety among teenagers, unregulated hair-transplant clinics and age-related hearing loss BENGALURU, September 30, 2026: Digestive health has moved from the doctor’s clinic to the centre of popular culture. People are logging their bowel movements, stocking up on probiotics and fibre gummies and asking what weight-loss injections are doing to their stomachs. Everyone has a theory, and very few have the evidence. The October 2026 issue of Happiest Health (Vol. 4, Issue 04, ₹200) is a Digestive Health special built for this moment. It separates the science from the noise, in the magazine's signature spirit of “Better Knowledge. Better Health.” The cover story goes where few magazines will. “Making No. 2 Your No. 1 Priority” explores “poopmaxxing”, the trend of treating stool as a daily health metric. Its best-known champion, Dr Sean O’Mara, a retired US Army colonel and former ER doctor who has gained a following inside the Trump administration, tells the magazine: “I actually think if you tracked your stool, you'd do a better job being healthy than if you tracked your cholesterol or lipids.” The story weighs his claims against the views of clinicians and the experience of everyday trackers, including those who found that “being informed” can turn into anxiety. The issue also asks what the weight-loss revolution means for digestion. “GLP-1's Gut Problem” examines the side effects that rarely make the headlines, and the science that is still missing to explain them. And it brings in one of the field’s founding voices. Dr Emeran Mayer, a pioneer of gut-brain research, argues in an exclusive interview that diet, sleep and stress management outperform probiotics and medication most of the time. “My worry is that gut-health enthusiasm often boils down to ‘take this capsule’ instead of addressing diet, stress, sleep and exercise together,” he says. Together with features on how antibiotics affect your gut, digestive health supplements, gut myths and a symptom guide, the issue offers readers a clear-eyed view of the gut, free of fads.