The Iron-Sulfur Cluster Crisis: Why Your Mitochondria Can't Recover (And Why Practitioners Don't Talk About It) — What This Means for Understanding Your Condition

If you&#8217;ve been treated for SIBO or IBS with antimicrobials, probiotics, and dietary strategies&#8212;and you&#8217;ve still relapsed&#8212;there&#8217;s a reason. The interventions targeted the microbiome. But the microbiome isn&#8217;t the bottleneck. The host&#8217;s capacity to maintain Fe-S cluster homeostasis is. This isn&#8217;t speculation. It&#8217;s baked into mitochondrial biochemistry. It&#8217;s the reason isolated microbiome interventions often fail. And it&#8217;s why understanding your mitochondrial substrate capacity&#8212;not just your bacterial composition&#8212;is essential. The iron you absorb, the sulfur your dysbiotic microbiota allows you to retain, the efficiency of your colonocyte&#8217;s Fe-S cluster assembly machinery&#8212;these are the real levers. Most practitioners never measure them. They never discuss them. So the cycle continues.