Tomato plants rely on a hidden partnership with soil fungi to absorb phosphate, an essential yet elusive nutrient in many farmlands. 

An original study published in eGastroenterology investigated how dietary convergence—limiting food to oats, milk, and water—affects gut microbiota. Despite uniform dietary intake among 18 healthy adults during a 6-day intervention, gut microbiome composition exhibited personalized responses without interindividual convergence. Microbial load and beneficial Faecalibacterium levels decreased, while the potentially dysbiotic Bacteroides2 community increased. The effect size of the diet was modest but highly variable across individuals. These findings challenge assumptions that standardized diets uniformly shape the microbiome and highlight the complexity of host-microbe interactions in nutritional studies.