This Swiss Medi-Spa Promises to Fix Your Digestive Health

At Grand Resort Bad Ragaz, a five-star Alpine spa in Switzerland, guests can book something called My Microbiome, a bespoke gut-focused retreat starts with a breakfast that is lactose-, fructose-, fructans-, galactans-, and polyols-free and is selected based on each guest’s lab results. For me, that meant two eggs, 140 grams of papaya, two rice crackers, and a glass of 97.7-degree water.

The historic resort, 60 miles southeast of Zurich, is famous for its thermal baths fed by a spring that was discovered by medieval hunters. But it also has restaurants with six collective Michelin stars, $11,000-a-night penthouses, doctors who service the Swiss Olympic team, and the Newyou Method, a patented program of ambitious wellness offerings, including the one promising to refresh guests’ intestinal flora.

Gut health is a trendy topic. Last year, digestive aids grossed $51 billion. Podcasts with names like Butts & Guts (hosted by a Cleveland Clinic colorectal surgeon) and Take a Stool (by an at-home gut-health supplement company) have proliferated. “Hot girls have IBS” was a viral tweet, a TikTok trend, and a billboard campaign for BelliWelli, makers of “zero-bloat” oat brownie bars.

Still, much remains unknown about the causes of and cures for our many digestive woes. After years of dealing with my own, I was more than ready for a gastrointestinal intervention. Four weeks before I left for Bad Ragaz, I received a package with a sample collection kit and a prepaid label addressed to a high-tech lab in Zurich. Needless to say, by the time the resort’s Mercedes dropped me outside the lobby, the staff had already carefully considered my gut and how to best serve its flora.

A dysbiosis index of seven is “very, very rare,” Sonja Ricke, the hotel’s head nutritionist, said upon my arrival. She gently divulged the dire state of my butyrate-producing bacteria: My klebsiella were not good. Pancreatic elastase—technically fine—could be higher. “It’s not that you’ll die from this,” Ricke said. “Absolutely not.” In short, I had bad bacteria, an underachieving pancreas, and a parasite. She sent me to my room with unpasteurized apple cider vinegar and arranged for 100 capsules of Creon (pig-derived digestive enzymes) to be dropped off at my room.