Your gut and brain are linked
Feeling your stomach drop, comes from a place of anxiety or fear,
it's an emotion that's mediated by the brain, but how could it
affect your stomach and give you that gut-wrenching feeling?
Well, turns out your gut and brain are more connected
than you think, after all, your gut is the second brain of your
body.
The environment of your gut can highly affect your
brain perception and is even said to be associated with mental
health issues.
Gut microbiota
Gut microbiota refers to the microorganisms residing in your gut,
they can range from bacteria to fungi.
Some microbiota make up your normal flora, i.e. they help your body
be healthy and function normally while also protecting it from
harmful microbiota, these good organisms are your body's normal
flora.
Some microorganisms even govern the mental disorders that plague our
society today, including anxiety, depression, bipolar and even
schizophrenia.
Researchers believe that a balanced and enriched diet can pave the
way for the body to become healthy, causing a marked decrease in
symptoms of mental health disorders and balancing out your body's
microbiota.
Anxiety
WHO explains that, "Anxiety disorders are characterized by excessive
fear and worry and related behavioral disturbances. Symptoms are
severe enough to result in significant distress or significant
impairment in functioning."
It states that in 2019, 301 million people were living with an
anxiety disorder including 58 million children and adolescents.
Anxiety is a gut-dropping feeling that you may experience when you
are in the limelight, but it can morph into a medical condition if
it hinders your everyday life.
Researchers have found that individuals and experimental lab mice
suffering from anxiety usually have less microbiome diversity in
their gut, this could be linked to their poor mental health and
anxious condition. Currently, researchers are focused on the genus
hierarchy of the microbiomes and more specific work is required on
the species-level approach towards understanding anxiety-related gut
microorganisms.
Depression
According to the World Health Organization, "During a depressive
episode, the person experiences a depressed mood (feeling sad,
irritable, empty) or a loss of pleasure or interest in activities,
for most of the day, nearly every day, for at least two weeks."
The feeling can also cause suicidal tendencies, future homelessness,
disturbed sleep, alternation in appetite, and much more.
One experiment that studied 5,558 Chinese individuals found that
women who were infected with Helicobacter pylori
were more prone to depression compared to men.
H. pylori are the ones that cause stomach ulcers.
Another study reported that the transfer of fecal microbiomes from
depressive patients to healthy mice could cause the specimen to
suffer from depression-like behavior.
Furthermore, a reversal of the previous study was conducted, where
microbiota from healthy rats were transplanted into a depressive
rat, leading to a reduction in bacteria that can cause depression.
Bipolar disorder
The people who suffer from this disorder are defined by the WHO as
"People with bipolar disorder experience alternating depressive
episodes with periods of manic symptoms."
The depression episode is characterized by feelings of sadness and
loss of pleasure etc, while the manic symptoms make a person
hyperactive, with the feeling of euphoria and bliss.
The study compared 39 bipolar patients with 58 healthy patients and
found that the micrograms in both cases were not entirely
dissimilar, but it could also be due to the individual
characteristics of the person.
The research suggests that people suffering from Bipolar disorder
have some raised level of microorganisms that healthy individuals
don't possess.
More research is required to get towards concrete solutions, work
needs to be done on different populations to help understand the
disease.
Schizophrenia
"Schizophrenia is characterized by significant impairments in
perception and changes in behavior. Symptoms may include persistent
delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thinking, highly
disorganized behavior, or extreme agitation."
The symptoms are divided into positive and negative symptoms,
positive symptoms are those that are additional to the person's
life, like hallucinations and delusions.
Negative symptoms refer to the condition when people withdraw from
society and lose interest in everyday life.
Subsequently, a study that compared 92 medication-free patients of
schizophrenia and 81 healthy patients, found that several bacteria
that were present in the schizophrenia patient were absent in the
control group.
Using your diet to fight mental disorder
Diet can aid in the fight against microbiome imbalance, these can include probiotics, prebiotics, and postbiotics.
Probiotics
Probiotics are living bacteria that provide us with health benefits
when they are used.
A good source of probiotics is yogurt, which is filled with enriched
nutrients and bacteria to keep you healthy.
A study that encompassed 423 women, showed that the probiotics
(specfically
Lactobacillus rhamnosus), alleviated the levels of depression
and anxiety in women during postpartum time.
A mixture of probiotics formulation when tested on 156 patients with
symptoms of mental disorders, showed a decrease in the said symptoms
and better sleep.
Prebiotics and postbiotics
Prebiotics and postbiotics also play a key role in the prevention
and handling of mental disorders. Prebiotics are the food that the
good bacteria in your body need to survive and make your body
healthy Postbiotics are the digested products of prebiotics and
probiotics.
A study focused on the administration of post-biotics, prebiotics
plant extract, and nutrients to people suffering from mental
disorders. This leads to a decrease in symptoms of the disease and
an increase in the good microbiota.
A common and more popular post-biotic dietary fiber has been shown
to regulate gut microbiota in patients suffering from schizophrenia.
Dairy and spices
Unknown to many, dairy foods and spices can also play a huge role in
the prevention and management of mental health disorders.
It has been studied that people who conceive these products have an
increase in good microbial and a decrease in depressive and anxious
symptoms.
Sources
https://doi.org/10.3390/nu15143258
https://who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/mental-disorders