Interconnected: Healing Secrets of the Microbiome

The 8-part docuseries called Interconnected: Healing Secrets of the Microbiome airs from November 27th and runs through December 6^th.

Prominent scientists, physicians, researchers, and patients come forward offering personal stories and the latest findings about the body’s “interconnected” pathway to good health.

It’s called the microbiome – the active eco-system of trillions of bacteria that live in our gut.

The documentary series explores how the microbiome regulates our body systems, immunity, mental state – and how we can partner with our microbes to optimize health or destroy them and fall victim to chronic disease.

In this paper, Fermented foods, the gut and mental health: a mechanistic overview with implications for depression and anxiety, published just this month in the journal Nutritional Neuroscience, the important bidirectional relationship between mental health and gut function is highlighted, emphasizing and the role of fermented foods in modulating the microbiome:

Mental disorders including depression and anxiety are often comorbid with gut problems, suggesting a bidirectional relationship between mental health and gut function. Several mechanisms might explain this comorbidity, such as inflammation and immune activation; intestinal permeability; perturbations in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis; neurotransmitter/neuropeptide dysregulation; dietary deficiencies; and disturbed gut microbiome composition. The potential of modulating the microbiome-gut-brain axis, and subsequently mental health, through the use of functional foods, is an emerging and novel topic of interest. Fermented foods are considered functional foods due to their putative health benefits.

And in this paper, Integrative Therapies in Anxiety Treatment with Special Emphasis on the Gut Microbiome they discuss how certain probiotics strains can help regulate stress and anxiety:

Studies on probiotic supplementation in mice and in humans provides compelling evidence of microbial regulation over stress and anxiety induced neuroendocrine signaling. In particular, strains of Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium are found to exert a profound anxiolytic influence through the production of γ-aminobutryic acid (GABA), 5-HT (serotonin), and SCFAs (short chain fatty acids), and by dampening HPA adrenergic reaction.

The researchers also discuss the link between dysregulation of carbohydrate digestion and metabolism to depression, hyperactivity, and autism. One example is the

relationship between fructose malabsorption and circulating lipopolysaccharide (LPS), which could be abolished by administration of an antibiotic, thus implicating microbial activity.

And how fructose malabsorption is linked to depression and mood disorders and dysregulation of the tryptophan and therefore serotonin product (which also plays a role in the worry-type of anxiety.)

If this new research excites you as much as it does me, then you don’t want to miss this educational docuseries: Interconnected: Healing Secrets of the Microbiome

Here are the core topics that will be covered:

• #1 – The Invisible Organ: The Missing Piece in Health and Longevity…
• #2 – The Human Microbiome: The Raging Battle from Within…
• #3 – The Truth About Probiotics…
• #4 – The Trouble With Toxins: Staying Alive in a Toxic World…
• #5 – The Kids Aren’t Alright: Leaky Gut – Leaky Brain – Leaky Kids…
• #6 – The Microbiome Solution: Thyroid, Obesity, and Diabetes…
• #7 – The Microbiome Solution: Cancer, Immunity, and Heart Disease…
• #8 – Ancient Wisdom and Modern Technology: The Keys To Personalized, Individualized, Made-For-You Medicine…
• #9 – Healing Yourself: A Bright Future…

You’ll learn from a growing community of physicians and healthcare professionals who now make the microbiome an integral part of their practice. You’ll learn from a growing community of physicians and healthcare professionals who now make the microbiome an integral part of their practice.

I hope you also enjoy my contribution as a patient, sharing some of my anxiety story and the role my gut health and microbiome played in my anxiety issues and how addressing this was key to my healing!

Register here and feel free to share with friends, family and colleagues.

And please share in the comments how addressing your gut health helped you. Feel free to post questions too.