psychobiotics

Anxiety, depression, GABA and cortisol: effects of Lactobacillus ingestion

April 14, 2017 By Trudy Scott 19 Comments

We now know that good bacteria or probiotics have the potential to alter brain chemistry and have an impact on anxiety and depression. You may recall my interview with Professor Ted Dinan on a prior Anxiety Summit – Microbes in the gut and psychobiotics as a potential treatment for anxiety and depression. He shared his paper and this definition of Psychobiotics: a novel class of psychotropic.

…we define a psychobiotic as a live organism that, when ingested in adequate amounts, produces a health benefit in patients suffering from psychiatric illness. As a class of probiotic, these bacteria are capable of producing and delivering neuroactive substances such as gamma-aminobutyric acid and serotonin, which act on the brain-gut axis.

Research published by Dinan, Cryan and their teams also found benefits of Lactobacillus rhamnosus on stress, anxiety and depression type behaviors in mice. This is older research (published in 2011) but it’s the first time I’ve shared it on the blog. I talk about this paper in the upcoming Microbiome Medicine 2 Summit so I like to share study excerpts and links to the study.

The write up in Science Daily is a good one – Mind-Altering Microbes: Probiotic Bacteria May Lessen Anxiety and Depression

…mice fed with Lactobacillus rhamnosus JB-1 showed significantly fewer stress, anxiety and depression-related behaviours than those fed with just broth. Moreover, ingestion of the bacteria resulted in significantly lower levels of the stress-induced hormone, corticosterone.

The part that I find fascinating is the effects of Lactobacillus on GABA receptors in the brain (GABA is your main calming neurotransmitter):

The researchers also showed that regular feeding with the Lactobacillus strain caused changes in the expression of receptors for the neurotransmitter GABA in the mouse brain, which is the first time that it has been demonstrated that potential probiotics have a direct effect on brain chemistry in normal situations.

In this paper the authors discuss the vagus nerve and the three-way communication:

…the vagus nerve is the main relay between the microbiome (bacteria in the gut) and the brain. This three way communication system is known as the microbiome-gut-brain axis and these findings highlight the important role of bacteria in the communication between the gut and the brain, and suggest that certain probiotic organisms may prove to be useful adjunct therapies in stress-related psychiatric disorders.

What is even more fascinating is this:

the neurochemical and behavioral effects were not found in vagotomized mice

What does this mean? When the researchers severed the vagus nerve in the test mice – removing the communication between the gut and the brain – they found that the behaviors and stress hormone levels reverted back to the way they had been i.e. the vagotomized mice were more anxious, more stressed, more depressed and had higher corticosterone levels.

You can find the abstract of the paper here: Ingestion of Lactobacillus strain regulates emotional behavior and central GABA receptor expression in a mouse via the vagus nerve.

What does this mean for you? It means that good bacteria in your diet could well improve your anxiety and depression symptoms and even have an impact on your adrenals and cortisol levels. This could be in the form of a good probiotic and should always include fermented foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, kombucha, yogurt and kefir (if dairy is tolerated), water kefir (if dairy is not tolerated).

Have you observed an improvement in your anxiety and stress levels since adding a probiotic or fermented foods into your diet?

Gut healing bone broth and SIBO on the Better Belly Project

December 11, 2016 By Trudy Scott Leave a Comment

A quick reminder that The Better Belly Project: Crushing the Critters, Plugging the Leaks, and Balancing the Biome for Your Best Body Ever, hosted by fermentationist, Summer Bock started on December 9th!

Here are some snippets from some of the many excellent interviews.

Kellyann Petrucci, M.S., N.D., is the author of the New York Times bestselling book Dr. Kellyann’s Bone Broth Diet and she shares this about the gut healing bone broth:

I call this my liquid gold, and this is my gold standard, this is my go-to, this is the love of my life, I have to say, is bone broth. Here’s why I love bone broth so much. We talked about your intestines, the long tubing. Well we talked about it being red and inflamed. Think about it like this. If you’ve got a sunburn, it’s inflamed, it’s red, you want to heal it, you want to get it to feel better, so the two things you’re looking for is you want to get out of pain, you want it to feel better, and you want it to heal. You put some aloe vera on there, it calms it, it soothes it, it heals it. But guess what? That’s what bone broth actually does to your gut. That’s what it does to your intestines. It goes in there and it heals it. It seals it. It provides nutrition.

To me it’s one of the most premier and best foods that you can possibly put in your body, and there’s nothing trendy about it. There’s nothing trendy about bone broth. It’s simply putting some healthy bones in a pot with some water. Celery, onions, and carrots for some flavoring, if you want. Throw them in there. Any spices that you want. You want to take that and simmer it for anywhere from 18 to 24 to 48 hours depending on what your goal is and what you’re doing. Just simmer it for a long period of time.

You want to get it gelatinous, because one of the big hitches, one of the beautiful things about bone broth is it really helps your body mainline it’s own collagen. We know that collagen, that’s the glue that holds us together, it’s super important. We lose that as we get older. Cooked collagen is gelatin. Gelatin is a big, big word, because that word means so much to gut health and gut healing. Gelatin, it heals everything so beautifully, particularly the gut. That’s why for me, that’s what I’ve used with patients, with readers, with celebrities, with everybody I work with, my go-to is bone broth. I love it because, again, I’m into the trifecta effect. I want something that I give my patients to work on so many levels so they get a lot done with a little bit of effort, and that’s why I love bone broth.

Dr. Vincent M. Pedre is author of Happy Gut and he shares about Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO)

I’m excited to talk about SIBO because I feel that it is one of the most misunderstood diagnoses. In Western medicine, so regular MD’s, they don’t know how to treat it. They don’t understand the length that it has to be treated in order to resolve the SIBO. SIBO doesn’t resolve overnight. It didn’t happen overnight. It’s not going to resolve overnight.

What happens in SIBO is that you get too many of the good guys in the small intestine, so an imbalance occurs.

If you have methane-predominant SIBO, often these people have constipation because the methane causes the migrating motor complex that controls peristalsis. It causes it to malfunction. These people will develop constipation.

He covers the SIBO breath test and how it measures hydrogen and methane, and the effects of fermented foods:

What we’re looking for and measuring in those samples is hydrogen and methane. Now, this is key because we’ve been talking about bacteria up to now. The methane producers are a genus of bacteria or species that is more archaic. It’s called archaea. They’re not even sure that they’re actually bacteria. They’re very fastidious. They’re a little bit harder to treat.

If it is a methane-predominant and it is probably more Archaea, they will, more likely, do well with fermented foods. It’s not going to worsen their symptoms. It actually will help them get better. We need the lactobacillus to out-compete the archaean to keep it in control.

He covers pros and cons of antibiotics and other medications, herbal approaches and probiotics, pro-kinetics, can you treat it through diet, with fermented foods and changing the diet into a low-FODMAP diet, avoiding the foods with the short-chain carbohydrate, plus tips to improve digestion like reducing stress, having fun, tips for stimulating the vagus nerve and much more. It’s a wonderful interview!

My anxiety-gut interview airs on December 14^th and I address the following in my interview:

IBS and anxiety
psychobiotics
serotonin and the second brain
GABA and GABA-eating bacteria
the vagus nerve and the gut-brain connection
how to use tryptophan and GABA to ease anxiety (and cravings)
melatonin for gut motility and sleep
glutamine for gut healing, calming and intense sugar cravings
prebiotics to lower high cortisol
and probiotic-rich foods too of course!

Why attend?

From the bacteria and flora, to your digestion and your elimination, the way your belly is operating has a lot to do with how you are operating.
You’ll be able to customize your experience so that whether you’re a full-fledged nutrition geek, or simply interested in maximizing your belly’s efforts you’ll find the knowledge and information that is perfect for you.
With all the toxins we’re exposed to, with processed foods and the stress in our lives, it’s more important than ever that your digestion is dialed in.

I hope you’ll join me and the other experts on The Better Belly Project: Crushing the Critters, Plugging the Leaks, & Balancing the Biome for your Best Body Ever

It’s going to be a great online event and I’m so pleased to be part of it. I can’t wait for you to hear the expert speakers: other authors, nutrition professionals, physicians, fermentation specialists and cutting edge experts that are going to be teaching everything belly.

When: December 9th-14th (Put it in your calendar now!)
How much: Nothing!
Where: Here! /online

See you there!

Psychobiotics: a novel class of psychotropic for anxiety (Better Belly Project)

December 5, 2016 By Trudy Scott 7 Comments

psychobiotics

Are you familiar with the term psychobiotics and the role they play in anxiety and depression? In 2013 Dr. Ted Dinan and Dr. John Cryan published a paper titled Psychobiotics: a novel class of psychotropic and in this paper they define a psychobiotic as:

a live organism that, when ingested in adequate amounts, produces a health benefit in patients suffering from psychiatric illness.

They go on to share how these good bacteria or probiotics can impact our mood and anxiety via neurotransmitter production, sharing that they are:

capable of producing and delivering neuroactive substances such as gamma-aminobutyric acid [GABA] and serotonin, which act on the brain-gut axis. Preclinical evaluation in rodents suggests that certain psychobiotics possess antidepressant or anxiolytic activity.

We often incorrectly hear that GABA taken orally is not effective because it can’t cross the blood brain barrier and if it does work it means you have a leaky brain. This is a myth I am working hard to dispel. The authors contribute to this discussion saying the following:

Effects may be mediated [or effects may occur] via the vagus nerve, spinal cord, or neuroendocrine systems.

The authors conclude with information about how these psychobiotics benefit IBS which we now know is often associated with both anxiety and depression. They share that these psychobiotics or good bacteria:

have been most extensively studied in a liaison psychiatric setting in patients with irritable bowel syndrome, where positive benefits have been reported for a number of organisms including Bifidobacterium infantis.

They also report benefits for alleviating symptoms of depression and chronic fatigue syndrome, likely related to:

the anti-inflammatory actions of certain psychobiotics and a capacity to reduce hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity.

The impact these psychobiotics have on inflammation and the adrenals is wonderful since we know about both are closely tied to anxiety and depression, as well as digestive health.

This is older research but Dr. Ted Dinan and his colleagues continue to expand the research and our knowledge on this exciting topic, and we appreciate them for this.

The above is just one topic I cover in my interview on the upcoming online summit: The Better Belly Project: Crushing the Critters, Plugging the Leaks, and Balancing the Biome for Your Best Body Ever, hosted by fermentationist, Summer Bock!

We also cover the following in my interview:

IBS and anxiety
serotonin and the second brain
GABA and GABA-eating bacteria
the vagus nerve and the gut-brain connection
how to use tryptophan and GABA to ease anxiety (and cravings)
melatonin for gut motility and sleep
glutamine for gut healing, calming and intense sugar cravings
prebiotics to lower high cortisol
and probiotic-rich foods too of course!

Here we are during the interview, with me in my new temporary location in Australia.

And we ONLY had one plane fly over! ha ha! Ask me about this – it was hilarious and I plan to share the video…

Here are some additional reasons to attend

From the bacteria and flora, to your digestion and your elimination, the way your belly is operating has a lot to do with how you are operating.
You’ll be able to customize your experience so that whether you’re a full-fledged nutrition geek, or simply interested in maximizing your belly’s efforts you’ll find the knowledge and information that is perfect for you.
With all the toxins we’re exposed to, with processed foods and the stress in our lives, it’s more important than ever that your digestion is dialed in.

I hope you’ll join me and the other experts on The Better Belly Project: Crushing the Critters, Plugging the Leaks, & Balancing the Biome for your Best Body Ever

When: December 9th-14th (Put it in your calendar now!)
How much: Nothing!
Where: Here! /online

Please post your gut, microbiome, IBS and other related questions in the comments. We’ll see you on the summit!

The Anxiety Summit – Microbes in the gut and psychobiotics as a potential treatment for anxiety and depression

November 5, 2014 By Trudy Scott 18 Comments

Dr_Ted_Dinan_Anxiety2

Dr. Ted Dinan, MD, PhD. Professor of Psychiatry at University College Cork was interviewed by host of the Anxiety Summit, Trudy Scott, Food Mood Expert and Nutritionist, author of The Antianxiety Food Solution.

Microbes in the gut and psychobiotics as a potential treatment for anxiety and depression

Varied ways in which anxiety presents
Anxiety as a co-morbid condition e.g. irritable bowel syndrome
Microbes in the gut and the influence on emotional activity
Non-pharmacological approaches to treating anxiety
Psychobiotics as a potential treatment and the newest research in this area

Here are some snippets from our interview

Now the brain-gut axis is an axis that we learned more about over the decade or 2, how does the brain communicate with the gut, how does the gut communicate with the brain, and the view of irritable bowel syndrome is that it is as I say a brain axis disorder, an exceedingly common disorder, up to at least 50 percent and some studies suggest much higher rates in terms of the presence of psychiatric symptoms in patients with irritable bowel syndrome. The general view is that at least 50 percent of patients with irritable bowel syndrome have a coexistent or comorbid depression or anxiety.

We’re gradually I think learning more about the pathology underlying irritable bowel syndrome and we and others have published a number of studies show that for instance patients with irritable bowel syndrome have high levels of cytokines. Now cytokines are chemicals that are produced by the immune system and there are certain cytokines that are caused pro-inflammatory. They give rise to inflammation or are the product of inflammation. And certainly there is now good evidence that many patients with irritable bowel syndrome do have very high levels of these pro-inflammatory molecules in their blood stream. The molecules would be molecules like interleukin 6 and CNF-alpha.

Here is the quote from Dr. Dinan’s article that was co-written with Dr. John Cryan and called Psychobiotics: How Gut Bacteria Mess with Your Mind

In the 20th century the major focus of microbiological research was on finding ways to kill microbes by antibiotics. This century the focus has changed somewhat with the recognition of the health benefits of bacteria, not just from an immunity perspective but from a mental health one.

Here is some of Dr. Dinan’s research:

Do interactions between stress and immune responses lead to symptom exacerbations in irritable bowel syndrome?

co-morbidity with mood disorders such as depression and anxiety is common in IBS

Psychobiotics: a novel class of psychotropic.

Here, we define a psychobiotic as a live organism that, when ingested in adequate amounts, produces a health benefit in patients suffering from psychiatric illness. As a class of probiotic, these bacteria are capable of producing and delivering neuroactive substances such as gamma-aminobutyric acid and serotonin, which act on the brain-gut axis. Preclinical evaluation in rodents suggests that certain psychobiotics possess antidepressant or anxiolytic activity. Effects may be mediated via the vagus nerve, spinal cord, or neuroendocrine systems. So far, psychobiotics have been most extensively studied in a liaison psychiatric setting in patients with irritable bowel syndrome, where positive benefits have been reported for a number of organisms including Bifidobacterium infantis. Evidence is emerging of benefits in alleviating symptoms of depression and in chronic fatigue syndrome. Such benefits may be related to the anti-inflammatory actions of certain psychobiotics and a capacity to reduce hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity. Results from large scale placebo-controlled studies are awaited.

This is the recent resistance training anxiety study I mentioned: The anxiolytic effects of resistance exercise

This research has shown that resistance training at a low-to-moderate intensity (<70% 1 repetition maximum) produces the most reliable and robust decreases in anxiety.

If you are not already registered for the Anxiety Summit you can get live access to the speakers of the day here www.theAnxietySummit.com