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Author: Scott Anderson
The Standard American Diet (SAD) is making us miserable.
What we eat has a huge impact on our moods and cognition. Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food. – Hippocrates Can food affect your mood? Of course, it can, especially in the short term. Who hasn’t joyfully consumed a candy bar or a bag of cheese nips? It can be the…
Bringing Depression Out of the Shadows
Depression isn’t all in your head—and it isn’t your fault. Someone can sit next to you at lunch and talk freely about their gout or their backache. In fact, we often can’t get people to shut up about their gout or their backache. But people with depression are often treated differently. There’s an unspoken stigma attached to issues…
Flavonoids Keep Your Brain Young
The gut-brain connection is a story that just keeps giving. The idea that gut microbes could affect your mood and cognition is startling and potentially very useful. The microbes that improve your mood are called psychobiotics. Microbes eat prebiotics, which include complex sugars like fiber. Recent studies show that substances called flavonoids are also prebiotic, and seem to…
Psychobiotics: A Revolution in Psychiatry
Psychobiotics are microbes that lift your mood. Psychiatry needs them now. What are psychobiotics? Despite their somewhat sinister-sounding name, psychobiotics are probiotics and prebiotics that can lift your mood and decrease anxiety. The word was coined by Psychiatrist and researcher Dr. Ted Dinan and colleague John Cryan, Chair of Anatomy and Neuroscience at University College Cork, in Ireland. These prolific…
Stress, Inflammation, and Microbes: A Moody Trinity
Psychological stress leads to physical stress, anxiety, and depression. Everyone knows that our moods are controlled by our minds. That’s common knowledge—but it’s not completely true. Our moods are strongly influenced by hormones as well, something we are familiar with, but tend to forget. Our moods are also affected by our immune system and—strangest of all—our gut…
Can Oral Microbes Cause Dementia?
The gut microbiota is enjoying a renaissance. Everywhere you look, some kind of health issue is being traced back to gut microbes. Fortunately, gut microbiotas have been found to be largely beneficial unless — like a jungle with too many tigers — they get ecologically unbalanced. This tiny ecosystem starts with oral microbes that can…
Do You Have a Leaky Brain?
Recent research demonstrates a solid link between gut microbes and mental health. There are likely to be multiple mechanisms, but one theory stands above the others: Gut microbes may get unbalanced, like an ecosystem with too many hyenas, and lead to inflammation and even brain damage. This is the avoidable scourge of a leaky brain.…
A Surprising Way That Exercise Improves Your Mind
Research shows that exercise improves your microbiota, boosting your mood. Exercise is one of the best things you can do for your health, but it also has a surprising impact on your mood. That’s because there is an intriguing relationship between exercise, your gut microbes, and your brain. Research has found a correlation between the…
Your Gut Microbes Can Keep Your Brain Young
Your gut microbes can prevent cognitive decline and help you stay young. “As you get older, three things happen: The first is your memory goes, and I can’t remember the other two.” — Norman Wisdom That quote is funny, but for many people, aging is not a joke. Cognitive abilities begin to slip; memories start to…
Coronavirus Drives Us to Drink and Our Microbes Are Enablers
Can a healthier gut microbiota help us to drink less? COVID-19 is making happy hour come earlier for many who are sheltering in place. But should we really be starting our day with Chardonnay over our Cheerios? Insidiously, the coronavirus may have enablers: your gut microbes. You have a unique set of microbes in your gut, called…
Why So Many Boomers Face Cognitive Decline
Cognitive function is lower in baby boomers. Can we fix it? For many young people, baby boomers are a bane. “Okay, boomer” is their exasperated dig. Under the boomers’ watch, the climate is collapsing, a pandemic is out of control, and robots look increasingly hostile. Compared to their parents—the “greatest generation” who heroically fought two…
Be Good to Your Microbes, You’re Probably Stuck with Them
For better or worse, gut microbes form long-lasting communities. You got your first microbes as a birthday present from your mother. The earliest of them came from the birth canal and were followed up by microbe-laden breast milk. Over time, you became the proud possessor of trillions of microbes, called your microbiota. If you were…
New Hope for Parkinson’s Patients
Tantalizing new studies point to a potential treatment. Parkinson’s is a remorseless, incurable disease that causes stiffness, tremors, difficulty walking, and depression. People suffering from the disease have a loss of nerve cells (neurons) in an area of the mid-brain called the substantia nigra. Latin names always sound impressive, but this one just means “black stuff.”…
Can Gut Microbes Predict COVID-19 Severity?
A healthy gut microbiome might improve COVID-19 outcomes. COVID-19 is notorious for striking harder at older patients, often landing them in bed, hooked up to a ventilator. Once that happens, the odds get grim: according to one report, only one in seven intubated patients survived. No one knows exactly why some patients are affected more than…
Sex and the Microbiome
Vive la différence! Sex plays a big role in our guts, not just our minds. Mental disorders are not gender-neutral. Far more women than men suffer from depression, for instance, while men are more likely to be autistic. These sex differences are intriguing, and the most obvious explanation is hormones. The latest research also shows that mental issues…
Unending Fear and the Gut-Brain Axis
A mouse study finds a remarkable microbial connection to fear. A new study in Nature finds that gut microbes are essential for extinguishing the fear response in mice. This may help clinicians devise strategies for people with anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The study is the latest in a continuing exploration of the mechanics of the gut-brain axis. We’ve come a long…
Stress Can Kill You: How to Cope
Life stressors can lead to nasty diseases. Here’s how to chill out. For many of us, stress starts when we wake and ramps up throughout the day. We are steeped in it. For the worst afflicted, it can define their lives. We may no longer have to deal with lions on the savannah, but we…
Can You Eat Yourself Happy?
Introducing a new food pyramid for a better mood. “Health food may be good for the conscience but Oreos taste a hell of a lot better.” —Robert Redford Can food make you happy? (Excuse me while I lick the Cheeto-dust off my fingers.) Of course, it can, especially in the short term. Have you ever rolled your eyes…