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Top Stories about the Gut-Brain Axis
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…
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…
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…
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…
Do Microbes Make Us Social?
“Microbes may have influenced the evolution of the social brain and behavior as a means to propagate their own genetic material.” —Cryan, Dinan, et al., Science Do our gut microbes make us party animals? It sounds preposterous, but nothing beats…
Developing Your Gut-Brain Axis: The First Thousand Days
As a spanking new baby, you are completely defenseless against the dangerous pathogens in the world. Your mother’s beneficial microbes—delivered by vaginal bacteria, breast milk, and even kisses—are designed to protect you against that onslaught by kick-starting your very own microbiota. Mother’s…
Can We Trust Mouse Studies?
The gut-brain connection continues to reveal surprising associations between gut bacteria and psychology. Bacteria that can improve your mood are called psychobiotics, and they are already being used to help people with depression and anxiety as a replacement or adjunct to psychoactive drugs. But many of…
Joss Stone: Happy Interview with Scott Anderson
Joss Stone is a multitalented singer, songwriter and actress. On her highly acclaimed podcast called “Cuppa Happy” she interviews intriguing people about what makes them happy. It’s entertaining and always revealing. Here she interviews Scott Anderson, author of The Psychobiotic…
Junk Food Is Delicious, Decadent—and Depressing
What is junk food? Like porn, it can be hard to define, but most of us know it when we see it. A numbered scale from the University of Sao Paulo called the NOVA Food Classification System brings some clarity to…
Is Your Diet Making You Depressed?
“One should eat to live, not live to eat.”—Moliere Feeling gloomy? Look to your diet. When you eat, you feed yourself—but you also feed your gut microbes. There are trillions of them in your gut and they make up a thriving…
Your Immune System Is Aging. Here’s How to Rejuvenate It.
Aging brings some rewards. Our acne clears up and we have a small chance of becoming wise. But most of the effects of aging are not so great. Wrinkles, stiff joints and forgetfulness are just a few of the things we…
The Gut-Brain Axis Is More Important Than We Thought
A new study highlights the gut-brain connection in psychiatric patients. Gut-brain research continues to provide extraordinary insight into the effect microbes have on our mental health, and a new Chinese study ups the ante. If you are depressed or anxious, how…
Psychobiotics Get Real: A Case Study
Are you in a rainy-day mood even when the sun is shining? You may be depressed. If so, you have a lot of company. The World Health Organization asserts that depression is the number-one cause of disability in the world. This is…
Gut Microbes May Help Fight Long COVID
COVID-19 isn’t over yet, dammit. Long COVID promises to stress our health system for years to come. That’s why it’s good news that something simple and natural may help diminish this continuing pandemic nightmare. Several research groups have discovered that gut microbes…
Prebiotics Can Improve Brain Function by Balancing Gut Microbes
What are prebiotics? They should not be confused with probiotics, which are beneficial, living microbes. Probiotics get a lot of press, but prebiotics – the stuff that feeds those probiotics – are less familiar. Recently, a new term has been added to…
What is the Diversity Diet?
Diversity is a hot topic these days. Certain TV pundits will tell you that diversity is a bad thing, but Mother Nature begs to disagree. Ecology always favors diversity. Diversity allows redundancy: when several creatures can perform the same task, losing one…
5 Ways to Make the Holidays Even More Stressful
A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety. –Aesop Ah, the holidays are upon us! Such a relaxing and carefree time. We get to spend some quality time with our creepy uncle and mischievous cousins.…
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…
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