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Category: Gut
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…
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…
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 socializing when it comes to spreading microbes. And, perhaps, nothing beats microbes when it comes…
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 milk is a wonderful substance that includes prebiotics, probiotics and even a rudimentary immune system…
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 Revolution, about the connection between gut microbes and mood. Rogue microbes can give you unhealthy…
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 the issue, and it lets a lot of junkish food off the hook. According 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 community called the microbiota. Like you, they have their own favorite foods. Amazingly, they may…
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 have to look forward to. But the worst insult may be the aging of our…
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 likely is it that the cause is gut-related? Is this something that psychiatrists should be…
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 in spite of all the antidepressants, old and new, available to psychiatry. And yet, all 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 can help inhibit the growth of coronavirus as well as lessen the impact of long COVID. A group…
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 this biotic lexicon: psychobiotic. The term was coined by John Cryan and Ted Dinan, prolific researchers…
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 is not fatal to the ecosystem. Variety thus creates a more resilient network, with a great store…
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. But it isn’t just these external influences that stress us out. We definitely bring some of it…
The Psychobiotic Revolution
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Have you ever wondered why some people seem to have more focus and energy than you do? Their secret may be psychobiotics (read on). We all have microbes in our intestines, and some are better than others when it comes to keeping us alert and motivated. Don’t despair, you too can have a better gut…
Ready for Your Fecal Transplant?
Strange as it seems, someone else’s poop — a fecal transplant — could turn your life around. The fairest thing in nature, a flower, still has its roots in earth and manure. —D. H. Lawrence Yes, fecal transplants are a thing. And they are just as cringeworthy as you might imagine. But to someone dying of…
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…
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…