Fermented Foods: The Next Big Diet and Nutrition Antidepressants
Feeling happy? It may have something to do with eating fermented foods that populate the gut with good bacteria to affect your mood for the better!
Gut microbes may influence your behavior.
Recent research is starting to catch up to what Donna Gates has been teaching through the Body Ecology Diet for the last fifteen years! Science now suggests that the bacteria in your gastrointestinal tract may have a great influence on your brain activity.
In the past 10-15 years, we have seen a growing interest in microbiology. It turns out that bacteria are responsible for many mechanisms in the body. So far, we know that symbiotic microbes in our gastrointestinal tract1:
- Synthesize vitamin K and important B vitamins.
- Communicate with and regulate the immune system.
- Play a role in reducing inflammation both in the gastrointestinal tract and in other areas of the body.
- Detoxify heavy metals from the body.
- Help digest food.
- Promote gut motility.
- Help heal and protect the lining of the gut.
Scientists have studied the mood-altering effects of beneficial bacteria before.
In 2010, one study looked at the Bifidobacterium longum in mice2. These mice were infected with a parasite, and the vagus nerve was severed. The vagus nerve connects the gut to the brain. This nerve would be what neurotransmitters and signals travel on.
They found that the probiotic B. longum reduced anxiety-like behavior.
Some route other than the vagus nerve was responsible for the calming affect of beneficial bacteria. Another significant study in 2009 noted that beneficial bacteria reduced anxiety in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). However, at the time, the mechanism was not fully understood3.
The latest: Microbes generate neurochemicals!
In the immune system, bacteria can influence the expression of certain chemicals that inhibit or promote inflammation, which is an immune response. Researchers have found that microbes do not merely interact with the endocrine system, as they do with the immune system. They actively contribute to it.
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