{"id":2894,"date":"2021-01-25T18:35:09","date_gmt":"2021-01-25T18:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fitadelphia.com\/?p=2894"},"modified":"2021-01-25T18:42:09","modified_gmt":"2021-01-25T18:42:09","slug":"how-bacteria-are-changing-your-mood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fitadelphia.com\/index.php\/2021\/01\/25\/how-bacteria-are-changing-your-mood\/","title":{"rendered":"How Bacteria Are Changing Your Mood"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">With a growing body of research, microbial medicine is entering the mental health conversation.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>James Gallagher<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"_100996827_brainandguttoppic_16_9.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/pocket-syndicated-images.s3.amazonaws.com\/5dbc5acbee7b1.jpg\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Illustrations by Katie Horwich<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If anything makes us human it&#8217;s our minds, thoughts and emotions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And yet a controversial new concept is emerging that claims gut bacteria are an invisible hand altering our brains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Science is piecing together how the trillions of microbes that live on and in all of us &#8211; our microbiome &#8211; affect our physical health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But even conditions including depression, autism and neurodegenerative disease are now being linked to these tiny creatures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We&#8217;ve known for centuries that how we feel affects our gut &#8211; just think what happens before an exam or a job interview &#8211; but now it is being seen as a two-way street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Groups of researchers believe they are on the cusp of a revolution that uses &#8220;mood microbes&#8221; or &#8220;psychobiotics&#8221; to improve mental health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pubmed\/15133062\">The study<\/a> that ignited the whole concept took place at Kyushu University in Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The researchers showed that &#8220;germ-free&#8221; mice &#8211; those that never came into contact with microbes &#8211; pumped out twice the amount of stress hormone when distressed than normal mice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The animals were identical except for their microbes. It was a strong hint that the difference was a result of their micro-organisms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;We all go back to that first paper for the first wave of neuroscientists considering microbes,&#8221; says Dr Jane Foster, a neuropsychiatrist at McMaster University in Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;That really was very powerful for those of us who were studying depression and anxiety.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was the first hint of microbial medicine in mental health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How could bacteria be altering the brain?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pocket-syndicated-images.s3.amazonaws.com\/5e46bb33b9c58.jpg\" alt=\"_100844895_salmonella.jpg\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The brain is the most complex object in the known universe so how could it be reacting to bacteria in the gut?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>One route is the vagus nerve, it&#8217;s an information superhighway connecting the brain and the gut.<\/li><li>Bacteria break down fibre in the diet into chemicals called short-chain fatty acids, which can have effects throughout the body.<\/li><li>The microbiome influences the immune system, which has also <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/health-37166293\">been implicated in brain disorders<\/a>.<\/li><li>There is even emerging evidence that gut bugs could be using tiny strips of genetic code called microRNAs to alter how DNA works in nerve cells.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is now a rich vein of research linking germ-free mice with changes in behaviour and even the structure of the brain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But their completely sterile upbringing is nothing like the real world. We&#8217;re constantly coming into contact with microbes in our environment, none of us are germ-free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At Cork University Hospital, Prof. Ted Dinan is trying to uncover what happens to the microbiome in his depressed patients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A good rule of thumb is a healthy microbiome is a diverse microbiome, containing a wide variety of different species living all over our bodies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Prof. Dinan says: &#8220;If you compare somebody who is clinically depressed with someone who is healthy, there is a narrowing in the diversity of the microbiota.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;I&#8217;m not suggesting it is the sole cause of depression, but I do believe for many individuals it does play a role in the genesis of depression.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And he argues some lifestyles that weaken our gut bacteria, such as a diet low in fibre, can make us more vulnerable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Microbiome<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pocket-syndicated-images.s3.amazonaws.com\/5e46bb8304666.jpg\" alt=\"_100734884_2.jpg\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>You&#8217;re more microbe than human &#8211; if you count all the cells in your body, only 43% are human<\/li><li>The rest is our microbiome and includes bacteria, viruses, fungi and single-celled archaea<\/li><li>The human genome &#8211; the full set of genetic instructions for a human being &#8211; is made up of 20,000 instructions called genes<\/li><li>But add all the genes in our microbiome together and the figure comes out at between two million and 20 million microbial genes<\/li><li>It&#8217;s known as the second genome and is linked to diseases including allergy, obesity, inflammatory bowel disease, Parkinson&#8217;s, whether cancer drugs work and even depression and autism<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It&#8217;s an intriguing concept &#8211; that an imbalance in the gut microbiome could be involved in depression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So scientists at the APC Microbiome centre, at University College Cork, started transplanting the microbiome from depressed patients to animals. It&#8217;s known in the biz as a trans-poo-sion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It showed that if you transfer the bacteria, you transfer the behaviour too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Prof. John Cryan told the BBC: &#8220;We were very surprised that you could, by just taking microbiome samples, reproduce many of the features of a depressed individual in a rat.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This included anhedonia &#8211; the way depression can lead to people losing interest in what they normally find pleasurable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For the rats, that was sugary water they could not get enough of, yet &#8220;when they were given the microbiome from a depressed individual, they no longer cared&#8221;, says Prof. Cryan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Similar evidence &#8211; linking the microbiome, the gut and the brain &#8211; is emerging in Parkinson&#8217;s disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is clearly a brain disorder. Patients lose control over their muscles as brain cells die and it leads to a characteristic tremor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But Prof. Sarkis Mazmanian, a medical microbiologist from Caltech, is building the case that gut bacteria are involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Classical neuroscientists would find this as heresy to think you can understand events in the brain by researching the gut,&#8221; he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He has found &#8220;very powerful&#8221; differences between the microbiomes of people with Parkinson&#8217;s and those without the disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Studies in animals, genetically hardwired to develop Parkinson&#8217;s, show gut bacteria were necessary for the disease to emerge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And when stool was transplanted from Parkinson&#8217;s patients to those mice, they developed &#8220;much worse&#8221; symptoms than using faeces sourced from a healthy individual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Prof. Mazmanian told the BBC: &#8220;The changes in the microbiome appear to be driving the motor symptoms, appear to be causal to the motor symptoms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;We&#8217;re very excited about this because it allows us to target the microbiome as an avenue for new therapies.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pocket-syndicated-images.s3.amazonaws.com\/5e46bbb29527a.jpg\" alt=\"_100734886_3.jpg\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The evidence linking the microbiome and the brain is as fascinating as it is early.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But the pioneers of this field see an exciting prospect on the horizon &#8211; a whole new way of influencing our health and wellbeing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If microbes do influence our brains then maybe we can change our microbes for the better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Can altering the bacteria in Parkinson&#8217;s patients&#8217; guts change the course of their disease?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is talk of psychiatrists prescribing mood microbes or psychobiotics &#8211; effectively a probiotic cocktail of healthy bacteria &#8211; to boost our mental health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dr Kirsten Tillisch, at University of California, Los Angeles, told me: &#8220;If we change the bacteria can we change the way we respond?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But she says we need far bigger studies that really probe what species, and even sub-species, of bacteria may be exerting an effect on the brain and what products they are making in the gut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dr Tillisch said: &#8220;There&#8217;s clearly connections here, I think our enthusiasm and our excitement is there because we haven&#8217;t had great treatments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;It&#8217;s very exciting to think there&#8217;s a whole new pathway that we can study and we can look and we can help people, maybe even prevent disease.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And that&#8217;s the powerful idea here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The microbiome &#8211; our second genome &#8211; is opening up an entirely new way of doing medicine and its role is being investigated in nearly every disease you can imagine including allergies, cancer and obesity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I&#8217;ve been struck by how malleable the second genome is and how that is in such stark contrast to our own DNA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The food we eat, the pets we have, the drugs we take, how we&#8217;re born\u2026 all alter our microbial inhabitants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And if we&#8217;re doing that unwittingly, imagine the potential of being able to change our microbiome for the better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Prof. Cryan said: &#8220;I predict in the next five years when you go to your doctor for your cholesterol testing etc, you&#8217;ll also get your microbiome assessed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;The microbiome is the fundamental future of personalised medicine.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Once again the Sugar Monster is involved.  Support What&#8217;s Eating You Kid?  <a href=\"https:\/\/whatseatingyoukid.club \">https:\/\/whatseatingyoukid.club<\/a>  by Fitadelphia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"334\" height=\"289\" src=\"https:\/\/fitadelphia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/sugar.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2897\" srcset=\"https:\/\/fitadelphia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/sugar.jpg 334w, https:\/\/fitadelphia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/sugar-300x260.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 334px) 100vw, 334px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><!-- wp:paragraph --><\/p>\n<p>The food we eat, the pets we have, the drugs we take, how we&#8217;re born\u2026 all alter our microbial inhabitants.<\/p>\n<p><!-- \/wp:paragraph --><\/p>\n<p><!-- wp:paragraph --><\/p>\n<p>And if we&#8217;re doing that unwittingly, imagine the potential of being able to change our microbiome for the better.<\/p>\n<p><!-- \/wp:paragraph --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[206,110,51,88,270],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brain-function","category-microbiome","category-nutrition","category-obesity","category-sugar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fitadelphia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fitadelphia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fitadelphia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fitadelphia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fitadelphia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2894"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/fitadelphia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2898,"href":"https:\/\/fitadelphia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2894\/revisions\/2898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fitadelphia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fitadelphia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fitadelphia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}