Gut microbiome researcher here - not involved in this study but happy to answer questions or dig in with anyone interested!
What supplements do you take based on your scientific background?
Gut microbe linked to depression in large health study
121–130 of 297 posts
Re: Gut microbe linked to depression in large health study
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sorry to hear about your experiences and it sounds like you learned a lot from firsthand knowledge. But, respectfully asking, what does inflammatory foods or poor eating habits have to do with GMO foods?
Also why would GMO be bad? The criticism comes mostly from people that also believe in osteopathic / homeopathic medicine in my social circle. I find it a terrific chance for humanity to engineer plants in such a way that they are more robust against disease and bad weather (with CRISPR/CAS and such methods).
Here is my criticism of GMO foods; or at least, the reason I'm wary of them. I don't believe in any "woo" at all.
Why would the massive corporations that have driven the food in our supermarkets ever cheaper, ever thinner in nutrients, ever higher in fat and sweeteners and fillers, ever more laden with pesticides and antibiotics, ever more processed—why would they use a technology like GMO crops for good? Why wouldn't they just splice pesticide and sugar genes into them directly and juice the yield even harder so that the soil is stripped and ruined even faster? I think they will be used to boost profits, not make our food more nutritious, or even cheaper in any way except per calorie.
I understand there are potentially benefits, e.g. growing crops resistant to pests so that spray pesticides can be reduced. I just have no faith whatsoever that these kinds of considered actions will be taken, based on the last 100 years of technology. It's just going to be wheat and corn, wheat and corn, wheat and corn until caloric yields approach insolation and the soil is as gray and lifeless as the moon.
Re: Gut microbe linked to depression in large health study
#123Just another data point, but my journey through digestive issues and recovery was kicked off by the worst depression and burnout I ever experienced, which started in 2019 and lasted 3 years. My best guess for what happened is that work stress, excessive celebration and coping with the cognitive dissonance of the pre-COVID era and subsequent pandemic, combined with overtraining and the misuse of protein shakes in plac…
I'm sorry to hear about your experiences and it sounds like you learned a lot from firsthand knowledge. But, respectfully asking, what does inflammatory foods or poor eating habits have to do with GMO foods?
Two main things:
1. Genetically modified (GMO) foods can cause non-food compounds to get synthesized in the food that our bodies have never seen before, which can trigger autoimmune issues. I consider this the lower risk.
2. GMO foods are designed specifically to allow more use of pesticides and herbicides. These get incorporated into the food and can stay around after washing, especially in processed food. Pesticides are low-level neurotoxin and disrupt gut nerves, while herbicides disrupt gut flora. Loosely, what happens is that the body is sensitive to most plant husks, since they are designed to keep bugs out that feed on them. GMO copies that defense mechanism, often amplifying it hugely, resulting in amplified food sensitivities. I consider this the higher risk, so high in fact that the consequences of it can be life-altering.
Edit: These effects combined turn ordinary food into inflammatory food
Re: Gut microbe linked to depression in large health study
#124There was a lot of work on microbiome and cancer immunotherapy... the latest study in the field published in the most prestigious journal there is [1] seemed to show that fibre intake was more important than any specific microbe. In fact they found that eating more fibre and taking probiotics resulted in worse outcomes than just eating more fibre alone. This was recapitulated in a mouse model:
> Together, these data have important implications. We show that dietary fiber and probiotic use, factors known to affect the gut microbiome, are associated with differential outcomes to ICB. Although causality cannot be addressed from the observational human cohort, where unmeasured confounders may exist, our preclinical models support the hypothesis that dietary fiber and probiotics modulate the microbiome and that antitumor immunity is impaired in mice receiving a low-fiber diet and in those receiving probiotics—with suppression of intratumoral IFN-γ T cell responses in both cases.
It would be a bit disappointing if the final conclusion from all this microbiome work was 'Eat more vegetables'...
Re: Gut microbe linked to depression in large health study
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sorry to hear about your experiences and it sounds like you learned a lot from firsthand knowledge. But, respectfully asking, what does inflammatory foods or poor eating habits have to do with GMO foods?
Also why would GMO be bad? The criticism comes mostly from people that also believe in osteopathic / homeopathic medicine in my social circle. I find it a terrific chance for humanity to engineer plants in such a way that they are more robust against disease and bad weather (with CRISPR/CAS and such methods).
I'm not into osteopathy or homeopathy but my concerned about GMO are because I don't trust that the scientist really know what they are doing, or can fully understand the impact any changes they might make, not only on humans, but on the environment at large. Nor do I trust our government to be able to police and regulate the industry. Nor do I trust big farma to put health before profits.
Re: Gut microbe linked to depression in large health study
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
I brew my own kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi, and occasionally kombucha. Of those kefir is the most demonstrably effective, all of them are cheap. The only effective probiotics I've found are very expensive, costing around $120/mo.
> The only effective probiotics I've found are very expensive, But how do you know if they're effective? That's always been my question. What is the effect one should notice?
I have some odd GI issues so there's a clear impact there. The alternative treatment is some very nasty medication. Effective probiotics restore normality without the side effects the medications have. I'll spare you the details ;)
More anecdotally I do feel generally better even when my GI symptoms aren't present: more energy, better mood, more restful sleep.
Re: Gut microbe linked to depression in large health study
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also why would GMO be bad? The criticism comes mostly from people that also believe in osteopathic / homeopathic medicine in my social circle. I find it a terrific chance for humanity to engineer plants in such a way that they are more robust against disease and bad weather (with CRISPR/CAS and such methods).
As someone else with immune system reactions to food, it doesn't seem a great idea to modify food even more than we have done already.
That's not a good argument at all. What 'modification' do you think is a risk and how would it cause the concerns your worried about?
Re: Gut microbe linked to depression in large health study
#128What if depression was causing the gut microbe changes? Like it was recently found with autism and gut changes. https://cosmosmagazine.com/health/body-and-mind/autism-gut-m...
Note that the original article mentions:
> "researchers recently reported in Frontiers in Psychiatry that fecal transplants improved symptoms in two depressed patients"
Re: Gut microbe linked to depression in large health study
#129Just another data point, but my journey through digestive issues and recovery was kicked off by the worst depression and burnout I ever experienced, which started in 2019 and lasted 3 years. My best guess for what happened is that work stress, excessive celebration and coping with the cognitive dissonance of the pre-COVID era and subsequent pandemic, combined with overtraining and the misuse of protein shakes in plac…
Sorry if I didn't understand correctly, but how did you make the alcohol (celebration), work stress, pandemic stress > GMO link?
I only made it very recently. I had tried absolutely everything and gotten almost nowhere. I finally stumbled onto everlywell.com tests, took the comprehensive test of 200+ foods, and discovered almonds and dairy were the main culprits. I would ave been very unlikely to eliminate almonds as part of an elimination diet.
Anyway, once I was able to feel better again, even for a day or two, I then was able to try other changes along the decision tree in the problem space. It soon became obvious what caused what. Everlywell says that 18 months of avoidance can often allow us to eat foods we're sensitive to again. I've blabbered about it at length in my previous comments, probably too much haha.
Re: Gut microbe linked to depression in large health study
#130Just another data point, but my journey through digestive issues and recovery was kicked off by the worst depression and burnout I ever experienced, which started in 2019 and lasted 3 years. My best guess for what happened is that work stress, excessive celebration and coping with the cognitive dissonance of the pre-COVID era and subsequent pandemic, combined with overtraining and the misuse of protein shakes in plac…
> I didn't really believe any of this in 2018, and my meal plan then consisted entirely of everything that I can't eat today.
I suspect you had the same degree of confidence in your understanding of these issue then as you do now. It's interesting that you can reflect on your overconfidence in the past, but don't seem to express any skepticism regarding your current beliefs surrounding nutrition.
By the way, I'm not saying that you're wrong! GMOs may be bad, but I think you would do well to level some degree of skepticism over your current understanding of nutrition as you do toward your past understanding. Consider that perhaps you will be here in 2026 telling us about how you got it wrong today.