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Gut microbe linked to depression in large health study

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Re: Gut microbe linked to depression in large health study

#241

Perhaps Westerners view all non-western science as pseudoscience or made up, but it is a well-known fact in many Eastern cultures (and their medicinal practices) that the stomach is a primary source of disease (and not just depression, but all kinds) when abused through bad eating habits. Then the wheel is re-invented with intermittent fasting, a diet with less processed foods, more veg/fruit, less meat, etc. Wheneve…

"Western Science"'s insistence on procedure, double-blind studies with control groups, finding provable reasons why, etc. have debunked most of pre-modern medicine. That some elements have withstood the test of close examination is not a criticism of our methods, more a validation. As are stunning improvements in life.

No, western science hasn't "debunked" anything with studies. They started out without accepting anything from other cultures, simply because they are from other cultures. As time has passed, the cultural medicines from various cultures have been studied poorly and patented and sold to people, mostly as long-term treatments of symptoms, never as cures. In every country, multinatinational drug cartel has made it impossible for local doctors to evem exist let alone prescribe traditional medicine, unless approved by the cartel, patented by them and sold for a huge margin.

I believe the western medicine overall has created more health problems than it has solved, if you exclude treatment of acute trauma.

Re: Gut microbe linked to depression in large health study

#242
post #114

Earlier 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).

Currently there doesn't appear to be any evidence that GMO is bad for your health and most GMO is just transplanting genes from other edible organisms. Hopefully regulators aren't going to allow insertion of engineered genes producing novel molecules without going through actual medical grade trials for those molecules. Or it may torpedo the entire industry.

Abscense of proof is not proof of abscense.

Determining cause and effect in the interaction of complicated systems is no easy task.

Re: Gut microbe linked to depression in large health study

#243
post #29

Gut microbiome researcher here - not involved in this study but happy to answer questions or dig in with anyone interested!

Can we actually do more than correlation yet on this very topic? I always see studies and articles that promise that gut health can solve depression. But I think this is bullshit. Depression is a protection mechanism from your brain and I would bet my ass that the causation is more depression => bad gut health. I would be very interested in your thoughts on that.

Re: Gut microbe linked to depression in large health study

#244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fiber is so incredibly important and much of our food in the West doesn’t have much of it. We see colon cancers and diverticulitis in people in their 30’s and even late 20’s nowadays. This wasn’t the case years ago and it’s not the case in Asian or African countries. But we don’t think it’s genetic because we see diverticulitis in people from these parts of the world 10 years after moving to the West. It’s thought th…

I've been tracking my food the past couple months and it's pretty eye opening how much fiber I've been lacking. Now taking supplements, but is there a food you'd recommend in particular? It's silly, especially to admit on this forum, but I found the Hidrate water bottle that tracks your water consumption actually increased my water intake loads as well.

Beans and nuts are real fiber bombs and easy to include in your diet. Also broccoli and full grain bread are good options.

Re: Gut microbe linked to depression in large health study

#245
post #137
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that the original article mentions: > "researchers recently reported in Frontiers in Psychiatry that fecal transplants improved symptoms in two depressed patients"

That doesn't disprove that depression caused the microbial imbalance in the first place. It's very reasonable to think that a lot of these systems are bidirectional, and for any individual, you may not know which part of the body was dysfunctional first.

I think we're actually heading into a ditch there. As if you can heal a depression by just changing serotonin levels or improving the gut health. I would say most often there are good reasons the brain put one into "stop what you're doing right now" mode aka depression. Year long experiences, maybe even the most defining years as children. But I would argue that it might help us move away from SSRIs and stuff. Soften the disease so that it becomes bearable and healable by therapie.

Re: Gut microbe linked to depression in large health study

#246
post #159
post #124

There 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…

Why only more vegetables? Isn’t fiber also in some other food?

There are two different kinds of fibers: soluble and insoluble. The insoluble one is the most important for your gut and the one in the article. This fiber you will only find in vegetables and fruits, in particular in sturdy ones such as beans, nuts and full grains.

Re: Gut microbe linked to depression in large health study

#247

Someone been telling me, my depression comes from bacteria, I KNOW! Pain is... if I eat something plant based, depression and suicidal thoughts come back. Takes about 4 days after I ate the offending food, stays for 3 days, then I'm back to normal and energetic. Latest experiment was one teaspoon of fermented green squash daily, seemed to work out okay for 5 days or so, then depression came back, BUT I could smell it…

Can you elaborate a bit about smelling it?

I've been a bit in hole for the last few months and I noticed that my armpit smell is different. My food all stayed the same.

Re: Gut microbe linked to depression in large health study

#248

Since diet can affect the microbiome of the gut and I can't imagine how gut bacteria affect moods (although I'm open to the idea I suppose) I'd wager it is actually diet and nutritional input that affects mood as well as the gut bacteria. Makes more sense to me that your mood can be affected by your diet, and what we are measuring is the altered microbiome of the gut because of the diet.

If you ever have/get anxiety/panic attacks you will KNOW where it all starts.. in the stomach. This is not something people imagine. I 100% do not wish this stuff on our worst enemies.

Re: Gut microbe linked to depression in large health study

#250
post #29

Gut microbiome researcher here - not involved in this study but happy to answer questions or dig in with anyone interested!

Regarding your advice on eating plants, do you know if it matters wheter they are cooked or eaten raw? I mean, is one preferable over the other, from a gut biome perspective. By the way, thanks a lot for your answers!

Far from being an expert on the subject, but I read a paper that said that eating raw vegetables would usually increase the degree on inflammation, but cooked vegetables had the opposite effect.
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