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Intestinal bacteria may influence our moods

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Re: Intestinal bacteria may influence our moods

#61

Post by druiid »

jonas_b wrote: post #7
afarrell wrote: post #6

Popular media reporting on complex scientific/technical/legal/etc topics should always be viewed with suspicion. Googling for the researchers' and journals' names produced the following: Dr. Mayer's study about women's responses to facial expressions. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23474283 Elaine Hsiao's study about certain autistic behaviors in mice. http://www.cell.com/abstract/S0092-8674(13)01473-6 Here on HN…

No expert on the topic, though it really interests me. Have been drinking EM ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_microorganism ) every day for the past 6 months which has improved my digestion a lot. Thought this comment on the NPR article was really insightful: There's so much more to developing a healthy microbiome than just eating yogurt and drinking kombucha, as many people like to claim. It starts at birth.…

Totally non-scientific response to this, but I can say that after having to take antibiotics a few years back for a pretty bad sinus infection my digestive system has never completely recovered. I never had any sort of digestive issues that I can think of but have had numerous since then. I can't directly contribute it to the antibiotics, but it certainly seems to correlate.

Taking probiotics helped quite a bit, which I did a month or so after the antibiotics started causing these issues, but yeah, never completely felt 'better' since then. I guess this is yet another example of why/how over prescription of antibiotics is a bad thing.

Re: Intestinal bacteria may influence our moods

#62

Post by cracell »

bollockitis wrote: post #17
MisterWebz wrote: post #11

Bacteria feed on nutrients we ingest with our food, and like people, bacteria don't use everything they eat. Whatever doesn't fuel their growth and reproduction, the bacteria expel as waste. That waste gets into the blood and probably into the brain, changing its chemistry. If this theory is correct, does it mean that a drastic change in diet might change a person's behavior? I'm imagining a future where people match…

> If this theory is correct, does it mean that a drastic change in diet might change a person's behavior? I'm imagining a future where people match their diet to their intestinal bacteria to increase or reduce the "waste" that gets produced to achieve a desired mood or behavior. The concept is really not new. Diet has long been linked to mood and behavior in traditional medicine. It wouldn't be a shocker to learn tha…

In fact the concept is very old (not to say anything about whether it's correct or not).

"All Disease Begins in the Gut" ~ Hippocrates

Re: Intestinal bacteria may influence our moods

#63

Post by nazgulnarsil »

Wanting to get a product rich in Resistant Starch out there is part of our process motivation for MealSquares. We're presoaking our oat flour in an acidic medium and then asking customers to refrigerate their MealSquares in order to maximize the amount of RS formed by retrogradation.

Resistant starch is starch you can't digest but your gut bacteria can. It's been shown to have a variety of health benefits.

Re: Intestinal bacteria may influence our moods

#65

Post by EGreg »

ggchappell wrote: post #57
bmm6o wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A "syndrome" is a classification of related signs and symptoms without relating them to a single underlying cause, so yeah, that's what it means. As more is learned about the causes, different disorders can be removed from the syndrome.

True. But note that "can be" does not mean "will be". For example, AIDS is a syndrome (thus the "S") whose causes have been pretty well understood for some time. However, it is still defined as a syndrome.

Not according to people like Serge Lang

Re: Intestinal bacteria may influence our moods

#66

Post by graeme »

erichmond wrote: post #45
graeme wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did you find miserable about it? Elimination of certain foods or something part of what you were actually eating?

Replying to your paleo comment. Yeah, I think for those of us with "Generic IBS" we need to be aggressive in trying out different approaches to try and heal our gut issues. I went paleo once I realized wheat was causing me all sorts of stomach issues, and over the years I drifted more and more towards a "natural and whole food" diet, and as my intake of veggies grew, I realized that asparagus and brussel sprouts seem…

I completely agree. Had bowel issues for years. Finally figuring out how to avoid that was worth all the tinkering.

I hardly think about it anymore. And I'm very glad to have figured it out without pharmaceuticals.

Re: Intestinal bacteria may influence our moods

#67

Post by erichmond »

jmhain wrote: post #54
erichmond wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, it's great to hear taking the SSRI helped! Regarding the diagnosis of IBS, What I'm saying is, I've yet to have had (or seen) a test that definitively states "yes, you have IBS". During my time with stomach issues I've been tested for UC, Crohns disease, Celiac disease and gluten sensitivity. All the bloodwork and whatever else came back with definitive nos. Once all of those were ruled out, then the diagnosis…

What do you think about the possibility that the etiology is neurological? Here's my reasoning: * There's also no simple yes/no test for most mental illnesses * It explains why it correlates so heavily with anxiety disorders * It explains why it is treatable with psychotropic drugs * Falls in line with the increasing evidence that the enteric nervous system plays a role in both IBS and anxiety

Absolutely! The other wonky thing with my health is that I have had Vagal Atrial Fibrillation (VAF) in the past (which is rare for someone in their 30s).

One trigger for VAF is indigestion in the stomach, which irritates the vagal nerve, which messes with the heart. The vagal nerve also runs into the brain, so I bet there is some form of two way conversation happening between the stomach and brain being facilitated by something like the vagal nerve.

To your point, when I was heavily symptomatic, I felt depressed (deeper then just being sad about my situation), and changing my eating habits cleared that up, and in your case, fixing the brain chemicals seemed to have benefitted your stomach.

Its just a guess on my part, but this is really all fascinating stuff.

Re: Intestinal bacteria may influence our moods

#68

Post by MichaelGG »

jmhain wrote: post #4

Be very careful with probiotics; just loading your system with random strains of bacteria from your local health food store can have serious consequences. I have IBS and an anxiety disorder that had been in remission for years. I tried Primadophilus Optima and it wrecked me. I went from a mild IBS-C to severe IBS-D, and my panic attacks came back with an intensity unlike anything I've ever experienced. I don't doubt…

Interesting that you mention anxiety. After particularly poor eating, where I start to feel physical distress, I've noticed alprazolam seems to help considerably. Likewise, for some cases of light nervousness, I've noticed pepto bismol seems to calm my nerves.

Re: Intestinal bacteria may influence our moods

#69

Post by jmhain »

MichaelGG wrote: post #68
jmhain wrote: post #4

Be very careful with probiotics; just loading your system with random strains of bacteria from your local health food store can have serious consequences. I have IBS and an anxiety disorder that had been in remission for years. I tried Primadophilus Optima and it wrecked me. I went from a mild IBS-C to severe IBS-D, and my panic attacks came back with an intensity unlike anything I've ever experienced. I don't doubt…

Interesting that you mention anxiety. After particularly poor eating, where I start to feel physical distress, I've noticed alprazolam seems to help considerably. Likewise, for some cases of light nervousness, I've noticed pepto bismol seems to calm my nerves.

Most of my panic attacks occurred immediately after a meal as well. I discovered a couple of interesting things:

* Magnesium Citrate tablets were able to stop or lessen the attacks, but only when they occurred after a meal. I suspect the laxative effect of magnesium is responsible. * The only food that wouldn't trigger anxiety was coconut-based items, which I suspect has to do with coconut oil comprising mostly MCTs, which take less work to digest.

Re: Intestinal bacteria may influence our moods

#70

Post by calinet6 »

jmhain wrote: post #54
erichmond wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, it's great to hear taking the SSRI helped! Regarding the diagnosis of IBS, What I'm saying is, I've yet to have had (or seen) a test that definitively states "yes, you have IBS". During my time with stomach issues I've been tested for UC, Crohns disease, Celiac disease and gluten sensitivity. All the bloodwork and whatever else came back with definitive nos. Once all of those were ruled out, then the diagnosis…

What do you think about the possibility that the etiology is neurological? Here's my reasoning: * There's also no simple yes/no test for most mental illnesses * It explains why it correlates so heavily with anxiety disorders * It explains why it is treatable with psychotropic drugs * Falls in line with the increasing evidence that the enteric nervous system plays a role in both IBS and anxiety

To bring this full-circle, this goes real well with the original article's idea that the GE system is highly coupled with the nervous system and psychological condition—it's very likely in both directions.
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