(2023)
Social anxiety disorder-associated gut microbiota increases social fear
91–100 of 152 posts
Re: Social anxiety disorder-associated gut microbiota increases social fear
#92I know from personal experience that eating sugar does induce more anxiety in me. This might sound weird but I can "physically feel" in my head a certain anxiety when e.g. I think about something awkward. This "physical feel" stopped being there when I stopped eating sweets for a few weeks. One reason why I try to keep my sugar intake down (the other being in danger of getting diabetes...). Thus, I wholly believe thi…
You say sugar, but are you referring to glucose or fructose? There is a meaningful amount of scientific literature connecting fructose and inflammation. The AVERAGE human can only digest about 30g of fructose a day. Some substantially more, some substantially less. A can of soda or three apples is about 30g of fructose. Inflammation (high- and low grade)then being a second step linking to anxiety.
Athletes consume 50g of fructose (and 50g of glucose) per hour. It's actually fairly easy to train yourself to this level.
Re: Social anxiety disorder-associated gut microbiota increases social fear
#93I've seen probiotic supplements that have strains that claim to help with anxiety and depression, but I've never really looked into them because I'm quite skeptical they do anything. But if anyone is familiar with them and has any feedback I'd be interested to hear it.
There's this one person who claims to have found out that theses probiotics need to be amplified into a megadose, and subsequently they cured themselves from social anxiety. I'm not sure if there are other people who have replicated, but the initial report seems trustworthy. See https://pdfcoffee.com/experimental-treatment-for-social-phob...
That's very interesting. Making your own yogurt sounds like it could be easy to do and you could potentially just use OTC probiotic capsules or powder.
I posted some studies above about two probiotic strains that have specifically been studied for mood enhancement aka "psychobiotics": Lactobacillus helveticus Rosell-52 and Bifidobacterium longum Rosell-175.
Re: Social anxiety disorder-associated gut microbiota increases social fear
#94I know from personal experience that eating sugar does induce more anxiety in me. This might sound weird but I can "physically feel" in my head a certain anxiety when e.g. I think about something awkward. This "physical feel" stopped being there when I stopped eating sweets for a few weeks. One reason why I try to keep my sugar intake down (the other being in danger of getting diabetes...). Thus, I wholly believe thi…
Heads up, I don’t think there’s a link between eating sugar and risk of developing diabetes. Obesity is a risk factor but not sugar itself.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S216183132...
There's a complicated relationship, according to this meta-analysis. Eating sugar in isolation from other sources of nutrition is a risk factor. Eating fruit, or eating sweetened foods with redeeming qualities like yoghurt and wholegrain cereal, is probably inversely correlated (with lower confidence). These seem to be true even when controlling for BMI.
Looking at the meta-analysis, it's hard to say there's no link. The authors suggest that fibre might mitigate the impact, and that adding sugar to otherwise healthy foods might encourage higher consumption of them.
Re: Social anxiety disorder-associated gut microbiota increases social fear
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
So long as it isn’t eating the variety of fresh fruits and vegetables that produce gut serotonin in the microbial breakdown of complex carbohydrates and fiber, right?
Eating fresh fruits and veggies is a great general health advice but unlikely to shift your gut microbiome meaningfully (unless you are eating some specific fruits or fruit skins in specific conditions). And randomly eating healthy stuff is probably not going to shift your biome in a particular direction nor eliminate the cause of biome issues. I eat healthy including a lot of whole fruit, nuts, dried fruits, dark gr…
“Unlikely”, “randomly”, and “probably” had me nervous about your contribution to this discussion.
I do appreciate the quantitative precision at the end of your last sentence.
Re: Social anxiety disorder-associated gut microbiota increases social fear
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
So long as it isn’t eating the variety of fresh fruits and vegetables that produce gut serotonin in the microbial breakdown of complex carbohydrates and fiber, right?
Why wouldn’t it be? Do you know which ones exhibit the desired characteristic?
The ones that aren’t food shaped name brand products or fruit colored sugar water.
Re: Social anxiety disorder-associated gut microbiota increases social fear
#97Can we just keep taking courses of scorched earth antibiotics until we come up with a microbiome combo that feels good?
Given that it'll cure the latent chlamydia and gonorrhea that people have - not to mention the cat toxiplasmos - lets do it!
Re: Social anxiety disorder-associated gut microbiota increases social fear
#98I've suffered with social anxiety for a very long time. Thirty years ago a doctor prescribed a MAOI which immediately transformed me into a social butterfly (which in hindsight was a very difficult transition). This forever proved to me what the doctor had told me: it is all about chemical balance in the brain. The problem, of course, was the danger. I could die within minutes if I ate fermented food without taking t…
That's quite interesting. In my experience, I've suffered from severe anxiety and depression my entire adult life. I spent years working with a psychiatrist trying every SSRI on the market. None of them seemed to help in the slightest, until I asked to try Eldepryl (selegiline), an MAO-B. It helps greatly with depression, but hasn't helped with anxiety. An MAO-B has the advantage of not having any issue with tyramine…
I am always cautious about offering any kind of medical suggestions online. Please take this with a grain of salt:
I struggled with anxiety and depression, treated with anti-depressants and such
After years of that, a doctor suggested I test for ADHD and I got medicated for that after the test was positive
After being medicated for ADHD, I had much less anxiety and basically no depression. Turns out that both Anxiety and Depression are potentially comorbid with unmedicated ADHD
It might be worth asking about. It could be that you need stimulants, not antidepressants
Re: Social anxiety disorder-associated gut microbiota increases social fear
#99I've seen probiotic supplements that have strains that claim to help with anxiety and depression, but I've never really looked into them because I'm quite skeptical they do anything. But if anyone is familiar with them and has any feedback I'd be interested to hear it.
After trying a lot of things what worked for me was cutting out negative food; usually gluten, lactose, fructose. Probiotics never did anything for me.
What makes gluten a negative food? (outside of being coeliac)
Re: Social anxiety disorder-associated gut microbiota increases social fear
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not just food as many commenters are pointing out. It could be from what people are drinking, even water, if oral delivery is not sanitized.
So if the choice is between unsanitary water or sterile and containing chlorine, etc., which has the effect of strengthening the microbiota so that the resulting population increases perceived wellness in the host organism’s sociopolitical fitness, its simple enough, we all stop eating and drinking for ultimate safety and maximum paperclips.
Chlorine is not the only way to sterilize water. Ultraviolet sterilization is a chemical-free option suitable for many use cases: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet_germicidal_irrad...