Putting Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

By: Elizabeth Weaver

May is mental health awareness month. Although we spend billions of dollars each year as a country on ways to improve our mental health, we may just be scratching the surface when it comes to understanding all the pieces of the puzzle. Thankfully, we have many modern resources to rely on including medicines, talk-therapy, and even some newer approaches like biofeedback.

But new research is taking a closer look at something our gut has been telling us all along – literally. As it turns out, scientists are claiming there is a bidirectional relationship between our stomachs and our brain. We may have all thought to ourselves that stress can upset our tummies, but we are now learning, our tummies can upset our mood as well.

So let’s back up to a time where some medical professionals thought stomach issues caused from stress were fictitious and not worth treating. Treatments were sparse and doctors were fast to dismiss their patients’ so-called phantom symptoms. Fast forward to today, when we are learning that actual physiological changes in the gut can be the cause of stress, depression, anxiety and many other maladies we are all too familiar with as a modern society (1). Several chronic inflammatory intestinal diseases like Crohn’s and diverticulitis are made worse by stress, and indeed may be a psychological and physiological cause of stress themselves. We also now know that keeping a healthy balance of intestinal bacterial flora helps stave off certain contagious diseases (2).

Current scientists are now focusing more of their efforts on understanding this complex relationship between the brain and what some are now referring to as our “second brain.” According to one line of research, certain probiotic supplements replace bad bacteria with good bacteria, which in turn down regulates inflammatory processes caused by stress (3). Another study showed that treatment with the specific probiotics Lactobacillus helveticus and Bifidobacterium longum relieved depression and anxiety in a test population (4). These studies and many more like them have unearthed what scientists are now calling the gut-brain axis, a biochemical connection between the two that might explain their interconnectedness.

Although more research is needed at this time to fully realize the intricate relationship between our mood and our stomachs, we can’t ignore their connection anymore. In the spirit of mental health awareness month, take care of your mind, along with your gut*. Both will thank you.

1. http://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/the-gut-brain-connection
2. University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ). “Probiotics are secret weapon for fighting symptoms of the common cold in college students, study suggests.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 22 October 2012
3. BMJ Specialty Journals. “Probiotics Ease Gut Problems Caused By Long Term Stress.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 30 April 2006
4. Messaoudi, M, et al. Beneficial psychological effects of a probiotic formulation (Lactobacillus helveticus R0052 and Bifidobacterium longum R0175) in healthy human volunteers. Gut Microbes July/August 2011; 2:4, 256-261
5. Chen, X., Roshan S., and Seong-Tshool H.. “The role of gut microbiota in the gut-brain axis: current challenges and perspectives.” Protein & Cell 4.6 (2013): 403-14.

*Talk to your physician about ways to improve your gut health, and always before taking any medicine or supplements.

Editor’s Note: Elizabeth Weaver is Assistant Director of the Brains & Behavior Program at Georgia State University and editor of GSU’s Brain & Behavior Potential. Elizabeth is a VaHi resident who wrote in asking whether or not she could contribute an article to The Voice. We encourage residents to submit stories or story ideas to us. Email us at [email protected] with your thoughts.