Intestinal bacteria may influence our moods

http://www.cbc.ca/news/gut-feeling-how-intestinal-bacteria-may-influence-our-moods-1.2701037

by drjohnson • 12 years ago

212 97 12 years ago

curiousDog• 12 years ago

I must agree with this. I've been suffering from IBS for a while now. Anytime I have a flare up, I most certainly have severe anxiety (and it's not just anxiety of having to deal with the flare up. Anxiety symptoms like chest pain, shortness of breath, weakness just show up). I've tried a few probiotics but didn't see any noticeable difference though.

spingsprong• 12 years ago

I'm just asking, but is there any chance the connection is the reverse?

Stress and anxiety can cause digestive symptoms.

bignaj9• 12 years ago

I have Crohn's disease (similar) and you have a good point. In reality it's a vicious feedback loop where 1) you get stressed out 2) your symptoms flare as a result of stress 3) you get more stressed out because of the symptoms. Works both ways and there's no easy way around it.

bdamm• 12 years ago

The interesting part is that even if that's the case, treating the digestive symptoms in an effective way could provide meaningful relief, cascading back into the emotional state that caused the initial problem.

I've had it described to me in the following way; stress creates physical manifestations of that stress, those physical manifestations create discomfort, that discomfort creates stress. The feedback loop, once in place, can accelerate the anxiety. It can also be used to shut the anxiety down. It is possible to focus on the physical manifestations and "cut the strings" of the cycle by relieving those symptoms through meditation and treatment. You're left with the original stressor, but the feedback cycle doesn't help you get better as long as it is active.

calinet63• 12 years ago

I think this vicious cycle is one of the biggest human bugs around. It's a malfunctioning recursive negative feedback loop.

AdamFernandez• 12 years ago

It's always interesting to think of humans as giant integrated microbiomes. Our bacteria is part of who and what we are.

jmhain9• 12 years ago

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 that intestinal bacteria are related to IBS and anxiety disorders and that certain probiotic treatments may help. But such supplementation should be based on detailed research of each of the strains taken, much of which does not even exist yet.

throwaway111222• 12 years ago

I also have IBS and was diagnosed years ago, but I never heard of different classifications that you mentioned, IBS-C or IBS-D. Mostly, I classify the severity as "day-to-day", workdays usually being the worst. I haven't tried consuming live cultures other than yogurt, and even then I have mixed results. Have you gotten far in your research on the types of bacteria, and do you have any resources you could share?

Edit: just read about differences between IBS-C and D and it definitely sounds like there has been some headway in the last 15 years since I was diagnosed (back then it was mostly a prognosis of "here's a colonoscopy, sorry not much else we can do"). I should definitely get re-evaluated. Thanks for mentioning this.

bignaj9• 12 years ago

C is constipation. D is diarrhea. I have Crohn's and didn't know these either, but Google was my friend. I personally don't distinguish. Diarrhea largely affects individuals who have Crohn's in the colon (not me) due to the colon's role in body water absorption from fecal waste. My inflammation occurs in the ileum so I rarely, if ever, have diarrhea but I do have severe, piercing abdominal pain from scar tissue and constriction. My personal opinion from a biology background is we largely don't know jack about Crohn's/IBS and the classifications are grasping at straws. If you do want to know some of the scientific stuff the genetics side is a great place to start. NOD2 is specifically involved in Crohn's: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOD2 and you can learn a lot of interesting things about our innate immune system.

jmhain9• 12 years ago

From the little research I've done, it looks like the bifidobacterium genus, in particular certain strains of bifidobacterium longum [0,1] and infantis [2], have favorable effects on IBS and anxiety. Interestingly, in [1] they noted that it was able to normalize low BDNF levels, which is one hypothesis as to how SSRIs treat anxiety and depression.

However, I picked out my probiotic specifically because it has those species (among many others), and you read what happened.

[0] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17172187

[1] http://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/09/gut-feeling.aspx

[2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2886445/

erichmond4• 12 years ago

IBS seems like the doctors way of saying "We don't know what your problem is".

Doctors told me I had IBS for 10 years, then a friend suggested to stop eating wheat, and 95% of my symptoms went away.

I'm actually about to start testing a FODMAP diet to see if I can improve my health any further.

Have you tried anything to improve your health, or did you just accept the IBS diagnosis? I only ask because I've seen no research that suggests IBS is a real thing, just a catch-all for many potential things.

bignaj9• 12 years ago

I have Crohn's and I did the FODMAP diet when I had very severe symptoms. What I found: it does actually work and remediated a lot of my severe abdominal pain centered around eating (in conjunction with medication) BUT... I also found it absolutely miserable on its own. I think Soylent might be more appetizing to me by an order of magnitude. Good luck!

learc83• 12 years ago

Have you been tested for Coeliac disease?

bmm6o• 12 years ago

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.

jmhain9• 12 years ago

I've tried eliminating wheat, sugar (in case it was fructose malabsorption), dairy, etc. I've tried tons of supplements like fish oil or vitamin D. Interestingly, each of those except dairy had very positive effects on my health in general (weight loss, clearer skin, elimination of seasonal depression) but had little effect on IBS symptoms.

What did improve it (but not eliminate it) was taking an SSRI, which isn't surprising since they have been shown to help in trials. My mother also has both IBS and an anxiety disorder, which is consistent with research showing that there is a genetic factor. I wouldn't be surprised if there are multiple possible underlying causes, but I really think IBS is a legitimate diagnosis.

Barraketh• 12 years ago

I've had mild IBS-D for as long as I can remember, and I've just had a very good experience with a 7 day water fast. It's been 2 weeks since I've finished my water fast, and I've had 0 incidents. Obviously this is anecdotal, since there is very little peer reviewed research on water-fasting in general, and specifically wrt to IBS.

Someone• 12 years ago

They know the problem; irritable bowel, but not what causes it. That's why they call it a syndrome and not a disease.

It's the same with AIDS vs HIV infection. AIDS: we don't know what causes it, but it is acquired immunodeficiency. HIV: it's a disease caused by this virus.

mtift• 12 years ago

IBS is a "diagnosis of exclusion," so in some sense it is not a "real thing," but more accurately the "absence of other things." I really hated that answer, but it's the conclusion that more than a half-dozen different gastroenterologists came to after trying countless tests on me over the course of many years.

After a lifetime of trying to be gluten free (on and off), with limited success, I started a low-FODMAP diet on December 15, 2012 and it completely changed my life. I could not find many dietitians that knew much about it, so I mostly followed the advice of books like IBS: Free at Last! (http://amzn.com/0982063520). Now I feel much more empowered and in control.

Also, not all FODMAPs are equal. Each individual has to figure out which FODMAPs cause the most problems. Being "low FODMAP" is WAY different from being "gluten free." I eat FODMAPs all the time -- I just limit certain ones more than others and I know my limits. And even after 19 months of being low-FODMAP, I still have to consult my list of foods regularly.

Only after doctors have ruled out Crohn's disease, celiac disease, diverticulitis, endometriosis, cancer, etc., and suggest you have IBS, I highly recommend trying a low-FODMAP diet.

300bps3• 12 years ago

I had IBS-D from about the age of 10 to the age of 29. I'm 42 now. What changed for me 13 years ago is that I learned that humans require eating dietary fiber and changed my diet to accomplish that.

I eat about 40 grams of dietary fiber and drink at least a gallon of water every day. It actually takes work to reach this goal, but the plus side is that once I started doing this I have had no symptoms of IBS for the past 13 years.

bignaj9• 12 years ago

Wow, that's a pretty amazing amount of fiber and a great success story. I would caution applying this advice to everyone, though. As anyone who has a lot of intestinal inflammation can tell you very quickly: fiber is like steel wool dragging through there. Ouch! I think this especially highlights how IBS is a range of causes/symptoms, not one distinct disorder.

e40• 12 years ago

Do you have another other dietary restrictions, other than the fiber and water? Just curious. Thanks.

drewblaisdell• 12 years ago

I tried Primadophilus Optima and it wrecked me.

How can you be sure that taking probiotics for your IBS is the cause of your IBS getting worse?

jmhain9• 12 years ago

I don't for sure. In fact, it is definitely confounded by the fact that I quit my SSRI a month and a half prior. However, the reaction I described began a day after I started the probiotic. Also, it gradually decreased in intensity over the two weeks after I stopped the probiotic and I resumed my SSRI. Just to be sure, I took another and the whole thing happened again.

MichaelGG• 12 years ago

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.

jmhain9• 12 years ago

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.

calinet63• 12 years ago

Just to provide an alternate anecdote, I take probiotics fairly regularly (one to three in sequence every 1-2 weeks, or whenever I get out of whack) and have only had neutral or positive results. The flora in the probiotic is really nothing that shouldn't already be in a healthy gut, although of course you do want to be very careful as it's clear that your gut micro-biome is very important to your overall health. Just another data point.

jmhain9• 12 years ago

The flora in the probiotic is really nothing that shouldn't already be in a healthy gut

Perhaps the important factor isn't which species are present, but their distribution or some other factor of which we are still ignorant. In any case, I'm glad you've seen positive results and I may try them again in the future with single-strain supplements once this ordeal is long behind me.

benlambt• 12 years ago

Brewing your own probiotics may be a safer option. People have been eating Sauerkraut for 1000s of years. I just add chopped cabbage and a tablespoon of salt into a quart-sized jar, fill with filtered water and wait a week or so until it tastes sour enough.

pling• 12 years ago

This.

Ex IBS sufferer here.

Fixed it myself after 3 years of hell from doctors who quite clearly were a) short of any realistic knowledge on the matter and b) quite clearly using me as an experimental subject for everything the drug company was pushing at the time.

Worked out how to reset it myself: just drank water for the best part of two weeks and low end carbs (bran flakes with water on) and nothing else. Felt like crap for about 4 days then started to improve. After my butt stopped wrenching daily, I introduced normal foods back one at a time over the space of 3 months, ending with meat and heavy carbs.

I got these steps from a microbiologist rather than a doctor.

That worked for me wonderfully.

Shizka• 12 years ago

If you still have IBS you might want to try http://nordicrebalance.dk/en

I was told about it recently and am going to start treatment in a couple of weeks. They claim a 95% rate in chance of improvement amongst test subjects according to [1]. There are also a few more studies on their website supporting the product. They do however seem to be a relatively new company and I haven't been able to find much information besides their website. I have been told that the doctors behind it have been researching IBS and CD for about 20 years, so that seems to be a plus.

[1]http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11711768

agumonkey• 12 years ago

It's not really surprising that intestine and heart systems have their own state and impact on your whole self. I believe they came first in our design history.

afarrell• 12 years ago

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, we should favor articles that link to the original sources so that the domain experts among us have an easier time digging into the claims. For example, NPR's reporting at http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/11/18/244526773/gut-bac...

jonas_b• 12 years ago

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. As you travel through the birth canal, you come into contact with many different and important microorganisms through contact with your mother's vaginal fluids and even fecal matter. If you're born via C section, you're starting out at a disadvantage. Then breastfeeding is the next step. Mother's milk is where you get your next dose of a very broad spectrum of microorganisms. Then throughout life, as you come in contact with other people, you eat dirt, you hang around farm animals, etc, these are all mother nature's way of helping you develop that microbiome, which is essentially the core of your immune system. Eating is important too, and one of the biggest problems with our modern food system is that everything is pasteurized, cooked all the way through, sterilized, irradiated, etc. All of the healthy microorganisms that used to exist are being killed.

So the point here is that people need to rethink many of their lifestyle choices if they want to heal their guts. Every time you take an antibiotic, you likely suffer much collateral damage because you may be permanently killing beneficial species that you may never be exposed to again. They don't exist in yogurt or kombucha. Either that, or consider fecal bacteriotherapy (fecal transplants) since it seems to be one of the the most promising new approaches to healing microbiomes. ~Julie Latham

druiid• 12 years ago

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.

afro88• 12 years ago

as you come in contact with other people, you eat dirt, you hang around farm animals, etc, these are all mother nature's way of helping you develop that microbiome

I find that way of personifying our environment counter productive. It's not mother nature's way of helping us, it's that we evolved over millions of years in this environment and to change that is to hinder ourselves. I find this a much more accurate and convincing way of arguing for a back to nature style of development and nutrition.

Paul_Dessert6• 12 years ago

Although I see a connection, I stopped taking this article seriously when I read this sentence:

"Their study, published last year, was funded in part by Danone Research, a division of multinational food company Danone."

bignaj9• 12 years ago

So? Danone makes yogurts with probiotics. I think they might be interested in knowing if there is any value to a diet <=> mood connection. If you would take your head out of the sand you'd know that lots of research is funded by industry and that's not necessarily bad.

Paul_Dessert6• 12 years ago

Yeah, no conflict of interest whatsoever...

chippy• 12 years ago

but which research is favoured, published and promoted?

snarfy• 12 years ago

My anecdotal evidence suggests the probiotics that fix your pooping problems fix your mood too. If they make your poop worse, your mood will suffer as well.

jhvh1134• 12 years ago

Constipation has sometimes produced the bloodiest scenes. My grandfather, who died a centenarian, was Cromwell's apothecary; he has often told me that Cromwell had not been to the toilet for a week when he had his king's head cut off. - Voltaire

MisterWebz• 12 years ago

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 their diet to their intestinal bacteria to increase or reduce the "waste" that gets produced to achieve a desired mood or behavior.

VLM• 12 years ago

This goes beyond just bacterial waste into macronutrients like sugars messing with your blood sugar level and thus mood. And who knows what a lifetime of pesticide or herbicide consumption will do to you... I guess we'll find out, some of us anyway.

Or the short answer is yeah your diet strongly affects your behavior. If you don't believe me do drink a couple Mt Dew and see what happens, or a couple beers.

bollockitis• 12 years ago

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 that some traditional approaches to dietary therapy are actually effective, though probably not for the reasons they proclaimed.

cracell• 12 years ago

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

zxcdw• 12 years ago

According to Wikipedia, Carl Pfeiffer[1] researched mental illnesses, mainly schizophrenia, from the point of brain chemistry imbalances and dietary changes to alter it.

The theory is, that there are chemical imbalances with patient's brain chemistry which can be influenced by dietary means. There's a book called Nutrient Power[2] which goes on about this theory and Pfeiffer. I haven't read it, but admittedly it sounds interesting. But then again, maybe it's all woowoo (It's rated as #1 bestseller in homeopathy medicine by Amazon, go figure).

Then again, for example many vitamin deficiencies alter mood and general "energy levels", and for example fish oil (or omega-3 fatty acids), according to Examine.com's[3] user-collaborated round-up, shows some effects on mental well-being, more on the physical functioning of the body though.

Be skeptical.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Pfeiffer_%28pharmacologis... 2: http://www.amazon.com/Nutrient-Power-Heal-Biochemistry-Brain... 3: http://examine.com/supplements/Fish+Oil/

aridiculous• 12 years ago

It's interesting that your digestive system 'thinks'. I've always found the Vagus nerve's role in satiety to be interesting. It's a big nerve from the brain that extends directly down into the abdomen. http://neuroscience.uth.tmc.edu/s4/chapter04.html

outworlder• 12 years ago

Having been diagnosed with probable IBS, I have noticed mood changes related to the intestines. But I always linked it to impaired absorption of some nutrient or another, but never with bacteria.

iLoch• 12 years ago

I wonder if there's a strong correlation between those who suffer IBS and people working in this industry. Seems to me like the mentality to continually push forward and overwork/stress ourselves can only contribute to poorer health both mentally and physically. Personally I suffer from.. Hmm, I'd say IBS-D based on the classifications mentioned here, although my symptoms are fairly mild (however, very consistent - ~5 years and counting..) save for a few more painful symptoms every now and again. There was an article on here last week talking about the strong correlation between our guts and our brain as well. These articles seem to gain a lot of popularity here on HN, which makes me think that this problem is more wide spread than it appears (perhaps just amongst HNers)

I'll report that I too have personally experienced a strong link between my gut and my mental state (I occasionally suffer mild panic attacks). I'm tired of having bowel problems - if anyone has any suggestions that have worked for them I'm open to hearing them (and I'm sure there's plenty of people reading who too are looking for suggestions). I've been working on removing wheat from my diet - I can't speak to the effectiveness yet as I've only just begun.

Paul_Dessert6• 12 years ago

Good point. I'd be interested in knowing as well.

I stopped drinking sodas, alcohol and milk. That helped a lot. I also physically moved and started working from home. This combination has almost stopped the symptoms.

It seems like a combination of my diet, stress and overworking are the biggest factors for me.

renkai• 12 years ago

But which came first, the intestinal issue or the mental health condition? These studies seem to begin with an assumption that the physical ailment arises first. What if it's not the case... What if that assumption is just the opposite, and it's the mental health issue impacting the physical well-being?

tokenadult• 12 years ago

The newspaper article by a freelance journalist kindly submitted here proved to be interesting to read all the way through, and prompted me to read all the comments here posted before I saw the thread, and also to look up the researchers mentioned in the article and the author of the article. There are interesting ideas here, but this is very preliminary research, based on early animal studies mentioned with human studies with very small n and a short time frame. ("The researchers gave 12 healthy women fermented milk containing a probiotic supplement made up of five different strains of bacteria thought to have a positive effect on the intestines. The women drank the milk two times a day over the course of four weeks. Another group of 11 women drank milk without probiotics.")

It's quite a bit too early to tell if altering your personal dietary habits will have any predictable long-term effects on your mood (the article title says "may" after all) and especially what alterations in intestinal microorganisms have what interaction with what other health outcomes.

So far, "modern life" appears to be good both for reducing mortality and reducing morbidity, as life expectancy at age 40, at age 60, and at even higher ages is still rising throughout the developed countries of the world.[1] A variety of incremental changes over the last century have allowed us all to enjoy longer, healthier lives than our ancestors a hundred years ago, as reported in an article in a series on Slate, "Why Are You Not Dead Yet? Life expectancy doubled in past 150 years. Here’s why."[2] If deeper understanding of the health effects of intestinal microorganisms leads to even more incremental improvement in disease prevention and treatment, and increase in healthy lifespan, that would be great. So I heartily support research on these topics. (I remember that the father of Freakonomics co-author Steven Levitt spent his career at my alma mater university studying intestinal gas with federal grants--I'm not making this up.) But we can't be sure yet what the recommended practice will be for how we eat or whether or not we should have particular microorganisms put into our intestines.

Meanwhile we can be happy that ongoing medical research and perhaps other factors we don't fully understand seem to be driving steady increases in healthy lifespan. Girls born since 2000 in the developed world are more likely than not to reach the age of 100, with boys likely to enjoy lifespans almost as long. The article "The Biodemography of Human Ageing"[3] by James Vaupel, originally published in the journal Nature in 2010, is a good current reference on the subject. Vaupel is one of the leading scholars on the demography of aging and how to adjust for time trends in life expectancy. His striking finding is "Humans are living longer than ever before. In fact, newborn children in high-income countries can expect to live to more than 100 years. Starting in the mid-1800s, human longevity has increased dramatically and life expectancy is increasing by an average of six hours a day."[4]

[1] http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v307/n3/box...

[2] http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science_of_...

[3] http://www.demographic-challenge.com/files/downloads/2eb51e2...

[4] http://www.prb.org/Journalists/Webcasts/2010/humanlongevity....

popsomoa• 12 years ago

If you're interested in the Bacteria-autism connection mentioned in the article, here's a great talk by the researcher: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWT_BLVOASI (The topic is "Mind Altering Microbes")

xipho• 12 years ago

Follow @phylogenomics, look at recent his recent rants. Almost certainly this is correlation/causation bunk about the microbiome (in addition to the other problems noted here).

nazgulnarsil• 12 years ago

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.

jessicarichman• 12 years ago

Hi there, I'm CEO of uBiome. It's a really fascinating area and there are a lot of interesting discoveries coming out. If you'd like to learn more about your microbiome, check us out at www.ubiome.com.

joshu• 12 years ago

Similarly, hypothesis like these were why I invested in uBiome.

TheSpiceIsLife• 12 years ago

The book 'Not All in the Mind'[1], published in 1976, is definitely worth a read. It's been a while since I picked it up and my copy is in another state while I'm away from work, but I remember it being very pertinent to this conversation. (I'd write more about, but it's 01:00 where I am and I'm falling asleep at the keyboard).

1. http://www.amazon.com/Not-All-Mind-Richard-Mackarness/dp/033...

Intestinal bacteria may influence our moods

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