21 ms·

Gut microbe linked to depression in large health study

450 points by pella 5y ago

TeeMassive 5y ago
Wasn't the same link with autism and gut microbes debunked because they tend to have different diets?
bayesian_horse 5y ago
Fecal transplants. It's the latest shit.
encryptluks2 5y ago
I think there is also correlation to the how well people digest food, which coincidentally means that chronic constipation often accompanies depression.
rdtwo 5y ago
I mean if your tummy is upset you don’t sleep well. If you don’t sleep well you are gonna be depressed just saying
dynamohk 5y ago
This is chicken or the egg causality dilemma. Might be wise to think the other way around too. X causes Y, Y causes X.
denvaar 5y ago
When you've got chronic problems with your gut, it is so frustrating and difficult to try and figure out what's going on. That process alone is enough to make you feel anxious and depressed. In my own experience, I'm not sure whether I have stomach problems because I am anxious, or vice versa. I do know that symptoms of both cropped up at the same time, so in my opinion they are definitely correlated. It's exciting to see even small breakthroughs in the research that's being done. My heart goes out to those people who are struggling with depression, anxiety, and stomach issues.
test6554 5y ago
Maybe depression leads to eating low-effort foods and low effort foods leads to getting this gut bacteria.
aszantu 5y ago
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 in my armpits 1-2 days before the thoughts were back. https://gutsense.org https://gutsense.org has a lot about fiber - the only fiber I can use seems to be animal based, like eggwhites
- halpert 5y ago
  That seems pretty crazy. What have you tried to remedy the issue? Fecal transplant?
  - aszantu 5y ago
    yes, but fecal transplants are not a thing where I live, it would be pretty expensive to do it here.
- BatteryMountain 5y ago
  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.
  - justsomehnguy 5y ago
    If the food stayed the same and you are overweight or near it that could indicate diabetes.
    - BatteryMountain 5y ago
      Not overweight, average BMI for my body shape/age/gender. I recently went down the diabetes rabbit hole but not of the symptoms are really present. Interestingly enough, when I sensed changes in smell I immediately thought "diabetes" too.
dave1999x 5y ago
Wait hang on, I thought the autism link was found to be false. It's not causal, they're just pickier eaters.
testemailfordg2 5y ago
Strange coincidence, just last night drank milk kefir and woke up feeling much more lighter in my head...Guess I know the reason now...
- grp000 5y ago
  I've found kefir to be useful myself, but only after a few weeks of daily consumption.
animal_spirits 5y ago
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.
- BatteryMountain 5y ago
  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.
- roywiggins 5y ago
  You wouldn't expect a fecal transplant to help if the bacteria were entirely incidental though.
  - PragmaticPulp 5y ago
    Two patients and no control group is virtually useless for drawing any conclusions: > Indeed, researchers recently reported in Frontiers in Psychiatry that fecal transplants improved symptoms in two depressed patients. Depression research is challenging because even placebo groups tend to have dramatic improvements.
    - robocat 5y ago
      > Two patients and no control group is virtually useless for drawing any conclusions That is a frequentist argument. If the response to treatment is significant enough, then that is a worthwhile signal (cliché: parachutes save lives without a control group). Placebo is an obvious contender. However presuming the patients had a chronic condition with plenty of previous interventions, then the placebo effect has had plenty of chances in the past. If it were due to placebo then there would be something to learn about why the placebo effect were so effective in that situation!
EasyTiger_ 5y ago
I thought this had been known for a while?
- eightysixfour 5y ago
  From the article: > Morganella has already been implicated in depression. As far back as 2008, researchers investigating a possible link between depression and inflammation found depressed people had stronger immune responses to chemicals produced by Morganella and other gram-negative bacteria in the gut. Thus, the newest study seems to be “further proof” that inflammation caused by gut microbes can influence mood, Gilbert says.
maybeOneDay 5y ago
Tangential: Is there any evidence that pro biotic foods or supplements can increase gut health? Given the evident importance of gut health, I wonder whether it's worth using something like this, to grab a random example: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Restored-Bio-Cultures/dp/B082SZXBF2/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=multi+strain+biotic&qid=1644174615&sprefix=multi+strai%2Caps%2C90&sr=8-5 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Restored-Bio-Cultures/dp/B082SZXBF2...
- everybodyknows 5y ago
  Anecdata: Tried various probiotics, no help. Pre-biotics however, have been huge. Search for "resistant starch".
  - pknight 5y ago
    What was your diet like when you were taking them? It's been observed in some studies that delivered mixed results that responders had better diets (i.e. more bacteria friendly components in the diet such as indigestible carbs from vegetables/legumes/fruit etc) whereas non-responders had weaker diets in terms of providing the gut microbes nutrients.
    - everybodyknows 5y ago
      Diet is now generally low-FODMAP, emphasis on reducing fructose, glucose, and sugar alcohols e.g. sorbitol, erythritol, to which I seem especially sensitive -- this may be atypical among IBS patients.
  - asdfman123 5y ago
    The best treatment for my own ADHD, depression and anxiety is living a healthy lifestyle, across the board, full stop. It means regular exercise, 6 hours of cardio a week, eating healthy, meditating, spending time in the sun, etc. etc. (And anti-depressants/therapy, which play an important role too.) Of course, it's too much to tell someone struggling to do all those things, but if you can work towards that, I strongly recommend it. I've had to declare war on my depression and ADHD because I can't afford to have it in my life anymore. At some point perhaps the science will catch up and explain precisely how these things help, but until then, I feel like you have to take the ancient approach of observing people who have things figured out and emulating them. (And I say this as someone who is very much pro-science.)
taeric 5y ago
For those curious, morganella is the main culprit listed here, it seems. Wikipedia isn't clear to me on how one gets this in your biome. Outside of other susp conditions. :(
- cmckn 5y ago
  My personal, completely unsubstantiated take is: your diet allows certain bacteria to thrive (or not). It’s less about trying to avoid the bad ones and more about trying to nurture the good ones. One incredible thing you can do for your gut is eat more fiber; which the vast majority of Americans don’t. Try psyllium husk powder (the stuff in Metamucil). Eat less refined sugar and saturated fat; eat more raw and fermented vegetables. Probiotics are kind of a scam, and are usually really expensive. Like most things with health, you have to consistently do the not-so-fun things to get good results, you can’t just take a pill and move on.
  - taeric 5y ago
    That is as may be, however, this study shows that removing that bacteria helps with mood disorder. And, there is no evidence that diet gives you this bacteria. Nor that it can help remove this one, either. That is, discussion of diet is a bit of a non sequitur. Not wrong, but also not necessarily relevant.
    - cmckn 5y ago
      The paper is titled “ Combined effects of host genetics *and diet* on human gut microbiota and incident disease…” (emphasis mine). Dairy (and the way some people process it, because of genetics) was shown to influence levels of certain bacteria. The study also does not show that removing Morganella resolved depression; the study did not attempt to remove it, and a researcher is quoted as saying it’s not clear how one would do so (last line of the article): > But it’s less clear how Morganella could be eliminated from the gut to relieve symptoms. “That’s a bit more challenging.”
      - taeric 5y ago
bladegash 5y ago
Will be interested to at some point see what kind of connection gastrointestinal autoimmune (among others) diseases such as Crohn’s and Ulcerative Colitis have on not only the guy microbe balance, but mental health as well. Many mental health disorders have strong genetic ties, as well as autoimmune diseases. Wonder if existence of one makes the likelihood of existence of the other greater.
- whatshisface 5y ago
  There's some progress now in tying specific mental disorders to autoimmune problems in the brain. Wish I could tell you more but all I know about this is that they test people's cerebral spinal fluid for antibodies against specific neurotransmitter receptors, and they've discovered several connections between those and problems people have.
  - bladegash 5y ago
    Very interesting! I actually have both Crohn’s and bipolar disorder, and one anecdote that’s interesting (to me) is that the TNF inhibitor I’m on, which has put Crohn’s in remission, has simultaneously appeared to have a positive effect on the mood disorder side of things as well. Really cool to see the GI getting so much research! Edit: Found an interesting study that addresses the relationship between TNF and mood disorders - go figure! https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19477018/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19477018/
hirako2000 5y ago
or depression causes this bacteria to proliferate more easily? I see nothing in that research showing causation. It doesn't invalidate their correlation though.
- charisma123 5y ago
  "One of them, Morganella, was significantly increased in a microbial survey of the 181 people in the study who _later_ developed depression." they would have been diagnosed with depression first leading to increase in morganella, if it was the other way around? agree this could be correlation, but I guess thats why they say that the field is still in its infancy.
- msrenee 5y ago
  Do they claim causation anywhere? All I see is them saying there appears to be a link.
  - hirako2000 5y ago
    Yes.It establishes linking, and claim further evidences of "causation". "seems to be “further proof" that inflammation caused by gut microbes can influence mood, Gilbert says."
    - msrenee 5y ago
      That appears to be a quote from another microbiologist who wasn't involved with the study. Even he only says it "seems to be" rather than "it is".
- mateo1 5y ago
  That's my thinking as well. Depression leads to lifestyle changes which includes dietary changes which can cause certain bacteria to grow faster, as your gut bacterial makeup changes constantly based on what kind of food you consume and which microorganisms are specialized for it. I think there will be some breakthroughs by studying the human microbiome, for example there could be reasons that a moderately harmful microorganism or strain becomes dominant in your gut for whatever reason and causes problems, but from my personal anecdotal experience with gut health and diet, I believe most issues will still be solved with dietary changes and perhaps some targeted antibiotics or antimicrobial treatments in general. I'm also willing to bet we'll discover a lot of immune involvement in the regulation of various bacterial population in the gut. There must be an adaptive system that minimizes or eliminates most harmful organisms in the gut, otherwise we'd all be dead.
wdwvt1 5y ago
Gut microbiome researcher here - not involved in this study but happy to answer questions or dig in with anyone interested!
- engineeringwoke 5y ago
  How much evidence is there of long-term effects of these types of treatments? Do you or other researchers in the space ever worry that you are in a sense curing the effect and not the cause (family and societal problems as I understand it), which would imply that efficacy would fall over time? Would sustained fecal transplants, etc. even work?
- tsol 5y ago
  How does alcohol affect gut bacteria? Is there enough research that the negative effects on the gut can be linked to changes in gut microbiota?
- naasking 5y ago
  How strong is the case that zero calorie sweeteners actually cause harmful changes to the microbiome that are linked to depression or other conditions?
- RamblingCTO 5y ago
  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.
- nopcode 5y ago
  What’s your opinion on zerocarb/carnivore diets? I don’t eat any fibers.
- antiterra 5y ago
  Is there evidence of gut biome activity directly interacting with the mesh of nerves in our digestive tract?
antiterra 5y ago
If you’re like me and somehow missed out that there’s an significant mesh of neurons in your guts that’s capable of independent neurotransmitter release, you should look up the enteric nervous system. Intuitively, at least, it seems to make sense of all the ‘gut’ connections to mood.
- musingsole 5y ago
  It's been described as a "cat's brain" equivalent of neurons. Largely seems attached to regulating various rhythms of the gut, but who knows what computations it could be influencing.
  - stjohnswarts 5y ago
    Considering how often my cat manages to outsmart me I'd say that is a significant amount of neurons.
annoyingnoob 5y ago
Then there is this: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/02/06/1074719132/an-experimental-depression-treatment-uses-electric-currents-to-bring-relief https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/02/06/1074719... Zap your head or a fecal transplant? Choices, choices.
brainaxis 5y ago
Great to see the gut brain axis becoming more well known in medicine. Less than 10 years ago it was considered near pseudoscience to consider that the gut could actually influence the brain. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/the-brain-gut-connection https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-preventi... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4367209/#:~:text=The%20gut%2Dbrain%20axis%20(GBA,microbiota%20in%20influencing%20these%20interactions https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4367209/#:~:tex.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gut%E2%80%93brain_axis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gut%E2%80%93brain_axis
- The_rationalist 5y ago
- vmception 5y ago
  I went down that rabbit hole to have a more informed opinion and I found that accepted science would converge on some of the same goals naturopaths and other alternative medicine practitioners eventually. Basically, they both want personalized medicine. As in, remedies that are custom tailored to the internal state of the individual, instead of “personalized” by listening to an individual describe a current ongoing affliction. Alternative medicine lacks any method for peer review or repeatability and practitioners themselves procedurally generate the remedies, which makes it incapable of being accepted science except by mere coincidence of some practices eventually being peer reviewed if reviewable at all. This is by a design that is comical to the scientific community, where “everybody is different”. At the same time, the scientific method and peer review itself is too rigid to evaluate all ailments, without associated advances in technology. This is also by design as it was necessary to distinguish the sciences from arbitrarily religious or arbitrarily heretical practices at one point in some areas. Now we are on the cusp of convergence of the ideals, by being able to analyze and sequence the symbiotic relationships within our bodies. How little control we have in many cases, or at least potentially redefining the sense of self.
fulafel 5y ago
This is a bacterium that is killed by antibiotics, right? Interesting that the effect wasn't noticed before.
yoyar 5y ago
I think the causal nature of this relationship is way overestimated.
- antiterra 5y ago
  I’m curious, why do you think that?
  - potatoman22 5y ago
    Playing devil's advocate, do we have any reason to believe that people who are genetically more succeptible to depression aren't also more likely to have this sort of gut via genetics? That would result in this correlation. Perhaps improving your gut biome wouldn't actually help with depression?
    - yoyar 5y ago
      Agreed. No one knows.
    - antiterra 5y ago
      If people with depression have this sort of gut, that still doesn’t establish directional cause or mechanism. The semi-autonomous nervous system in our guts, the microbes in our guts, and our central nervous system have complex chemical signaling interactions. Neurotransmitters linked to effects on mood are generated by the gut. Therefore, the brain can signal to the gut that it should release neurotransmitters, and the gut can release those neurotransmitters itself. Because of this interaction, it’s possible the ‘culprit’ for depression is behavior by the brain, microbes on the gut, the gut itself, or the brain-gut interaction (Or any combination of the four.) A good summary of our understanding of these mechanisms is at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5772764/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5772764/
zabzonk 5y ago
> Thus, the newest study seems to be “further proof” that inflammation caused by gut microbes can influence mood Of course it bloody can - if you have IBS or any number of other gut-related problems, believe me you are very likely to be depressed, because the symptoms of these are very nasty and humiliating. This does not mean that the bacteria are directly affecting the CNS. Also: > Kiebdiella It's Klebsiella
- asdfman123 5y ago
  - zabzonk 5y ago
    No. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klebsiella https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klebsiella
- wutbrodo 5y ago
  It seems pretty obvious from reading the article in its entirety that the claim is that the inflammation is affecting mood directly, not via nasty and humiliating gastro symptoms.
  - zabzonk 5y ago
    How would you differentate between the two?
    - wutbrodo 5y ago
      The same way you support any causal claim, by controlling for confounders. What gives you so much confidence that a suboptimal microbiome is tautologically accompanied by "nasty and humiliating" IBS symptoms, to the degree that would cause depression? Are you under the impression that everyone with a measurably poor microbiome automatically has nasty and humiliating IBS symptoms? You can assume that everyone involved in performing, analyzing, and reporting the study is incompetent, but at that point why not just assume that the entire article is inaccurate and that one can never understand anything about the world? I'm the last person to slavishly believe scientific authorities' interpretation of evidence when it's clearly done poorly (see: all of Covid). But it's bizarre to claim that researchers wouldn't have thought to rule out the most basic alternate hypotheses, especially when they have the data to do so.
Goety 5y ago
an army runs on their stomach and not anything else
thenerdhead 5y ago
I've seen these studies time and time again. I do wonder what are the practical steps one takes to "repair" or "renew" their gut? I'm not a fan of drugs being the cure. In fact, I don't think they are the first solution people should hope for or supplement with unless it's not practical to get them in a natural way. I feel like we see more and more gut related issues due to depression & depression's little cousin anxiety. IBS for example manifests itself from anxiety and can also be a gut microbiome imbalance. If there are more and more studies around gut health being a sort-of panacea of mental & physical health, why aren't we focusing on making healthier decisions for our diet, exercise, and mental well being? It's no surprise that many people(myself included) in our always connected world suffer with crippling anxiety from over stimulation/shock & awe news/comparison to others/overwork/etc. That anxiety manifests in your gut as digestive issues. Those digestive issues make you less likely to exercise for long periods of time or even at all. In my opinion, it's four main things. Increase sleep, improve/wide ranging diet, moderate exercise, and reduced stress. There are definitely hacks like fiber, yogurt, sauerkraut, and more that people swear by, but I am genuinely curious if a study had tracked some of these variables to see if they improve gut microbiomes.
- chrisco255 5y ago
  You could try an isolation diet. Just pick one basic food, such as steak or baked potatoes only, with no toppings except for maybe salt. And eat just that thing for a week or so. Then see how you feel after your gut adjusts. Then gradually add things back into your diet or start with a different food from square one. Not the easiest plan to implement by any stretch, but it's very effective as you're limiting confounding variables for figuring it out.
- rpozarickij 5y ago
  > what are the practical steps one takes to "repair" or "renew" their gut It was already mentioned in other threads, but you can find valuable insights in the AIP (autoimmune protocol) diet. Its main principle is that you first eliminate as many foods as possible that are known to cause issues for people (e.g. due to inflammation, autoimmune response) and then you slowly introduce more foods and see how your body reacts. I recently started following a similar approach in order to try to address some health issues and also to learn more about my body. In my case I'm leaning more towards the carnivore diet with occasional additions of foods allowed in AIP. In case anyone is curious about the carnivore diet, I found these YouTube channels to contain good content on this topic: KenDBerryMD, Paul Saladino (CarnivoreMD). I also enjoyed this discussion: https://youtu.be/Xgokvp5bfNg https://youtu.be/Xgokvp5bfNg It's easy to stumble upon conflicting information when it comes to nutrition, but I find that just being exposed to more options (rather than eating what everyone eats by default) can give you an opportunity to make the decisions that make sense to you.
vletal 5y ago
Is this really the causality. Could it be the other way around? Depressed people might in time develop bowl disorders?
exdsq 5y ago
I assume Tom Brady retired to make an income from the spice malange on the back of this news
mrfusion 5y ago
But could the causation be in the opposite direction?
fnord77 5y ago
as the article states, this was suspected or known for at least 15 years. Has anything actionable (treatment-wise) come of it?
zackmorris 5y ago
Just another data point, but my journey through digestive issues and recovery was kicked off by the worst depression and burnout I ever experienced, which started in 2019 and lasted 3 years. My best guess for what happened is that work stress, excessive celebration and coping with the cognitive dissonance of the pre-COVID era and subsequent pandemic, combined with overtraining and the misuse of protein shakes in place of food, left me in a chronically dehydrated state. The body tries to collect moisture from the gut, which opens an opportunity for bacteria to get into the body cavity and blood, which is colloquially called leaky gut. This sets off food sensitivities and eventually an autoimmune condition/response to lectins, gluten, etc, which have proteins similar to linings in the body, joints and thyroid. Then a cascade happens where everything goes out of whack quickly. In my case, I went from being in the best shape of my life, the strongest I had ever been in the gym, to barely able to get out of bed in the morning. In other people, it might present as chronic fatigue, arthritis, etc. I didn't really believe any of this in 2018, and my meal plan then consisted entirely of everything that I can't eat today. So I consider what people say politely, but for the most part, they have absolutely no idea what they're talking about. This experience has made stuff like GMO foods sound absolutely insane to me. Like, why would we ever taint our food supply to make food 5 cents cheaper or "feed the world" when we've been operating under artificial scarcity since the end of the second world war? It's all a crock. Every time you eat inflammatory food, the risk is similar to smoking a cigarette. Probably nothing will happen, but if it sets off your immune system, you may wake up one morning chronically depressed and/or unable to eat something that you rely upon. It got me after I turned 40, YMMV.
- rkhassen9 5y ago
  ZachMorris, the Same thing happened to me. Almost identical. Except have not really been cured. Agree 100% with what you wrote. What was your protocol to heal? I need some pointers as nothing has really helped. Thanks in advance.
  - MrBuddyCasino 5y ago
    Feel free to join: https://discord.com/channels/940186707817562113/940186707817562116 https://discord.com/channels/940186707817562113/940186707817...
belltaco 5y ago
What if depression was causing the gut microbe changes? Like it was recently found with autism and gut changes. https://cosmosmagazine.com/health/body-and-mind/autism-gut-microbiome-link-causation-disputed/ https://cosmosmagazine.com/health/body-and-mind/autism-gut-m...
- kibwen 5y ago
  From the beginning of the article: "Whether those microbial deficits actually help cause the disorders is unclear, [...]" For the time being it appears to be careful in only suggesting correlation, not causation.
- FastMonkey 5y ago
  Depression might lead people to eat differently. I know when my diet suffers when I'm down, there's definitely more pizza and less fruit and veg.
- thih9 5y ago
  Note that the original article mentions: > "researchers recently reported in Frontiers in Psychiatry that fecal transplants improved symptoms in two depressed patients"
  - smt88 5y ago
    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.
    - RamblingCTO 5y ago
      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.
Gatsky 5y ago
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 have important implications. We show that dietary fiber and probiotic use, factors known to affect the gut microbiome, are associated with differential outcomes to ICB. Although causality cannot be addressed from the observational human cohort, where unmeasured confounders may exist, our preclinical models support the hypothesis that dietary fiber and probiotics modulate the microbiome and that antitumor immunity is impaired in mice receiving a low-fiber diet and in those receiving probiotics—with suppression of intratumoral IFN-γ T cell responses in both cases. It would be a bit disappointing if the final conclusion from all this microbiome work was 'Eat more vegetables'... [1] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aaz7015 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aaz7015
- t8e56vd4ih 5y ago
  a healthy microbiome should be self sustaining. why would it be useful to eat bacteria that is supposed to be present in the gut already anyway. what does make sense though is providing a favorable environment. for that it will be useful to provide certain substances on a regular basis. so, going from microbiome to fiber might make plenty of sense even from the microbiome perspective.
  - hourislate 5y ago
    From the article: >The finding, which emerged from a study of how genetics and diet affect the microbiome, “is really solid proof that this association could have major clinical importance.” It seems genetics can play a role in some people having a healthy flora. Maybe their bodies can't convert a certain bacteria from food stuff efficiently, thus they are required to supplement.
  - errcorrectcode 5y ago
    Not if you genocide it with antibiotics or your parents or environment didn't have it well in the first place. People may want to take a fecal sample before starting antibiotics to "reseed" themselves. Also, it will take time to map and analyze essential and harmful constituent species. Perhaps there will be the equivalent of "vitamin" essential bacterial for persons of particular genetic makeups and diets.
phantom_oracle 5y ago
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. Whenever I see articles about health on HN, I no longer take them too seriously because the reductionist approach to medicine is why people get mistreated for symptoms instead of the disease. Even the ancient Greeks (the so-called birthplace of "western knowledge") took a more holistic approach than what the sketchy for-profit medical/pharmaceutical cabal does. But of course, we need to take it seriously because "the scientists say so", even though their own research system is so badly broken that a for-profit cabal runs the publishing arm of research. Strange times we live in.
- throwaway932489 5y ago
  I'm sure every culture, including Western ones, has some kind(s) of food everywhere along the "healthy" to "medicinal" scale. Everyone agrees what you eat is important, nobody can agree on what that should be, hopefully this kind of research will tell us.
- CapitalistCartr 5y ago
  "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.
  - ComradePhil 5y ago
    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.
bell-cot 5y ago
> ... When it came to depression, two bacteria [...], Morganella and Kiebdiella, seemed to play a causal role, [...] Morganella has already been implicated in depression. As far back as 2008 ... This situation looks relatively simple to me - start searching for bactiophages which are specific to Morganella. Briefly test those in animals, then try them on a few volunteers who both are suffering from profound depression and seem to have very high Morganella levels in their guts. (While giving 'em fecal transplants from depression-free relatives and monitoring them intensively and such.) If that shows promise, then you might really have something (minus a whole lot more testing & refinement & such). If not...maybe back to the drawing board.
gbjw 5y ago
Interesting to note that the link between emotions and the 'gut' are all over the place in English: 'trust your gut' 'I have a gut feeling' 'I hate his guts' 'my gut reaction'.
- mandmandam 5y ago
  I would be very surprised if body/emotion metaphors weren't endemic in language. I don't speak too many languages, but I 've noticed that grokking English expressions isn't too hard for most tourists. "Chip on the shoulder", head in the game (or the clouds), foot in the mouth, butterflies in the stomach, etc; all seem fairly understandable to tourists who hear the expression. Some have a very literal origin - "scared shitless", for example - that I would look for first.
jvm___ 5y ago
Food equals mood. I tell my cranky kids this all the time. Or, hopefully, before they get cranky, my kids don't like eating at appropriate times, it's like they're missing the hunger gene or something.
- bjoli 5y ago
  With regards to my kids I usually think "normalize over a week". Most kids that aren't picky eaters will eat more or less on different days. I just try to make sure to have reasonably healthy choices available the days they do eat. Two days ago my son ate almost nothing for dinner. The day after he ate 6 big broccoli stems, 100g bulgur and one whole can of large white beans. I couldn't believe my eyes.
0F 5y ago
Micro biome is a literal pile of shit. Please forgive me because I couldn’t resist, but I think it’s massively overhyped and useless. It’s obviously going to be correlated to lots of things. But people measure the rough correlation and take it way too far. There’s nothing there… and if there is then it’s downstream of something more fundamental. Inflammation/metabolomics is the real revolution.

450 points by pella 5y ago

TeeMassive 5y ago

Wasn't the same link with autism and gut microbes debunked because they tend to have different diets?

bayesian_horse 5y ago

Fecal transplants. It's the latest shit.

encryptluks2 5y ago

I think there is also correlation to the how well people digest food, which coincidentally means that chronic constipation often accompanies depression.

rdtwo 5y ago

I mean if your tummy is upset you don’t sleep well. If you don’t sleep well you are gonna be depressed just saying

dynamohk 5y ago

This is chicken or the egg causality dilemma. Might be wise to think the other way around too. X causes Y, Y causes X.

denvaar 5y ago

When you've got chronic problems with your gut, it is so frustrating and difficult to try and figure out what's going on. That process alone is enough to make you feel anxious and depressed. In my own experience, I'm not sure whether I have stomach problems because I am anxious, or vice versa. I do know that symptoms of both cropped up at the same time, so in my opinion they are definitely correlated. It's exciting to see even small breakthroughs in the research that's being done. My heart goes out to those people who are struggling with depression, anxiety, and stomach issues.

test6554 5y ago

Maybe depression leads to eating low-effort foods and low effort foods leads to getting this gut bacteria.

aszantu 5y ago

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 in my armpits 1-2 days before the thoughts were back. https://gutsense.org https://gutsense.org has a lot about fiber - the only fiber I can use seems to be animal based, like eggwhites

halpert 5y ago
That seems pretty crazy. What have you tried to remedy the issue? Fecal transplant?
- aszantu 5y ago
  yes, but fecal transplants are not a thing where I live, it would be pretty expensive to do it here.
BatteryMountain 5y ago
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.
- justsomehnguy 5y ago
  If the food stayed the same and you are overweight or near it that could indicate diabetes.
  - BatteryMountain 5y ago
    Not overweight, average BMI for my body shape/age/gender. I recently went down the diabetes rabbit hole but not of the symptoms are really present. Interestingly enough, when I sensed changes in smell I immediately thought "diabetes" too.

dave1999x 5y ago

Wait hang on, I thought the autism link was found to be false. It's not causal, they're just pickier eaters.

testemailfordg2 5y ago

Strange coincidence, just last night drank milk kefir and woke up feeling much more lighter in my head...Guess I know the reason now...

grp000 5y ago
I've found kefir to be useful myself, but only after a few weeks of daily consumption.

animal_spirits 5y ago

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.

BatteryMountain 5y ago
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.
roywiggins 5y ago
You wouldn't expect a fecal transplant to help if the bacteria were entirely incidental though.
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  Two patients and no control group is virtually useless for drawing any conclusions: > Indeed, researchers recently reported in Frontiers in Psychiatry that fecal transplants improved symptoms in two depressed patients. Depression research is challenging because even placebo groups tend to have dramatic improvements.
  - robocat 5y ago
    > Two patients and no control group is virtually useless for drawing any conclusions That is a frequentist argument. If the response to treatment is significant enough, then that is a worthwhile signal (cliché: parachutes save lives without a control group). Placebo is an obvious contender. However presuming the patients had a chronic condition with plenty of previous interventions, then the placebo effect has had plenty of chances in the past. If it were due to placebo then there would be something to learn about why the placebo effect were so effective in that situation!

EasyTiger_ 5y ago

I thought this had been known for a while?

eightysixfour 5y ago
From the article: > Morganella has already been implicated in depression. As far back as 2008, researchers investigating a possible link between depression and inflammation found depressed people had stronger immune responses to chemicals produced by Morganella and other gram-negative bacteria in the gut. Thus, the newest study seems to be “further proof” that inflammation caused by gut microbes can influence mood, Gilbert says.

maybeOneDay 5y ago

Tangential: Is there any evidence that pro biotic foods or supplements can increase gut health? Given the evident importance of gut health, I wonder whether it's worth using something like this, to grab a random example: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Restored-Bio-Cultures/dp/B082SZXBF2/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=multi+strain+biotic&qid=1644174615&sprefix=multi+strai%2Caps%2C90&sr=8-5 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Restored-Bio-Cultures/dp/B082SZXBF2...

everybodyknows 5y ago
Anecdata: Tried various probiotics, no help. Pre-biotics however, have been huge. Search for "resistant starch".
- pknight 5y ago
  What was your diet like when you were taking them? It's been observed in some studies that delivered mixed results that responders had better diets (i.e. more bacteria friendly components in the diet such as indigestible carbs from vegetables/legumes/fruit etc) whereas non-responders had weaker diets in terms of providing the gut microbes nutrients.
  - everybodyknows 5y ago
    Diet is now generally low-FODMAP, emphasis on reducing fructose, glucose, and sugar alcohols e.g. sorbitol, erythritol, to which I seem especially sensitive -- this may be atypical among IBS patients.
- asdfman123 5y ago
  The best treatment for my own ADHD, depression and anxiety is living a healthy lifestyle, across the board, full stop. It means regular exercise, 6 hours of cardio a week, eating healthy, meditating, spending time in the sun, etc. etc. (And anti-depressants/therapy, which play an important role too.) Of course, it's too much to tell someone struggling to do all those things, but if you can work towards that, I strongly recommend it. I've had to declare war on my depression and ADHD because I can't afford to have it in my life anymore. At some point perhaps the science will catch up and explain precisely how these things help, but until then, I feel like you have to take the ancient approach of observing people who have things figured out and emulating them. (And I say this as someone who is very much pro-science.)

taeric 5y ago

For those curious, morganella is the main culprit listed here, it seems. Wikipedia isn't clear to me on how one gets this in your biome. Outside of other susp conditions. :(

cmckn 5y ago
My personal, completely unsubstantiated take is: your diet allows certain bacteria to thrive (or not). It’s less about trying to avoid the bad ones and more about trying to nurture the good ones. One incredible thing you can do for your gut is eat more fiber; which the vast majority of Americans don’t. Try psyllium husk powder (the stuff in Metamucil). Eat less refined sugar and saturated fat; eat more raw and fermented vegetables. Probiotics are kind of a scam, and are usually really expensive. Like most things with health, you have to consistently do the not-so-fun things to get good results, you can’t just take a pill and move on.
- taeric 5y ago
  That is as may be, however, this study shows that removing that bacteria helps with mood disorder. And, there is no evidence that diet gives you this bacteria. Nor that it can help remove this one, either. That is, discussion of diet is a bit of a non sequitur. Not wrong, but also not necessarily relevant.
  - cmckn 5y ago
    The paper is titled “ Combined effects of host genetics *and diet* on human gut microbiota and incident disease…” (emphasis mine). Dairy (and the way some people process it, because of genetics) was shown to influence levels of certain bacteria. The study also does not show that removing Morganella resolved depression; the study did not attempt to remove it, and a researcher is quoted as saying it’s not clear how one would do so (last line of the article): > But it’s less clear how Morganella could be eliminated from the gut to relieve symptoms. “That’s a bit more challenging.”
    - taeric 5y ago

bladegash 5y ago

Will be interested to at some point see what kind of connection gastrointestinal autoimmune (among others) diseases such as Crohn’s and Ulcerative Colitis have on not only the guy microbe balance, but mental health as well. Many mental health disorders have strong genetic ties, as well as autoimmune diseases. Wonder if existence of one makes the likelihood of existence of the other greater.

whatshisface 5y ago
There's some progress now in tying specific mental disorders to autoimmune problems in the brain. Wish I could tell you more but all I know about this is that they test people's cerebral spinal fluid for antibodies against specific neurotransmitter receptors, and they've discovered several connections between those and problems people have.
- bladegash 5y ago
  Very interesting! I actually have both Crohn’s and bipolar disorder, and one anecdote that’s interesting (to me) is that the TNF inhibitor I’m on, which has put Crohn’s in remission, has simultaneously appeared to have a positive effect on the mood disorder side of things as well. Really cool to see the GI getting so much research! Edit: Found an interesting study that addresses the relationship between TNF and mood disorders - go figure! https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19477018/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19477018/

hirako2000 5y ago

or depression causes this bacteria to proliferate more easily? I see nothing in that research showing causation. It doesn't invalidate their correlation though.

charisma123 5y ago
"One of them, Morganella, was significantly increased in a microbial survey of the 181 people in the study who _later_ developed depression." they would have been diagnosed with depression first leading to increase in morganella, if it was the other way around? agree this could be correlation, but I guess thats why they say that the field is still in its infancy.
msrenee 5y ago
Do they claim causation anywhere? All I see is them saying there appears to be a link.
- hirako2000 5y ago
  Yes.It establishes linking, and claim further evidences of "causation". "seems to be “further proof" that inflammation caused by gut microbes can influence mood, Gilbert says."
  - msrenee 5y ago
    That appears to be a quote from another microbiologist who wasn't involved with the study. Even he only says it "seems to be" rather than "it is".
mateo1 5y ago
That's my thinking as well. Depression leads to lifestyle changes which includes dietary changes which can cause certain bacteria to grow faster, as your gut bacterial makeup changes constantly based on what kind of food you consume and which microorganisms are specialized for it. I think there will be some breakthroughs by studying the human microbiome, for example there could be reasons that a moderately harmful microorganism or strain becomes dominant in your gut for whatever reason and causes problems, but from my personal anecdotal experience with gut health and diet, I believe most issues will still be solved with dietary changes and perhaps some targeted antibiotics or antimicrobial treatments in general. I'm also willing to bet we'll discover a lot of immune involvement in the regulation of various bacterial population in the gut. There must be an adaptive system that minimizes or eliminates most harmful organisms in the gut, otherwise we'd all be dead.

wdwvt1 5y ago

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

engineeringwoke 5y ago
How much evidence is there of long-term effects of these types of treatments? Do you or other researchers in the space ever worry that you are in a sense curing the effect and not the cause (family and societal problems as I understand it), which would imply that efficacy would fall over time? Would sustained fecal transplants, etc. even work?
tsol 5y ago
How does alcohol affect gut bacteria? Is there enough research that the negative effects on the gut can be linked to changes in gut microbiota?
naasking 5y ago
How strong is the case that zero calorie sweeteners actually cause harmful changes to the microbiome that are linked to depression or other conditions?
RamblingCTO 5y ago
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.
nopcode 5y ago
What’s your opinion on zerocarb/carnivore diets? I don’t eat any fibers.
antiterra 5y ago
Is there evidence of gut biome activity directly interacting with the mesh of nerves in our digestive tract?

antiterra 5y ago

If you’re like me and somehow missed out that there’s an significant mesh of neurons in your guts that’s capable of independent neurotransmitter release, you should look up the enteric nervous system. Intuitively, at least, it seems to make sense of all the ‘gut’ connections to mood.

musingsole 5y ago
It's been described as a "cat's brain" equivalent of neurons. Largely seems attached to regulating various rhythms of the gut, but who knows what computations it could be influencing.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  Considering how often my cat manages to outsmart me I'd say that is a significant amount of neurons.

annoyingnoob 5y ago

Then there is this: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/02/06/1074719132/an-experimental-depression-treatment-uses-electric-currents-to-bring-relief https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/02/06/1074719... Zap your head or a fecal transplant? Choices, choices.

brainaxis 5y ago

Great to see the gut brain axis becoming more well known in medicine. Less than 10 years ago it was considered near pseudoscience to consider that the gut could actually influence the brain. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/the-brain-gut-connection https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-preventi... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4367209/#:~:text=The%20gut%2Dbrain%20axis%20(GBA,microbiota%20in%20influencing%20these%20interactions https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4367209/#:~:tex.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gut%E2%80%93brain_axis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gut%E2%80%93brain_axis

The_rationalist 5y ago
vmception 5y ago
I went down that rabbit hole to have a more informed opinion and I found that accepted science would converge on some of the same goals naturopaths and other alternative medicine practitioners eventually. Basically, they both want personalized medicine. As in, remedies that are custom tailored to the internal state of the individual, instead of “personalized” by listening to an individual describe a current ongoing affliction. Alternative medicine lacks any method for peer review or repeatability and practitioners themselves procedurally generate the remedies, which makes it incapable of being accepted science except by mere coincidence of some practices eventually being peer reviewed if reviewable at all. This is by a design that is comical to the scientific community, where “everybody is different”. At the same time, the scientific method and peer review itself is too rigid to evaluate all ailments, without associated advances in technology. This is also by design as it was necessary to distinguish the sciences from arbitrarily religious or arbitrarily heretical practices at one point in some areas. Now we are on the cusp of convergence of the ideals, by being able to analyze and sequence the symbiotic relationships within our bodies. How little control we have in many cases, or at least potentially redefining the sense of self.

fulafel 5y ago

This is a bacterium that is killed by antibiotics, right? Interesting that the effect wasn't noticed before.

yoyar 5y ago

I think the causal nature of this relationship is way overestimated.

antiterra 5y ago
I’m curious, why do you think that?
- potatoman22 5y ago
  Playing devil's advocate, do we have any reason to believe that people who are genetically more succeptible to depression aren't also more likely to have this sort of gut via genetics? That would result in this correlation. Perhaps improving your gut biome wouldn't actually help with depression?
  - yoyar 5y ago
    Agreed. No one knows.
  - antiterra 5y ago
    If people with depression have this sort of gut, that still doesn’t establish directional cause or mechanism. The semi-autonomous nervous system in our guts, the microbes in our guts, and our central nervous system have complex chemical signaling interactions. Neurotransmitters linked to effects on mood are generated by the gut. Therefore, the brain can signal to the gut that it should release neurotransmitters, and the gut can release those neurotransmitters itself. Because of this interaction, it’s possible the ‘culprit’ for depression is behavior by the brain, microbes on the gut, the gut itself, or the brain-gut interaction (Or any combination of the four.) A good summary of our understanding of these mechanisms is at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5772764/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5772764/

zabzonk 5y ago

> Thus, the newest study seems to be “further proof” that inflammation caused by gut microbes can influence mood Of course it bloody can - if you have IBS or any number of other gut-related problems, believe me you are very likely to be depressed, because the symptoms of these are very nasty and humiliating. This does not mean that the bacteria are directly affecting the CNS. Also: > Kiebdiella It's Klebsiella

asdfman123 5y ago
- zabzonk 5y ago
  No. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klebsiella https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klebsiella
wutbrodo 5y ago
It seems pretty obvious from reading the article in its entirety that the claim is that the inflammation is affecting mood directly, not via nasty and humiliating gastro symptoms.
- zabzonk 5y ago
  How would you differentate between the two?
  - wutbrodo 5y ago
    The same way you support any causal claim, by controlling for confounders. What gives you so much confidence that a suboptimal microbiome is tautologically accompanied by "nasty and humiliating" IBS symptoms, to the degree that would cause depression? Are you under the impression that everyone with a measurably poor microbiome automatically has nasty and humiliating IBS symptoms? You can assume that everyone involved in performing, analyzing, and reporting the study is incompetent, but at that point why not just assume that the entire article is inaccurate and that one can never understand anything about the world? I'm the last person to slavishly believe scientific authorities' interpretation of evidence when it's clearly done poorly (see: all of Covid). But it's bizarre to claim that researchers wouldn't have thought to rule out the most basic alternate hypotheses, especially when they have the data to do so.

Goety 5y ago

an army runs on their stomach and not anything else

thenerdhead 5y ago

I've seen these studies time and time again. I do wonder what are the practical steps one takes to "repair" or "renew" their gut? I'm not a fan of drugs being the cure. In fact, I don't think they are the first solution people should hope for or supplement with unless it's not practical to get them in a natural way. I feel like we see more and more gut related issues due to depression & depression's little cousin anxiety. IBS for example manifests itself from anxiety and can also be a gut microbiome imbalance. If there are more and more studies around gut health being a sort-of panacea of mental & physical health, why aren't we focusing on making healthier decisions for our diet, exercise, and mental well being? It's no surprise that many people(myself included) in our always connected world suffer with crippling anxiety from over stimulation/shock & awe news/comparison to others/overwork/etc. That anxiety manifests in your gut as digestive issues. Those digestive issues make you less likely to exercise for long periods of time or even at all. In my opinion, it's four main things. Increase sleep, improve/wide ranging diet, moderate exercise, and reduced stress. There are definitely hacks like fiber, yogurt, sauerkraut, and more that people swear by, but I am genuinely curious if a study had tracked some of these variables to see if they improve gut microbiomes.

chrisco255 5y ago
You could try an isolation diet. Just pick one basic food, such as steak or baked potatoes only, with no toppings except for maybe salt. And eat just that thing for a week or so. Then see how you feel after your gut adjusts. Then gradually add things back into your diet or start with a different food from square one. Not the easiest plan to implement by any stretch, but it's very effective as you're limiting confounding variables for figuring it out.
rpozarickij 5y ago
> what are the practical steps one takes to "repair" or "renew" their gut It was already mentioned in other threads, but you can find valuable insights in the AIP (autoimmune protocol) diet. Its main principle is that you first eliminate as many foods as possible that are known to cause issues for people (e.g. due to inflammation, autoimmune response) and then you slowly introduce more foods and see how your body reacts. I recently started following a similar approach in order to try to address some health issues and also to learn more about my body. In my case I'm leaning more towards the carnivore diet with occasional additions of foods allowed in AIP. In case anyone is curious about the carnivore diet, I found these YouTube channels to contain good content on this topic: KenDBerryMD, Paul Saladino (CarnivoreMD). I also enjoyed this discussion: https://youtu.be/Xgokvp5bfNg https://youtu.be/Xgokvp5bfNg It's easy to stumble upon conflicting information when it comes to nutrition, but I find that just being exposed to more options (rather than eating what everyone eats by default) can give you an opportunity to make the decisions that make sense to you.

vletal 5y ago

Is this really the causality. Could it be the other way around? Depressed people might in time develop bowl disorders?

exdsq 5y ago

I assume Tom Brady retired to make an income from the spice malange on the back of this news

mrfusion 5y ago

But could the causation be in the opposite direction?

fnord77 5y ago

as the article states, this was suspected or known for at least 15 years. Has anything actionable (treatment-wise) come of it?

zackmorris 5y ago

Just another data point, but my journey through digestive issues and recovery was kicked off by the worst depression and burnout I ever experienced, which started in 2019 and lasted 3 years. My best guess for what happened is that work stress, excessive celebration and coping with the cognitive dissonance of the pre-COVID era and subsequent pandemic, combined with overtraining and the misuse of protein shakes in place of food, left me in a chronically dehydrated state. The body tries to collect moisture from the gut, which opens an opportunity for bacteria to get into the body cavity and blood, which is colloquially called leaky gut. This sets off food sensitivities and eventually an autoimmune condition/response to lectins, gluten, etc, which have proteins similar to linings in the body, joints and thyroid. Then a cascade happens where everything goes out of whack quickly. In my case, I went from being in the best shape of my life, the strongest I had ever been in the gym, to barely able to get out of bed in the morning. In other people, it might present as chronic fatigue, arthritis, etc. I didn't really believe any of this in 2018, and my meal plan then consisted entirely of everything that I can't eat today. So I consider what people say politely, but for the most part, they have absolutely no idea what they're talking about. This experience has made stuff like GMO foods sound absolutely insane to me. Like, why would we ever taint our food supply to make food 5 cents cheaper or "feed the world" when we've been operating under artificial scarcity since the end of the second world war? It's all a crock. Every time you eat inflammatory food, the risk is similar to smoking a cigarette. Probably nothing will happen, but if it sets off your immune system, you may wake up one morning chronically depressed and/or unable to eat something that you rely upon. It got me after I turned 40, YMMV.

rkhassen9 5y ago
ZachMorris, the Same thing happened to me. Almost identical. Except have not really been cured. Agree 100% with what you wrote. What was your protocol to heal? I need some pointers as nothing has really helped. Thanks in advance.
- MrBuddyCasino 5y ago
  Feel free to join: https://discord.com/channels/940186707817562113/940186707817562116 https://discord.com/channels/940186707817562113/940186707817...

belltaco 5y ago

What if depression was causing the gut microbe changes? Like it was recently found with autism and gut changes. https://cosmosmagazine.com/health/body-and-mind/autism-gut-microbiome-link-causation-disputed/ https://cosmosmagazine.com/health/body-and-mind/autism-gut-m...

kibwen 5y ago
From the beginning of the article: "Whether those microbial deficits actually help cause the disorders is unclear, [...]" For the time being it appears to be careful in only suggesting correlation, not causation.
FastMonkey 5y ago
Depression might lead people to eat differently. I know when my diet suffers when I'm down, there's definitely more pizza and less fruit and veg.
thih9 5y ago
Note that the original article mentions: > "researchers recently reported in Frontiers in Psychiatry that fecal transplants improved symptoms in two depressed patients"
- smt88 5y ago
  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.
  - RamblingCTO 5y ago
    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.

Gatsky 5y ago

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 have important implications. We show that dietary fiber and probiotic use, factors known to affect the gut microbiome, are associated with differential outcomes to ICB. Although causality cannot be addressed from the observational human cohort, where unmeasured confounders may exist, our preclinical models support the hypothesis that dietary fiber and probiotics modulate the microbiome and that antitumor immunity is impaired in mice receiving a low-fiber diet and in those receiving probiotics—with suppression of intratumoral IFN-γ T cell responses in both cases. It would be a bit disappointing if the final conclusion from all this microbiome work was 'Eat more vegetables'... [1] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aaz7015 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aaz7015

t8e56vd4ih 5y ago
a healthy microbiome should be self sustaining. why would it be useful to eat bacteria that is supposed to be present in the gut already anyway. what does make sense though is providing a favorable environment. for that it will be useful to provide certain substances on a regular basis. so, going from microbiome to fiber might make plenty of sense even from the microbiome perspective.
- hourislate 5y ago
  From the article: >The finding, which emerged from a study of how genetics and diet affect the microbiome, “is really solid proof that this association could have major clinical importance.” It seems genetics can play a role in some people having a healthy flora. Maybe their bodies can't convert a certain bacteria from food stuff efficiently, thus they are required to supplement.
- errcorrectcode 5y ago
  Not if you genocide it with antibiotics or your parents or environment didn't have it well in the first place. People may want to take a fecal sample before starting antibiotics to "reseed" themselves. Also, it will take time to map and analyze essential and harmful constituent species. Perhaps there will be the equivalent of "vitamin" essential bacterial for persons of particular genetic makeups and diets.

phantom_oracle 5y ago

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. Whenever I see articles about health on HN, I no longer take them too seriously because the reductionist approach to medicine is why people get mistreated for symptoms instead of the disease. Even the ancient Greeks (the so-called birthplace of "western knowledge") took a more holistic approach than what the sketchy for-profit medical/pharmaceutical cabal does. But of course, we need to take it seriously because "the scientists say so", even though their own research system is so badly broken that a for-profit cabal runs the publishing arm of research. Strange times we live in.

throwaway932489 5y ago
I'm sure every culture, including Western ones, has some kind(s) of food everywhere along the "healthy" to "medicinal" scale. Everyone agrees what you eat is important, nobody can agree on what that should be, hopefully this kind of research will tell us.
CapitalistCartr 5y ago
"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.
- ComradePhil 5y ago
  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.

bell-cot 5y ago

> ... When it came to depression, two bacteria [...], Morganella and Kiebdiella, seemed to play a causal role, [...] Morganella has already been implicated in depression. As far back as 2008 ... This situation looks relatively simple to me - start searching for bactiophages which are specific to Morganella. Briefly test those in animals, then try them on a few volunteers who both are suffering from profound depression and seem to have very high Morganella levels in their guts. (While giving 'em fecal transplants from depression-free relatives and monitoring them intensively and such.) If that shows promise, then you might really have something (minus a whole lot more testing & refinement & such). If not...maybe back to the drawing board.

gbjw 5y ago

Interesting to note that the link between emotions and the 'gut' are all over the place in English: 'trust your gut' 'I have a gut feeling' 'I hate his guts' 'my gut reaction'.

mandmandam 5y ago
I would be very surprised if body/emotion metaphors weren't endemic in language. I don't speak too many languages, but I 've noticed that grokking English expressions isn't too hard for most tourists. "Chip on the shoulder", head in the game (or the clouds), foot in the mouth, butterflies in the stomach, etc; all seem fairly understandable to tourists who hear the expression. Some have a very literal origin - "scared shitless", for example - that I would look for first.

jvm___ 5y ago

Food equals mood. I tell my cranky kids this all the time. Or, hopefully, before they get cranky, my kids don't like eating at appropriate times, it's like they're missing the hunger gene or something.

bjoli 5y ago
With regards to my kids I usually think "normalize over a week". Most kids that aren't picky eaters will eat more or less on different days. I just try to make sure to have reasonably healthy choices available the days they do eat. Two days ago my son ate almost nothing for dinner. The day after he ate 6 big broccoli stems, 100g bulgur and one whole can of large white beans. I couldn't believe my eyes.

0F 5y ago

Micro biome is a literal pile of shit. Please forgive me because I couldn’t resist, but I think it’s massively overhyped and useless. It’s obviously going to be correlated to lots of things. But people measure the rough correlation and take it way too far. There’s nothing there… and if there is then it’s downstream of something more fundamental. Inflammation/metabolomics is the real revolution.