9 ms·

Intestinal bacteria may influence our moods

212 points by drjohnson 12y ago

curiousDog 12y 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 12y ago
  I'm just asking, but is there any chance the connection is the reverse? Stress and anxiety can cause digestive symptoms.
  - bignaj 12y 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 12y 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.
    - cpncrunch 12y ago
      So essentially changing diet is partly (or mostly) a placebo effect. IMO it is better to understand the causes of IBS/anxiety/stress and make changes to your lifestyle that address the root cause, rather than believing dubious science about gluten. (I'm not saying that you personally believe this crap science, but there are a lot of people out there who do). That has certainly worked well for me. I still do have IBS on occasion, but after doing some research into the HPA axis and ANS (and how the control gastric emptying, colonic transit and absorption) I now understand exactly why I have the symptoms, and they are very manageable. I don't have CFS, burnout, fatigue, anxiety or depression any more, but mild IBS seems to be a fact of life. Working for myself at home certainly helps a lot.
      - gouggoug 12y ago
        > So essentially changing diet is partly (or mostly) a placebo effect. IMO it is better to understand the causes of IBS/anxiety/stress and make changes to your lifestyle that address the root cause, rather than believing dubious science about gluten. That sounds very much like the approach a software/hardware engineer would have towards a bug. And it's great! However, I'd say that the human body can't really be approached that way because of its, very much, inconstant nature (at least until we've figured out 100% how our bodies function). In the current state of knowledge human kind has about biology, it would be very hard to pin-point a "bug" (IBS/stress/anxiety for example) to a specific root cause (bacteria x or y). On the opposite end, a software bug ultimately has one (or multiple) very much identifiable root causes. All that to say that, it might not be possible to understand the causes of IBS/anxiety/stress, and thus, treating the symptoms might actually be the cure. (who knows, maybe treating a "biological bug" fixes the actual bug?) It's also a chicken and egg problem: which started first? IBS or stress/anxiety?
        cpncrunch 12y ago
        Yes, it's a little more difficult pinning down problems with the human body than in a piece of code, and these kind of functional problems even seem to have stumped most of the medical profession. However I see it as an engineering challenge. Essentially you are looking at a complex system and trying to solve a problem in a piece of machinery that you don't have any information about. Sometimes working around bugs in android or iOS can involve similar detective work. In terms of IBS, there is very little doubt that in my own situation that stress causes the IBS rather than the other way around. Diarrhea during the week, followed by constipation during weekends. Or diarrhea preceeding before a novel event. These are repeatable and predictable - it just requires taking a close look at your situation and seeing if you can see any correlations. Unfortunately it can be easy to get fooled into seeing correlations that don't exist.
  - calinet6 12y ago
    I think this vicious cycle is one of the biggest human bugs around. It's a malfunctioning recursive negative feedback loop.
AdamFernandez 12y ago
It's always interesting to think of humans as giant integrated microbiomes. Our bacteria is part of who and what we are.
jmhain 12y 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 12y 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.
  - bignaj 12y 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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOD2 and you can learn a lot of interesting things about our innate immune system.
agumonkey 12y 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 12y 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 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 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-bacteria-might-guide-the-workings-of-our-minds http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/11/18/244526773/gut-bac...
- jonas_b 12y ago
  No expert on the topic, though it really interests me. Have been drinking EM (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_microorganism 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
Paul_Dessert 12y 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."
- bignaj 12y 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_Dessert 12y ago
    Yeah, no conflict of interest whatsoever...
    - bignaj 12y ago
      Breaking: people invest money in things that interest or could benefit them. I can see what you're saying but your own personal (subjective) opinions about corporations may be clouding your reasoning.
      - Paul_Dessert 12y ago
        "your own personal (subjective) opinions about corporations" What do you know about my opinions?
      - bignaj 12y ago
        @Paul_Dessert: you don't try especially hard to hide them.
    - angersock 12y ago
      Just because they have a special interest doesn't mean that there is a conflict of interest. You can still get useful science from people that are hoping for a particular outcome.
snarfy 12y 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 12y 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 12y 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 12y 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 12y 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 12y 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 12y 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_%28pharmacologist%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Pfeiffer_%28pharmacologis... 2: http://www.amazon.com/Nutrient-Power-Heal-Biochemistry-Brain/dp/1626361282/ http://www.amazon.com/Nutrient-Power-Heal-Biochemistry-Brain... 3: http://examine.com/supplements/Fish+Oil/ http://examine.com/supplements/Fish+Oil/
aridiculous 12y 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 http://neuroscience.uth.tmc.edu/s4/chapter04.html
outworlder 12y 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 12y 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_Dessert 12y 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 12y 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 12y 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/scientificamerican0912-54_BX1.html http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v307/n3/box... [2] http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science_of_longevity/2013/09/life_expectancy_history_public_health_and_medical_advances_that_lead_to.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science_of_... [3] http://www.demographic-challenge.com/files/downloads/2eb51e2860ef54d218ce5ce19abe6a59/dc_biodemography_of_human_ageing_nature_2010_vaupel.pdf http://www.demographic-challenge.com/files/downloads/2eb51e2... [4] http://www.prb.org/Journalists/Webcasts/2010/humanlongevity.aspx http://www.prb.org/Journalists/Webcasts/2010/humanlongevity....
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
popsomoa 12y 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWT_BLVOASI (The topic is "Mind Altering Microbes")
xipho 12y 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 12y 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 12y 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 12y ago
  Similarly, hypothesis like these were why I invested in uBiome.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
le_meta 12y ago
McDonald's knows this.
LizVerano 12y ago
Oh really?! Maybe i have lots of bacterias in my intestine.
TheSpiceIsLife 12y 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/0330245929 http://www.amazon.com/Not-All-Mind-Richard-Mackarness/dp/033...

212 points by drjohnson 12y 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 12y ago
I'm just asking, but is there any chance the connection is the reverse? Stress and anxiety can cause digestive symptoms.
- bignaj 12y 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 12y 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.
  - cpncrunch 12y ago
    So essentially changing diet is partly (or mostly) a placebo effect. IMO it is better to understand the causes of IBS/anxiety/stress and make changes to your lifestyle that address the root cause, rather than believing dubious science about gluten. (I'm not saying that you personally believe this crap science, but there are a lot of people out there who do). That has certainly worked well for me. I still do have IBS on occasion, but after doing some research into the HPA axis and ANS (and how the control gastric emptying, colonic transit and absorption) I now understand exactly why I have the symptoms, and they are very manageable. I don't have CFS, burnout, fatigue, anxiety or depression any more, but mild IBS seems to be a fact of life. Working for myself at home certainly helps a lot.
    - gouggoug 12y ago
      > So essentially changing diet is partly (or mostly) a placebo effect. IMO it is better to understand the causes of IBS/anxiety/stress and make changes to your lifestyle that address the root cause, rather than believing dubious science about gluten. That sounds very much like the approach a software/hardware engineer would have towards a bug. And it's great! However, I'd say that the human body can't really be approached that way because of its, very much, inconstant nature (at least until we've figured out 100% how our bodies function). In the current state of knowledge human kind has about biology, it would be very hard to pin-point a "bug" (IBS/stress/anxiety for example) to a specific root cause (bacteria x or y). On the opposite end, a software bug ultimately has one (or multiple) very much identifiable root causes. All that to say that, it might not be possible to understand the causes of IBS/anxiety/stress, and thus, treating the symptoms might actually be the cure. (who knows, maybe treating a "biological bug" fixes the actual bug?) It's also a chicken and egg problem: which started first? IBS or stress/anxiety?
      - cpncrunch 12y ago
        Yes, it's a little more difficult pinning down problems with the human body than in a piece of code, and these kind of functional problems even seem to have stumped most of the medical profession. However I see it as an engineering challenge. Essentially you are looking at a complex system and trying to solve a problem in a piece of machinery that you don't have any information about. Sometimes working around bugs in android or iOS can involve similar detective work. In terms of IBS, there is very little doubt that in my own situation that stress causes the IBS rather than the other way around. Diarrhea during the week, followed by constipation during weekends. Or diarrhea preceeding before a novel event. These are repeatable and predictable - it just requires taking a close look at your situation and seeing if you can see any correlations. Unfortunately it can be easy to get fooled into seeing correlations that don't exist.
- calinet6 12y ago
  I think this vicious cycle is one of the biggest human bugs around. It's a malfunctioning recursive negative feedback loop.

AdamFernandez 12y ago

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

jmhain 12y 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 12y 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.
- bignaj 12y 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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOD2 and you can learn a lot of interesting things about our innate immune system.

agumonkey 12y 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 12y 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 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 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-bacteria-might-guide-the-workings-of-our-minds http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/11/18/244526773/gut-bac...

jonas_b 12y ago
No expert on the topic, though it really interests me. Have been drinking EM (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_microorganism 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

Paul_Dessert 12y 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."

bignaj 12y 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_Dessert 12y ago
  Yeah, no conflict of interest whatsoever...
  - bignaj 12y ago
    Breaking: people invest money in things that interest or could benefit them. I can see what you're saying but your own personal (subjective) opinions about corporations may be clouding your reasoning.
    - Paul_Dessert 12y ago
      "your own personal (subjective) opinions about corporations" What do you know about my opinions?
    - bignaj 12y ago
      @Paul_Dessert: you don't try especially hard to hide them.
  - angersock 12y ago
    Just because they have a special interest doesn't mean that there is a conflict of interest. You can still get useful science from people that are hoping for a particular outcome.

snarfy 12y 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 12y 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 12y 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 12y 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 12y 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 12y 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 12y 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_%28pharmacologist%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Pfeiffer_%28pharmacologis... 2: http://www.amazon.com/Nutrient-Power-Heal-Biochemistry-Brain/dp/1626361282/ http://www.amazon.com/Nutrient-Power-Heal-Biochemistry-Brain... 3: http://examine.com/supplements/Fish+Oil/ http://examine.com/supplements/Fish+Oil/

aridiculous 12y 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 http://neuroscience.uth.tmc.edu/s4/chapter04.html

outworlder 12y 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 12y 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_Dessert 12y 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 12y 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 12y 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/scientificamerican0912-54_BX1.html http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v307/n3/box... [2] http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science_of_longevity/2013/09/life_expectancy_history_public_health_and_medical_advances_that_lead_to.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science_of_... [3] http://www.demographic-challenge.com/files/downloads/2eb51e2860ef54d218ce5ce19abe6a59/dc_biodemography_of_human_ageing_nature_2010_vaupel.pdf http://www.demographic-challenge.com/files/downloads/2eb51e2... [4] http://www.prb.org/Journalists/Webcasts/2010/humanlongevity.aspx http://www.prb.org/Journalists/Webcasts/2010/humanlongevity....

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popsomoa 12y 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWT_BLVOASI (The topic is "Mind Altering Microbes")

xipho 12y 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 12y 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 12y 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 12y ago
Similarly, hypothesis like these were why I invested in uBiome.
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le_meta 12y ago

McDonald's knows this.

LizVerano 12y ago

Oh really?! Maybe i have lots of bacterias in my intestine.

TheSpiceIsLife 12y 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/0330245929 http://www.amazon.com/Not-All-Mind-Richard-Mackarness/dp/033...