[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ fullwidth=”on” _builder_version=”3.21″ background_size=”initial”][et_pb_fullwidth_header title=”When mental illness is not just in your head” subhead=”How gut bacteria could be affecting your mood” header_fullscreen=”on” admin_label=”Fullwidth Header” _builder_version=”3.21″ title_font=”||||||||” title_text_align=”center” title_text_color=”#000000″ title_font_size=”50px” content_font=”||||||||” content_text_align=”center” content_text_color=”#000000″ subhead_font=”|700|||||||” subhead_text_align=”center” subhead_text_color=”#000000″ subhead_font_size=”30px” background_image=”https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/catalyst\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/drew-hays-206414-unsplash.jpg” parallax=”on”] <\/p>\n
By Ebonie Walker and Haneen<\/strong> Al-Hassoun<\/strong>[\/et_pb_fullwidth_header][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.21″][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.21″][et_pb_column type=”3_5″ _builder_version=”3.21″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.21″ text_font=”||||||||”]<\/p>\n During her undergrad, Ana Santos was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and major depression. And like many people diagnosed with these mental health disorders, she was put on traditional medication to manage her symptoms. However, this did not work for her.<\/strong><\/p>\n Santos has always been interested in the effect of food on people. She pursued a minor in food science. This and a neuroscience course led her into the world of diet, microbiomes and mental health.<\/p>\n She decided to make herself her own guinea pig and experimented with all kinds of food, until she found a diet that reduced the symptoms of her mental health disorders\u2014enough to ditch the prescribed medication.<\/p>\n \u201cSeeing how effective it was for myself, going from panic attacks multiple times a week to fast tracking into my PhD, was enough for me to believe so wholeheartedly that more of this research needs to be done,\u201d Santos said.<\/p>\n Now, as a doctoral candidate at Carleton University, she\u2019s doing just that by studying the effect of anxiety and depression on the gut microbiome and how diet can help with the symptoms.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_5″ _builder_version=”3.21″][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/catalyst\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/IMG_1801.jpg” _builder_version=”3.21″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.21″ header_font=”||||||||” custom_margin=”-20px||”]<\/p>\n Ana Santos was diagnosed with depression and anxiety in her undergrad. [Photo \u00a9 Haneen Al-Hassoun]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.21″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.21″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.21″]<\/p>\n The microbiome is the mini-ecosystem of microorganisms that live in and on the human body. The trillions of bacteria in our gut help us digest the food we eat by helping to extract the nutrients. Our microbiome also teaches our immune system the difference between symbiotic and pathogenic bacteria, allowing our immune system to respond accordingly.<\/p>\n Henry Schreiber IV, a postdoctoral researcher at the California Institute of Technology, likens the gut microbiome to an organ, albeit one composed of many different life forms. \u201cIt\u2019s an organ the same [as] your liver or your kidney is,\u201d\u00a0 Schreiber said. In other words, when all goes well, the microbiome can keep a person healthy, but when something goes wrong, the microbiome can make you sick.<\/p>\n Now researchers are starting to discover that the gut microbiome can also manipulate your mind, by producing molecules that modify mood, and by acting on a nerve that connects the gut at the brain. These finding might help medical professionals treat mental health more holistically, by considering the microbiome when they want to help the mind.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_testimonial _builder_version=”3.21″]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Paul Forsythe<\/p>\n Professor, McMaster University<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n [\/et_pb_testimonial][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.21″][et_pb_column type=”2_5″ _builder_version=”3.21″][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/cusjc.ca\/catalyst\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Mental-health-in-Canada-2.png” _builder_version=”3.21″][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”3_5″ _builder_version=”3.21″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.21″ header_font=”||||||||” header_3_font=”||||||||” header_3_text_color=”#d37400″]<\/p>\n Studies on the gut microbiome have spiked over the past few years, but some researchers began studying the gut microbiome almost four decades ago.<\/p>\n In the late eighties two scientists, Linda R. Hegstrand and Roberta Jean Hine published a study that looked at the histamine levels in germ-free and conventionally raised mice. According to Susan L. Prescott at the University of Western Australia, their work was initially overlooked.\u00a0 Yet as Prescott points out in the Human Microbiome Journal, these two scientists were among the first to propose that gut microbes may influence brain-chemistry.<\/p>\n Today, scientists are starting to understand the full implications of their pioneering work.<\/p>\n Our gut microbiome changes quickly in our first couple years of life. According to the European Society for Neurogastroenterology & Motility (ESNM), the human gut microbiome begins to stabilize itself by the time we are around three years old but it is never fully static.<\/p>\n Microbiome membership can change based on diet, stress levels and other environmental factors. For the past couple years, researchers, have been piecing together the links between stress, the gut microbiome and mental health. The once outlandish idea that intestinal bacteria could influence mental health has started to gain traction.<\/p>\n Paul Forsythe, who studies the gut-brain axis at McMaster University said there are three major biological systems–the immune, the nervous and the endocrine system\u2014that act as communication conduits.<\/p>\n \u201cThey all pretty much act together to send signals from the gut to the brain,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n In animal models such as mice, Forsythe and his research team found that bacteria in the gut can alter the animals\u2019 nervous and immune system, and ultimately how their brain functions as a result. For example, germ-free mice models that were given the gut bacteria of obese mice, became obese as well.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, other studies show a difference between the microbiome of people with depression and the microbiome of non-depressed people, Forsythe said.<\/p>\n These studies suggest that altering the gut microbiome of people with depression to make it similar to that of those who aren\u2019t depressed could perhaps reduce their depression too, he said. The idea is to identify certain bacteria \u201cthat seemed to be very good at influencing the central nervous system of behavior,\u201d Forsythe said.<\/p>\n\n
Now, the idea is that whatever [treatment] you give, may only have to be active in the gut and then rely on this gut-brain communication pathway to send healthy signals to the brain and reduce anxiety and depression<\/h3>\n
The gut-brain axis, explained<\/span><\/h3>\n