The bad gut bacteria produced from a poor diet can induce depression symptoms
Food changes the types of bacteria present in your gut microbiome. Your gut bacteria may become less diverse as a result of your diet, which may cause the bad bacteria to outgrow the good bacteria, triggering a cascade of negative health effects. Food can also influence the chemical messages these bacteria send from your gut up to your brain along the vagus nerve—signals that can make you feel either depressed and drained or uplifted and energized.
Animal research first led scientists to theorize that people who are depressed have different populations of gut bacteria than those who are not depressed. For instance, in mice, when the brain’s main center for smell is surgically removed, the mice exhibit depression-like behavior. These changes were accompanied by alterations in gut bacteria. In other words, inducing depression in mice changes their gut activity and bacteria.
Studies in humans appear to confirm this hypothesis. In 2019, psychiatrist Stephanie Cheung and her colleagues summarized findings from six studies that looked at gut health in patients with depression. They reported that patients with depression had at least fifty types of bacterial species in their gut microbiome that were different from those of control subjects without depression. Recent research suggests that bacterial species associated with higher quality-of-life indicators are depleted in depressed subjects, while bacteria that cause inflammation are often found in higher numbers in people suffering from depression.
References
- Naidoo, Uma. (2020). This is Your Brain on Food Chapter 2. Depression Probiotics, Omega-3s, and the Mediterranean Eating Pattern (p. 32). New York, NY: Little Brown Spark.
Metadata
Type:🔴 Tags: Biology / Biochemistry / Neuroscience Status:☀️