
Gut Microbes May Talk to the Brain Through Cortisol - MichaelAO
http://neurosciencenews.com/gut-microbes-cortisol-7338/
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Chiba-City
We are linking gut health to schizophrenia and now ASD. At 51, I eat homemade
yogurt, Braggs vinegar, live pickled vegetables, some miso and ground flax
seed every day. I just avoid sugars, booze and factory food at home. I have
serious seasonal allergies and inflammation common to people who relocate to
flowery swampy Washington, DC. I had one round of sinus surgery due to
constant infections. I will not be an Olympic swimmer, but strong gut
maintenance makes food better and days easier than time wasting doctors, pills
and powders. The solutions are too simple and regimen based to weaponize,
refine, patent and bottle.

~~~
CodeWriter23
Have you looked into the GAPS protocol? There's an operating theory that
allergies and autoimmune issues are linked pinhole-sized ruptures in the
intestines, and GAPS takes a very pragmatic and mechanical approach to helping
heal one's intestines. My wife had eczema from her fingertips to her shoulders
on both arms and GAPS mostly cleared it up over a couple of weeks. She fully
cleared up the eczema using the Autoimmune Paleo Protocol for a few more
weeks.

~~~
dimmuborgir
GAPS protocol is a quackery and its creator is antiscientific and dogmatic.[1]
Your wife's eczema cure probably had nothing to do with GAPS protocol. Even if
it was the reason it may not work for others and other diseases.

[1] - [http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/08/01/gaps-in-a-
docto...](http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/08/01/gaps-in-a-doctors-
reasoning-about-vaccines/)

~~~
CodeWriter23
The idea of healing small ruptures in the intestines by lining them with fats
and collagen to isolate them from inflammatory stool components, and then
preserving that lining by eating soft foods seems highly practical to me.

And on a scientific scale, I give your assessment a zero. You have simply
wielded the word "science" with contempt prior to any observation. IOW you're
employing pseudoscience to make your point, then referencing a blog post which
cherry picks assertions from a licensed scientist, cites them out of context,
relies on analogy, and you present this as "Science". You have in essence
conflated science with rhetoric, especially given the well-documented biases
of the Skeptics, the organization behind scienceblogs.

~~~
vanderZwan
Contrary to you he at least gave a reference link to pick apart and discuss
the validity of his claim. Which is better than a counterargument thar boils
down to "I believe it could work because these ideas behind it soundsl
reasonable" with no actual back-up from scientific studies testing those
hypotheses. Which is then followed by an ad hominem accusation of being
unscientific, and topped off with a claim of "well documented biases" but
again without providing any actual references to said biases.

I don't know anything about GAPS and have no stake in its validity going
either way, but I can say that your accusations of unscientific behaviour come
across as projection.

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cpncrunch
They didn't actually find that microbes talk to the brain through cortisol.
They just found an association between gut microbes, cortisol and the brain.

We already know that the brain influences gut microbes through cortisol. So
why did they not say that this is the most likely route for communication,
rather than speculating on an unproven association in the other direction?

I find it odd that these studies keep popping up, and HN users keep voting for
them. It seems there is a great desire for people to want to blame bacteria
for autism/depression/IBS/CFS, rather than accepting a neurological or
psychiatric cause.

Now, I'm not saying this stuff shouldn't be researched. Of course it should.
It's just sad that people automatically assume the direction of causation is
the unlikely one (gut->brain), rather than the one we know for certain exists
(brain->gut). (And yes, we do know there is a gut-brain pathway, but generally
it is just active during infections).

~~~
brightball
On the autism side, it's because autism also comes with serious
gastrointestinal issues. So many people think it's just a neurological issue
but there is a legitimate, non-conspiratorial link there.

What people want to know, is why?

[https://www.autismspeaks.org/science/science-news/new-
insigh...](https://www.autismspeaks.org/science/science-news/new-insight-
autism-and-intestinal-problems)

~~~
nudiustertian
as an autistic person with many autistic friends i would definitely like you
not to grossly simplify the matter so bluntly. thanks

~~~
brightball
I mean no offense, but what am I simplifying?

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CodeWriter23
Gut microbes _may_ talk to the brain through cortisol. On related note, a
direct passage between the brain and the lymph system was discovered last
year. It's behind the sinus cavity and bypasses the blood brain barrier.

[https://news.virginia.edu/illimitable/discovery/theyll-
have-...](https://news.virginia.edu/illimitable/discovery/theyll-have-rewrite-
textbooks)

~~~
epmaybe
how is this related?

~~~
CodeWriter23
Gut microbes interact with and effect the lymph system.

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thriftwy
Since bullshit is cheap, viruses, bacterias and fetuses try to use hormones to
make host organisms jump hoops for them.

That's why there's evolutionary pressure to make hormones hard to craft.

~~~
utexaspunk
So hormones are like the body's proof-of-work system?

~~~
thriftwy
Some of them are based on hard currency: Iodine.

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Jun8
It seems more and more possible that we will soon discover substances that
affect the gut microbiome to control/change people's behavior, for good or
worse.

~~~
will_brown
Well we know we can curb even cocaine addicted rats (behavior) by offering a
mutually exclusive option of the cocaine or sugar/sweetener. They don't
exactly get into the microbiome, but in a separate study they do test the
differences of high fat vs high sugar diets and the impact on the microbiome:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2894525/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2894525/)

The study showed the same preference using both saccharin –a calorie-free
sweetener - and sucrose (natural sugar w/calories). The study was also
performed on rats who had never been introduced to cocaine and those exposed
and with addiction to the drug. Up to 94% of the rats preferred the sweetener.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1931610/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1931610/)

I'd go into some of the human studies, but it tends to start a flame war here,
so I'll skip it and just link to this, and allow people to draw there own
conclusions:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4940716/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4940716/)

~~~
Simon_says
I'm not sure what that proves other than that sugar is more addictive than
cocaine.

------
dispo001
side note: "The researchers studied 1-month-old piglets, which are remarkably
similar to human infants in terms of their gut and brain development."

[http://www.macroevolution.net/human-
origins.html](http://www.macroevolution.net/human-origins.html)

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bitwize
It just wouldn't be Hacker News without a gut-bacteria story, replete with
commenters dietarily virtue-signalling and even dusting off "leaky gut
syndrome", which precisely zero medical evidence proves is a thing.

Remember, gut bacteria are why webshit stinks.

~~~
6d6b73
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22109896](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22109896)

Autoimmune diseases are characterized by tissue damage and loss of function
due to an immune response that is directed against specific organs. This
review is focused on the role of impaired intestinal barrier function on
autoimmune pathogenesis. Together with the gut-associated lymphoid tissue and
the neuroendocrine network, the intestinal epithelial barrier, with its
intercellular tight junctions, controls the equilibrium between tolerance and
immunity to non-self antigens. Zonulin is the only physiologic modulator of
intercellular tight junctions described so far that is involved in trafficking
of macromolecules and, therefore, in tolerance/immune response balance. When
the zonulin pathway is deregulated in genetically susceptible individuals,
autoimmune disorders can occur. This new paradigm subverts traditional
theories underlying the development of these diseases and suggests that these
processes can be arrested if the interplay between genes and environmental
triggers is prevented by re-establishing the zonulin-dependent intestinal
barrier function. Both animal models and recent clinical evidence support this
new paradigm and provide the rationale for innovative approaches to prevent
and treat autoimmune diseases.

