
Gut Feelings: Bacteria and the Brain (2013) - HillaryBriss
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3788166/
======
keyle
I live with IBS and although I'm better now, I was in a terrible shape for
about 2.5 years. Very expensive rabbit hole of doctors and tests that lead
nowhere. Long story short, this is true. Gut bacteria (an imbalance in the
case of IBS) is a real thing. Never mess with your diet doing stupid stuff.
Always be weary of anti-biotics. And if you're suffering a lot at the moment
look up the low-fodmap diet from the Monash University. That's the only thing
that really helped me.

~~~
edem
I've checked some of the diets but it is not explained why I should avoid
garlic? Can you elaborate? Another problem is that by avoiding all the stuff
in the "stuff to avoid" list makes dietary fibre intake problematic. How do
you add more fibre to your diet if you can't eat legumes nor fruits like pear.

~~~
nibs
Asafoetida tastes like garlic but does not ferment - replace garlic with it
and then try reintroducing. Try eating raw vegetables or pho style (where the
veggies cook lightly in the broth after being served but not enough to become
easily fermented and soluble). What you are aiming for is high insoluble fiber
and limited soluble fiber - so you can still eat things high in insoluble
fiber like banana, bok choy, green beans, nuts.

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tudorw
your microbiota are primed at birth, then over life they change at each stage
of development, around 6, around 13, around 26, around 40 and later in life,
they impact your microbiome which effects the way you feel profoundly as well
as the function of your immune system, the clinical research is out there to
support this.
[http://www.nature.com/articles/srep23075](http://www.nature.com/articles/srep23075)

~~~
AndreiC92
so can you control this in order to improve your life?

~~~
tudorw
ultimately I believe that artificial enzymes will unlock the secret to eternal
life, I do not think I will be around to see that, yes, you can certainly 'set
yourself up for success' by understanding nutrition and trying to make sure
the chemistry set that is your body gets the right access to the stuff it
needs to operate your biochemistry, which has a large influence over physical
and mental well being.

~~~
thwang
What are your thoughts on telomere extension? I feel like a combo of the two
fields will have great results.

~~~
tudorw
seems like a good avenue to explore,
[http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101128/full/news.2010.635.ht...](http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101128/full/news.2010.635.html)
there seems to be a fair bit we don't know about telemerase, well, lots I
don't know!
[http://www.jneurosci.org/content/22/24/10710.short](http://www.jneurosci.org/content/22/24/10710.short)
[http://molehr.oxfordjournals.org/content/3/9/769.short](http://molehr.oxfordjournals.org/content/3/9/769.short)

"Resveratrol is a stilbenoid, commonly found in grapes and in the roots of the
Japanese Knotweed during stress and bacterial or fungial infection. In mouse
and rat experiments, resveratrol has been shown to play a role in telomere
lengthening, telomerase activity enhancement, blood sugar-lowering, inhibition
of platelet aggregation, promotion of vasodilation by enhancing the production
of NO and have anti-inflammatory properties."

[http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2016/0030530.html](http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2016/0030530.html)

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amai
Have a look at
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactobacillus_reuteri](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactobacillus_reuteri)
: "...those consuming L. reuteri daily end up falling ill 50% less often, as
measured by their decrease use of sick leave."

~~~
simplexion
That is based on a single study and not a fantastic one. I would be a bit
skeptical of it.

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esotericsean
Nothing new. Not sure why HN is obsessed with old articles about gut bacteria.

~~~
trhway
quick easy hacks solving complex hard-to-debug problems have its appeal. I
spent bunch of years suffering from what happens to be candida overgrowth and
its feels really great once i was able to take it under control.

~~~
sushid
How were you able to solve your problem? And if you don't mind me asking, what
were some symptoms that made you want to get checked out?

Also, how were you able to get tested?

Sorry for bombing you with questions, but I'm just genuinely curious as I've
wanted to get tested but my primary physician instantly dismissed it and made
me feel like I was suggesting voodoo rituals.

~~~
trhway
the same about physician :). Anyway - i'm not a doctor, so it is just a
personal anekdot. To me it was very active fermentation and resulting
excessive unstoppable belching (impacting/stumbling the natural breathing
movement of the chest/lungs and that breathing problem made it very hard to
for example concentrate or to get to sleep, etc.), fatigue and brain fog.
Reading Internet made it pretty clear that yeast/candida is the primary (and
basically the only) candidate. Antifungals drugs seems to be the medical way
to go. On the other side - giving that candida is the natural tenant inside
our GI system, it seems to me (again, i'm not a doctor, it is just my
understanding) that full "cure" isn't really possible and one can only control
the issue. Giving that people reported very different results with those drugs
and those drugs may be heavy on liver i decided to go initially with more
natural alternatives. I'v been so far fortunate that it works for me.
Specifically well known natural antifungals - garlic (as pills because real
garlic smell is an issue at home and at work :), apple cider vinegar (for me
it works as 2 tablespoons diluted in a glass of water 2 times a day), ginger
(several cups of ginger tea during the day. Also instead of apple cider
vinegar i frequently use vinegar based tonic like Kevita, specifically the
"Tumeric Ginger" one. The tonic also contains probiotic cultures and that
works great for me). I use all 3 of them - garlic, vinegar, ginger - as at the
beginning i noticed that when using only one the yeast seems to adjust after
some time and the issue starts to come back. In general it seems very
individual, takes some time and experimentation. It took me several months to
develop my regimen mentioned above and achieve current stable good results.
Again, i'm not a doctor and this is just a personal anekdot.

~~~
edem
Sounds nice but we don't have Kevita in our country (Hungary). Can you name
some alternatives?

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tmaly
I have been very curious how the use of antibiotics at a very young age has
tied in with food allergies.

Has anyone read or researched this topic?

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padwan
[https://www.caltech.edu/news/microbes-help-produce-
serotonin...](https://www.caltech.edu/news/microbes-help-produce-serotonin-
gut-46495)

Although serotonin is well known as a brain neurotransmitter, it is estimated
that 90 percent of the body's serotonin is made in the digestive tract. In
fact, altered levels of this peripheral serotonin have been linked to diseases
such as irritable bowel syndrome, cardiovascular disease, and osteoporosis.

------
prakashrj
All children with Autism have gut issues. They have dysbiosis which causes
them to behave like they do. Many children recover when their gut micro-biome
is fixed. Organic Castor Oil taken regularly twice a week for an year will fix
it. I know that people will not believe it. But I would just like to post it
here just for future reference.

~~~
sixo
Speaking of reference, why don't you provide one?

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curioussavage
Huge doses of probiotics have done wonders for me.

~~~
iaminatree
Would you mind telling me more specifically what you mean by "huge"? And do
you take them in capsule form?

~~~
costcopizza
Curious as well.

I've noticed no benefit in any area with probiotics, although his post did say
"huge doses".

------
HillaryBriss
> Researchers have recently shown that the presence of gut microbiota during
> early development influences the brain’s neural connectivity related to
> anxiety and depression. Gut microbiota has been linked to behavior, to
> stress, and to stress-related diseases. Changes in gut microbiota may
> influence risk of disease, and manipulating microbiota may provide novel
> ways to intervene in clinical situations related to mood and anxiety
> disorders.

------
bertiewhykovich
Am I imagining that the enthusiasm for gut bacteria research is driven in part
(potentially in large part) by the failure of more classical physiological
paradigms for understanding mental illness? Anything to avoid confronting the
fact that people have real, profound problems, eh?

~~~
graeme
A friend of mine has depression, and yet externally his life is excellent (he
knows this, but that doesn't change how his mind perceives reality). I've had
very large problems, and maintained mental health throughout.

Do external factors influence mental health? Undoubtedly. But that hardly
means things like bacteria aren't a factor as well.

~~~
cpncrunch
From my own experience and that of friends/family, when you really dig deeply
you'll find that there is actually a reason for depression most of the time.
The question to ask is: is this really what I want to be doing with my life
right now? You may be making great money as a stockbroker on Wall Street with
a great family, or earning $200k at google, but if that's not really what you
want to do deep down, you may get depressed.

>I've had very large problems, and maintained mental health throughout.

There are a lot of factors that determine whether life shit causes depression.

>But that hardly means things like bacteria aren't a factor as well.

Agreed, but there isn't much evidence of that at the moment.

~~~
majormajor
What if what you really want to do is lay on the couch and read or watch TV
all days?

Except for some days, where you feel better, and want to be more active, and
you get shit done?

And then you wish more of the former days were like the latter days, but don't
understand why they aren't?

~~~
piptastic
That, or if you don't have any clue what you might do differently that would
make any difference at all.

------
grzm
[2013]

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mksmith
Gut bacteria seem to be the phrenology of the 21st century.

I'm sure it will all be debunked in 20 years.

~~~
mmanfrin
Care to explain your stance, or should we just agree with a brand new HN
account saying a published research paper is false?

~~~
mksmith2
Sure: Personal acquaintance with a published researcher (professor) who did
not know when to use MANOVA in his own experiment.

Student of another professor who was _told_ to repeat his PhD experiment until
the p-value was "acceptable".

Being published means very little in medicine.

Also, constant hype on HN for gut bacteria with credulous comments (or
advertising, as another poster pointed out).

~~~
tstactplsignore
I work in the field. The statistical mistakes are only one problem-
researchers in the field also make huge mistakes in understanding both
microbial diversity and computational genomics. It is partly because many of
these studies are run by human biology-minded researchers who know very little
about either statistical analysis or microbial diversity (IMO ignorance of
microbiology is as big an issue in the field as ignorance of stats).

The other issue is this is a uniquely and enormously complicated intersection
of science- there simply are few to no people who are simultaneously
knowledgeable about immunology, statistics, computational genomics, microbial
physiology, and microbial diversity- the bare minimum number of fields that
will come into play when dissecting a host-microbe interaction.

That being said there are some very brilliant and rigorous people working in
the field. 10%-20% of the research is high quality. In a 5-20 year range we'll
discover exactly how enormous the true impact of commensal microbes on human
biology is, even if the path is not a straight one and every publication is
not correct. So science goes.

