The gut microbiome has an intriguing relationship to mental health. Communication along the gut-brain axis is strongly implicated in depression and anxiety in animal models. Attempts to replicate rodent study outcomes in humans are encouraging. In one study, a strain of bifidobacterium which was able to normalize anxiety-like behavior in mice went on to show […]
anxiety
Age of Anxiety Calls for Probiotic Research
With soaring numbers of people taking anxiety-reducing drugs, it is good to remember that anxiety is a highly-valuable defense mechanism evolved over many thousands of years of evolution. Anxiety triggers cortisol release in essential fight-or-flight responses. Ergo, a calm demeanor in the face of real threats may cost life or limb. These days, the mounting stress […]
Probiotics May Be the New Prozac
Evolution carved out a special place for anxiety, an often helpful emotion which triggers cortisol release in fight-or-flight responses. Anxiety can save your life. But these days anxiety from uniquely modern stressors—health screenings, computer meltdowns, traffic jams, noise pollution and hundreds of other adverse events —lingers long after its usefulness. Chronic anxiety can kill you. This […]
Probiotics: A No-Brainer for Brain Health
Drugs target serotonin to reduce depression and other mood disorders. Could probiotics do the same, given that the microbiome is one smooth operator in gut-brain signaling?[i] Researchers Caroline J. K. Wallace and Roumen Milev of Queens University in Ontario asked the same in “The effects of probiotics on depressive symptoms in humans: a systematic review” which appeared in Annals of […]