Your Gut and Depression..what is the connection..

Most people fail to realize that your gut is quite literally your second brain, and actually has the ability to significantly influence your:

• Mind
• Mood
• Behavior

So while modern psychiatry still falsely claims that psychological problems such as depression are caused by a chemical imbalance in your brain, researchers keep finding that depression and a variety of behavioral problems actually appear to be linked to an imbalance of bacteria in your gut!

Germ-Free Mice Engage in High-Risk Behavior

In the featured study published last month in Neurogastroenterology & Motility, mice that lack gut bacteria were found to behave differently from normal mice, engaging in what would be referred to as "high-risk behavior." This altered behavior was accompanied by neurochemical changes in the mouse brain.
According to the authors, microbiota (your gut flora) may play a role in the communication between your gut and your brain, and:

"Acquisition of intestinal microbiota in the immediate postnatal period has a defining impact on the development and function of the gastrointestinal, immune, neuroendocrine and metabolic systems. For example, the presence of gut microbiota regulates the set point for hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity."

The neurotransmitter serotonin activates your hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis by stimulating certain serotonin receptors in your brain. Additionally, neurotransmitters like serotonin can also be found in your gut. In fact, the greatest concentration of serotonin, which is involved in mood control, depression and aggression, is found in your intestines, not your brain!
So it actually makes perfect sense to nourish your gut flora for optimal serotonin function as it can have a profound impact on your mood, psychological health, and behavior.
The authors concluded that:

"[T]he presence or absence of conventional intestinal microbiota influences the development of behavior..."

This conclusion adds support to another recent animal study, which also found that gut bacteria may influence mammalian early brain development and behavior. But that's not all. They also discovered that the absence or presence of gut microorganisms during infancy permanently alters gene expression.

Through gene profiling, they were able to discern that absence of gut bacteria altered genes and signaling pathways involved in learning, memory, and motor control. This suggests that gut bacteria is closely tied to early brain development and subsequent behavior. These behavioral changes could be reversed as long as the mice were exposed to normal microorganisms early in life. But once the germ-free mice had reached adulthood, colonizing them with bacteria did not influence their behavior.

According to Dr. Rochellys Diaz Heijtz, lead author of the study:

"The data suggests that there is a critical period early in life when gut microorganisms affect the brain and change the behavior in later life."

In a similar way, probiotics have also been found to influence the activity of hundreds of your genes, helping them to express in a positive, disease-fighting manner.

The Gut-Brain Connection

When you consider the fact that the gut-brain connection is recognized as a basic tenet of physiology and medicine, and that there's no shortage of evidence of gastrointestinal involvement in a variety of neurological diseases, it's easy to see how the balance of gut bacteria can play a significant role in your psychology and behavior as well.

With this in mind, it should also be crystal clear that nourishing your gut flora is extremely important, from cradle to grave, because in a very real sense you have two brains, one inside your skull and one in your gut, and each needs its own vital nourishment.
Interestingly, these two organs are actually created out of the same type of tissue. During fetal development, one part turns into your central nervous system while the other develops into your enteric nervous system. These two systems are connected via the vagus nerve, the tenth cranial nerve that runs from your brain stem down to your abdomen. This is what connects your two brains together, and explains such phenomena as getting butterflies in your stomach when you're nervous, for example. (For an interesting and well-written layman's explanation of this connection, read through Sandra Blakeslee's 1996 New York Times article Complex and Hidden Brain in Gut Makes Stomachaches and Butterflies.)

Your gut and brain work in tandem, each influencing the other. This is why your intestinal health can have such a profound influence on your mental health, and vice versa.
As a result, it should be obvious that your diet is closely linked to your mental health. Furthermore, it's requires almost no stretch of the imagination to see how lack of nutrition can have an adverse effect on your mood and subsequently your behavior.

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