Gut health is the cornerstone of overall holistic health. With advanced search on gut microbiome being conducted globally, we are now able to realise the importance of maintaining a healthy regime & keeping chronic diseases at bay. We are now more keen to learn about beneficial bacteria & how we can feed them to make them work in favor of our health.
Yes, you guessed it right! Today we are going to discuss beneficial bacteria & how it impacts gut-brain relationships. This terminology for understanding beneficial bacteria is referred to as Psychobiotics.
Psychobiotics is referred to beneficial bacteria-probiotics & support for beneficial bacteria-prebiotics that impact bacteria-brain relationship.Let us revisit our knowledge about prebiotics & probiotics.
Probiotics are specific microorganisms that offer health benefits. On the other hand, prebiotics are food for these microorganisms(probiotics) offering health benefits. This specific food for pro-bacteria & pro-bacteria plays an essential role in providing health advantage for brain & nervous system.
We have already discussed the gut brain axis( connection). So I am not going to stick to basics here.
Our gut-brain axis includes:
- Central Nervous System: Brain, spinal cord & nerves
- Endocrine System: Hormones that impact brain & nerves
- Immune System: Immune functions impacting the brain
- Sympathetic Nervous System: Regulating fight or flight situation( plays a key role in depression/stress)
- Parasympathetic Nervous System: Regulating rest & digest functions
- Enteric Nervous System-Gut Brain
- Gut Microbiome
Basically, the by-products of gut brain such as short chain fatty acids & Neurotransmitters, immune system & hormones can enter the bloodstream from gut & directly enters brain through vagus nerve & vice versa.
Psychobiotics is said to be working on various brain-gut signalling pathways:
- Bacteria-nervous system signalling: Bifidobacterium longum and Lactobacillus rhamnosus have been shown to influence the excitability of gut nerve cells
- Vagus: Nerve Connection: Psychobiotics impact are transported to brain through vagus nerve
- SCFA: Prebiotics consumption increases production of Short Chain Fatty Acids that influences secretion of satiety hormones that acts on our brain & makes us control our appetite.
- Immune Reaction: Reduction in production of cytokines that are inflammatory in nature.
- Stress Hormone Reaction: Prebiotics consumption is beneficial for growth of Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus that helps in regulating stress hormone.
These mechanisms impact how our learning, mood, emotion & stress are also dictated.
Genetic makeup for stress resilience is different for everyone. As such different people respond to stress in different ways. This being said, regular stress makes your gut shut your digestive system since our immune system is always on alert( fight or flight situation) & results in chronic inflammation. Here, Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal axis(HPA) plays a major role. While our sympathetic nervous systems work with HPA to determine how we react to stress.
Let us discuss how this stress response triggers
- Stress hormones are released in your bloodstream & tissues by the sympathetic nervous system.
- Concurrently, CRF (corticotropin releasing factor) emerges from your brain via hypothalamus.
- CRF stimulates the release of ATCH (adrenocorticotropic hormone) – from your pituitary gland.
- ATCH travels through your blood and triggers the synthesis (and release) of cortisol – by your adrenal glands.
The purpose of this flow is to elevate blood sugar levels, suppress the immune system & increase metabolism of fats & proteins. In such a scenario, your body through your immune system becomes alert & shuts down the digestive system & you start experiencing bloating( as mentioned in earlier paragraph). Ultimately, this can lead to chronic inflammation.
So how can we reverse this? To calm, this response, neurotransmitters such as serotonin, noradrenaline and endorphins are needed. However, it is very difficult to tackle daily modern day stress, however we can always influence our gut bacteria to produce these calm hormones( surprise! 90% of serotonin- the happiness hormone is produced by our gut bacteria). Through pre-biotics consumption we can encourage these helpful microorganisms-streptococcus, Enterococcus and E.coli.
Besides,probiotics like Lactobacillus and Bifidobacteria have also been shown to produce stress busting hormones
Another important probiotic bacteria Lactobacillus reuteri has been associated with production of the serotonin precursor tryptophan. Tryptophan is an essential amino acid (meaning humans don’t produce it). This essential means more Tryptophan, more serotonin & less stress. Consumption of prebiotics has a beneficial impact on reducing our stress level.
Let us deep dive into differences between probiotics & psychobiotics.
Psychobiotics as mentioned at the beginning of the blog are probiotics( or prebiotics) that have a beneficial impact on the gut-brain axis. Historically probiotic research focused mostly on gastro-intestinal issues. Which is why we can hear a lot about how gut infections and, like IBS or IBD respond to probiotic treatment. On the other hand, psychobiotics is focussed on some specific probiotics to find out if they have improved physiological outcomes. However, the confusing part is many probiotics may be classified as both probiotics & psychobiotics.
How can we leverage Psychobiotics to manage stress?
- Gut Microbiome Testing: This will help you learn which probiotics you are lacking or which harmful bacteria you may have in abundance that is impacting your overall health & driving you towards chronic inflammation
- Consume Fermented Foods: Prefer having fermented foods such as fermented pickle, kimchi, Sauerkraut, fermented vegetables,
- High fibre & resistant starch consumption: Having a high fibre & resistant starch in your diet can help you increase short chain fatty acids production such as butyrate
- Consume a lot of plants: Vegetables and fruits naturally contain many different prebiotic fibres all packaged conveniently together.
How can you determine if you have the right proportion of beneficial bacteria in your gut that will help you manage your stress? Understanding your gut bacteria is the solution to this. Sign up for our Gut Intelligence solution here.
