It's Not All in your Head!
It’s all in your gut! For a long time, an assumption has been made that many digestive health problems are mental health problems because the biggest nerve – the vagus nerve – connects the brain and the digestive system. The assumption got it backwards – it’s the other way round. Microbes in the gut send messages to the brain through the vagus nerve, the bloodstream and the immune system. There are more microbes in a person’s gut than there are cells in a human body – ten times as many! Guess who’s in control? What used to be called the brain-gut axis is now called the microbiota-gut-brain axis (#gutbrainaxis). Microbes affect behaviour, mood, stress responses, anxiety, memory and brain development. It is now suspected that many mental health problems are in fact digestive health problems. Investigators are researching the role of the #microbiome in autism, ADHD, schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s and numerous other mental health problems. However, to the extent that researchers have found causes of digestive health problems, they are all in the gut (including genes relating to digestive function), not the brain. It’s not #AllinYourHead. Phew!
I learned about the microbiome effects on mental health from Let them Eat Dirt by B. Brett Finlay and Marie-Claire Arrieta – @letthemeatdirt – http://letthemeatdirt.com/. It’s a very interesting book about the importance of microbes in childhood development and the implication of the microbiome in many health problems.
I learned about the microbiome effects on mental health from Let them Eat Dirt by B. Brett Finlay and Marie-Claire Arrieta – @letthemeatdirt – http://letthemeatdirt.com/. It’s a very interesting book about the importance of microbes in childhood development and the implication of the microbiome in many health problems.
