Health Update: Gut Microbiome a Key Driver of Depression
Hello again everyone:
It has been known for a long time that how healthy the gut is can be reflected in different organs, including the brain. Here is more evidence that depression is directly tied to our gut health. In other words, if you have depression, pay attention to optimizing your gut health as a component of your mental health care.
"As we wait to establish causal influences through clinical trials, clinicians should advise patients suffering from mood disorders to modify their diet by increasing the intake of fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, as these provide the required fuel/fiber to the gut microbiota for their enrichment, and more short-chain fatty acids are produced for the optimal functioning of the body," study investigator Najaf Amin, PhD, DSc, senior researcher, Nuffield Department of Population Health, Oxford University, United Kingdom, told Medscape Medical News.
"At the same time, patients should be advised to minimize the intake of sugars and processed foods, which are known to have an inverse impact on the gut microbiome and are associated with higher inflammation," she said.
Bottom Line:
There are a lot of great books available that go into this topic in greater depth and width and lead to some solutions for all of us. One such book is by Emeran Mayer, MD, a noted authority on this subject and author of: The Mind Gut Connection. In this book, he reveals the science behind why going predominantly plant-based is an integral and necessary part of both restoring your microbiome and gut health as well as restoring an optimally healthy gut-brain axis.
If you have depression of any type, adding a plant-based food plan should be considered as a foundational strategy to be implemented as a component of your mental health care. For more information on this, consider a search using these key word pairs:
Depression microbiome
Depression inflammation
Depression gut-brain axis
Furthermore, if you are having only a partial or inadequate response to an anti-depressant medication, adding L-methylfolate to that protocol can help significantly. (Also fix your gut). Check with your prescribing physician:
