Digestive Health

The Healing Effect of Probiotics for Anxiety, Stress and Mood

Recent research on the gut-brain axis suggests that taking probiotics for anxiety and other mood concerns may be an effective choice.

Anxiety and stress are ubiquitous in the modern world. While many people rely on coping mechanisms that allow them to deal effectively with this stress, the core problem remains. Stress in daily life is so common and so severe in contemporary life that many people bow and even break under the strain. However, what if the modern diet is at least partly to blame for this increase in stress and the accompanying mood changes? New research on probiotics for anxiety suggests that your “gut instincts” may indeed be important: Many of our resources for handling stress may reside deep inside your gastrointestinal tract.

Your Gut-Brain Axis

We may not think of our GI tracts and brains as being related, but research suggests that the connections are more common and deeper than we ever could have previously imagined. The bacteria in our guts help to metabolize not just precursors for important GI hormones, but the hormones themselves. In fact, there are more receptors for important neurohormones such as serotonin in our gut than anywhere else in the body.

If you have noticed that your mood changes according to your diet, you are not alone. What you eat appears to have a huge effect on the microbiome in your intestines. Our diets can feed healthy bacteria and at the same time subdue bacteria that have more pathological effects. If we do not eat a diet rich in probiotics and the prebiotic foods that feed healthy GI flora, we may notice the effects on our mood far before we notice them in other areas.

The Healing Potential of Probiotics for Anxiety, Stress and More

With millions of Americans struggling with mental health disorders, new research on probiotics for anxiety and other mental health disorders can have far-reaching effects on public health. Recent findings suggest that the bacteria lactobacillus may be part of the key to managing many mental disorders. When people ingest probiotics, which are generally rich in lactobacillus and other beneficial bacterial species, they see a decrease in anxiety and their perception of stress.

This link between probiotics and anxiety relief is even stronger when the effects of prebiotics are taken into account. Prebiotics are special kinds of indigestible carbohydrates that are designed to support a healthy GI tract. While humans cannot digest and absorb these sugars, they serve as food for lactobacillus and other healthy GI fauna. Taking a prebiotic supplement can be effective in managing anxiety because it helps the healthy serotonin-producing bacterial populations to thrive.

More Bacteria, Less Stress

Zebrafish are often used in studies regarding human health because they have similar hormones and exhibit similar behavior in response to these hormones. Recent research on these fish suggests that probiotics may be especially important for increasing positive hormones such as serotonin while reducing negative biochemicals that cause stress. In fact, zebrafish that were given probiotics in a recent study began to show not just a healthier hormonal balance, but less stress-related behaviors. Like humans, fish act differently, and in predictable ways, when they are under stress. Fish who are given supplements to encourage healthy gut fauna show fewer behaviors related to stress, suggesting that taking probiotics and prebiotics for anxiety and stress may indeed be effective for humans as well.

How can gut bacteria affect both fish and humans so profoundly? Like humans, fish have many receptors for neurochemicals such as serotonin in their GI tract. Scientists are not sure why these receptors are more prominent in our intestines than in our brains, but the effect remains clear. People who have gut flora producing serotonin and its precursors are less likely to feel anxious or depressed. This is why taking probiotics for anxiety, stress and other mood disorders may have a meaningful impact.

The Links Between Gut and Brain

Have you ever felt nauseated or had a stomachache from stress? If so, you are not alone. Many people have intuitively noticed the link between their gut and their brain even before scientific research supported this connection. A healthy gut leads to less physical symptoms of stress and anxiety; a stomachache often is a symptom that something in our emotional lives has gone awry. If your stress often comes with a stomach ache or other GI symptoms, it may be time to try probiotics for anxiety. Our “gut instinct” that GI health affects the brain and mental health may be more accurate than we previously realized.

Mental health is not entirely in your head. According to research, it may be just as much in your stomach, small intestine and other components of your GI tract. Eating the right foods and taking measures to support healthy gastrointestinal flora may be the best thing you can do to support mental health. If you struggle with anxiety, it is not all in your head. Your gastrointestinal tract likely plays just as large of a role in how you are feeling on any given day. Consider taking a probiotic supplement to help soothe anxiety and help your brain to function at its very best.

New Findings Show Vitamin D Benefits Muscle Strength and Protects Against Respiratory Illness

Feb 28 by Ewcopywriting Leave a Comment

New research suggests that vitamin D benefits our health in more ways than previously believed, helping to sustain muscle strength and even protect against common ailments.

Many people in the Northern hemisphere are deficient in vitamin D during the cold weather months. This is known to contribute to fatigue, depression, weak bones and a variety of other unpleasant effects. However, not getting enough of this vitamin may impact your health in other, more serious ways. New research on vitamin D benefits suggests that it may be an important factor in muscle strength, gastrointestinal health and protection from respiratory illnesses.

Vitamin D’s Role in Health

Vitamin D is essential for our health in a variety of ways. It acts as a cofactor for a variety of biochemical reactions, so a deficiency can leave you fatigued and depressed. However, this is just the beginning of the effects of vitamin D deficiency. Because vitamin D is essential to bone growth and development, a deficiency often manifests in weak bones. Children who do not get enough vitamin D may develop rickets, which is a bone disorder in which bones become so soft and weak that they bow under weight. In adults, osteoporosis and bone pain are common manifestations of vitamin D deficiency. Vitamin D deficiency has also been linked to an increased risk for metabolic syndrome and other health conditions.

Despite its importance, many people suffer from a deficiency of this nutrient. Vitamin D is not found in many foods and is processed in a complicated multi-step fashion involving the liver and kidneys. Our skin can make this vitamin when exposed to certain wavelengths of sunlight, but many people wear sunscreen and thus miss out. Foods such as cod liver oil, egg yolks and fortified milk contain vitamin D, but these are not eaten by many adults in significant amounts. The result is that many people are suffering from a vitamin D deficiency that may have severe health effects.

Vitamin D Benefits for Muscle

Vitamin D benefits bones and teeth, but a recent study suggests that it may benefit muscle strength as well. Women were tested for muscle mass, muscle strength and inactive vitamin D levels. Women with high levels of vitamin D had more lean muscle mass and more strength than women who had normal or low levels.

Should people that are looking to increase strength or muscle mass take more vitamin D? Researchers say the jury is still out. Dr. Zaki Hassan-Smith, one of the lead researchers in this study, points out, “By looking at multiple forms in the same study, we can say that it is a more complex relationship that previously thought.” However, there does indeed appear to be a relationship between vitamin D and muscle, although the exact mechanism is not known.

New Potential Treatment for Gastrointestinal Illness?

Vitamin D benefits also may extend to the digestive tract according to modern research. Low vitamin D levels have been linked in the past to gastrointestinal diseases such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. These painful conditions affect millions of people. Not only do they cause unpleasant symptoms such as diarrhea and abdominal pain, but they also can leave people malnourished. In some cases, flares of these diseases can be life-threatening.

Because gastrointestinal diseases can make it difficult for people to absorb vitamins from their diet, there was a “chicken and egg” problem with the link between low vitamin D and flares of these illnesses. However, researchers may have solved the riddle in a recent study. They followed people with ulcerative colitis, regularly testing vitamin D levels while tracking symptoms and flares. It appears that low vitamin D levels make people with ulcerative colitis more likely to suffer painful and potentially deadly flares of their diseases. Getting enough vitamin D appears to be especially important for people who have ulcerative colitis and other related diseases.

Breathe Easier With a Simple Vitamin

One of the most significant causes of death worldwide is acute respiratory illness. Even healthy people may fall critically ill from these infections, leaving them temporarily or permanently disabled and even threatening their lives. New research suggests that vitamin D deficiency is a risk factor for respiratory illnesses. Scientists believe that the reason for this is vitamin D’s critical role in the immune system. When people have low levels of vitamin D, their immune system is not as likely to fight off infections that can turn to bronchitis and other serious illnesses.

This information may be used to save many lives. With 2.65 million people dying from acute respiratory illness every year, identifying and eliminating this risk factor can have huge effects on public health. In this case, a simple vitamin supplement may save lives even among people in the developed world with access to a balanced diet.

Vitamin D benefits our bodies in a variety of ways and is essential for good health. People who suspect that they may not be getting enough vitamin D should talk to their doctor about whether a supplement is right for them and how much of this supplement they need to achieve optimal health. Your bones, muscles, digestion and even respiratory health depend on having high levels of this critically important vitamin.

New Research Expands Our Knowledge About the Benefits of Prebiotics

Feb 24 by Ewcopywriting Leave a Comment

Could the benefits of prebiotics extend far beyond gut health? New research suggests that these supplements may have more beneficial effects on our health than previously known.

If you’re like millions of Americans, you’ve probably already taken your daily probiotic. The benefits of these tiny capsules of bacteria have been known for years. Recently, many people have begun taking prebiotics as well. These supplements may have an immense impact on your health. While almost all people can reap the benefits of prebiotics, people with certain disorders may see even more positive effects.

What Are Prebiotics?

Probiotics are the friendly bacteria that colonize healthy digestive tracts and help our bowels work smoothly. However, these bacteria do not live independently in a “bubble.” Like all living creatures, they need food to live. This food is present in natural, more plant-based diets but may not be present in adequate quantities in the typical Western diet.

This is the reason that many people take a prebiotic supplement in addition to a probiotic capsule. Prebiotics consist of the indigestible carbohydrates that feed the bacteria that make up a healthy gut microbiome. Rather than being absorbed, prebiotics remain in the gastrointestinal tract so they can feed the bacteria that we all need to achieve optimal health. Many traditional foods such as beans and legumes are full of these indigestible carbohydrates. However, modern people often need additional amounts of prebiotics in order to maintain healthy gut fauna.

The Benefits of Prebiotics for Health

Because our diets tend to be deficient in the nutrients needed to feed the “good” bacteria in our gastrointestinal tract, using prebiotics (along with probiotics) is helpful in maintaining gut microbiome balance. Without adequate food of the right kinds, probiotic bacteria cannot survive in the numbers that are required to maintain a healthy GI tract. The resulting lack of healthy bacteria can lead to a variety of health problems, such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. In addition, new research on the importance of a healthy gut microbiome to whole-body health suggests that disrupting the colony of beneficial flora in our guts may contribute to a variety of other diseases.

Exactly how can gut health be crucial to whole-body health? Your gastrointestinal tract is important in a variety of ways. It is the place where nutrients are converted to usable forms and absorbed, so many people without a healthy microbiome may suffer from nutrient deficiencies. In addition, your gut is where many serotonin receptors and other important biochemical receptors are located. These receptors in turn help to govern the hormonal balance of the rest of your body, in effect setting the tone for the rest of your health.

Prebiotics and Autoimmune Disease

One area where prebiotics show real benefits is in the realm of autoimmune disease. Probiotics and the prebiotics that feed them are already known to have positive effects on this class of diseases, which comprise one of the most common and debilitating causes of disability in the Western world. Recent studies have shown that there is a link between a dysfunctional GI tract and atopic dermatitis as well as other autoimmune skin conditions.

People with atopic dermatitis may especially see the benefits of prebiotics and probiotics. A recent meta-analysis found that people who take prebiotics in addition to probiotics are less likely to suffer from atopic dermatitis and are also more likely to have mild cases of the disease when it does occur. Those who suffer from the pain, itching and rash of this disorder may benefit from sorting out their gastrointestinal tracts. This is huge for people who wish to cure their atopic dermatitis once and for all, as the disorder is often resistant to established medical treatments.

Can Prebiotics Help With Stress?

Probiotics have been shown to help reduce stress; however the benefits of prebiotics may extend to the very common problem of stress as well. Stress is almost ubiquitous in the United States, but it can also have extremely negative health effects. A recent study found that people who take both prebiotics and probiotics see their GI tracts and their sleep patterns bounce back quickly after stressful times. Researchers gave one set of rats prebiotics and then let another eat their usual diets. They then put these rats through biological stress. The rats that took the prebiotic supplements saw fewer physical effects of stress and also recovered more quickly.

Could prebiotics help modern people to deal with stress without having negative effects? While this is but one small study, it appears to suggest that we may all benefit from taking a prebiotic supplement in addition to our live culture bacteria, or better yet a supplement that provides both prebiotics and probiotics in the same formula.

While the jury is still out on the benefits of prebiotics, they appear to have a variety of beneficial health effects without any known side effects. If you are looking for ways to support whole body health, taking a prebiotic supplement may be as healthy of a choice as eating good foods and getting enough exercise.

New Findings Suggest Gut Microbiome Influences Gene Expression

Jan 03 by Ewcopywriting Leave a Comment

Gut microbes have been all over the news lately. The flora that live in your gastrointestinal tract, also known as your microbiome, have recently been proven to affect your overall health in a variety of previously unknown ways. New studies show that they may have an even bigger effect than we previously realized, controlling our entire bodies—even down to our DNA.

What is Your Microbiome?

Our microbiome is made up of the thousands of different strains of bacteria and fungi that live in our GI tracts. These bacteria are necessary for a variety of different functions in the human body. They help digest our food and are essential for converting this food to vitamins we need to survive. In addition, our microbiome contributes to immunity in a variety of ways, most markedly by crowding out bad bacteria so they cannot survive. This is the reason that people are more likely to catch serious infections such as clostridium difficile after taking antibiotics that reduce the numbers of healthy bacteria in their gut.

While researchers once believed that the benefits of gut microbes were mainly restricted to the digestive tract, we now know that this is not the case. Your microbiome affects your mental health, your immunity to disease and may even have an effect on whether and when certain genes are expressed.

Gut Microbes, Gene Expression and Your Diet

You have probably heard the word “genome,” which refers to your DNA and the information contained within it. These genes are turned on and off according to our needs, producing the right proteins at the right time for survival by your epigenome. The epigenome is made up of millions of different kinds of molecules that govern gene expression. According to recent research, gut microbes impact us at this very fundamental level by producing molecules that have epigenetic effects on diverse tissue throughout the body, including adipose tissue and the liver.

Feeding the “good” gut microbes that have these beneficial effects is an important part of staying healthy. These microbes live most happily on high fiber foods full of micronutrients. However, this is not what many modern people in the West eat. Our dietary choices may be affecting more than just our ever expanding waistlines.

The Problem with the Western Diet

Experimental mice were kept in a germ-free environment and fed a diet similar to that which we call a Western diet, one high in red meats, saturated fats, refined starches and simple sugars. Another group of mice was kept in a similarly germ-free environment and fed a healthier diet of fruits and vegetables, which are full of the micronutrients and fiber that gut flora need to flourish. The group with the healthier diet developed a much more diverse microbiome despite being exposed to no bacteria in their environment. These gut microbes produced different metabolites, which in turn affected gene expression.

Fats and sugars move quickly through our gastrointestinal systems and do not have the nutrients that gut microbes need to survive. This leads to a microbiome that may survive, but does not flourish and grow the diverse range of flora that we need for ideal health. In this way, what we eat can affect our health in a variety of ways that we could never have foreseen.

Helping Your Intestinal Flora to Flourish

If you are interested in helping your community of gut microbes along, there are several things you can do. Luckily, these are all healthy decisions in general. Eat plenty of foods rich in fiber, especially fruits and vegetables that have the vitamins that both you and your microbiome need to flourish. Avoid simple sugars and saturated fats, which are empty calories that offer few actual nutrients. Eat yogurt or other fermented foods that have high amounts of healthy bacteria to colonize your GI tract. If you do not like yogurt, consider taking a probiotic supplement. Last, avoid antibiotics except where absolutely necessary. Unfortunately, the good bacteria in your body as just as susceptible to these drugs as the germs that cause disease.

There are already plenty of good reasons to eat a healthy diet full of vitamins, fiber, and plant foods. However, it appears that what you eat may affect your health in more ways than doctors and scientists previously could have realized.

Feel Tired All the Time? You Could Be Low on Iron

Nov 30 by Ewcopywriting Leave a Comment

Iron deficiency is the most common nutrient deficiency and affects 1.2 billion people worldwide, with around 183,000 dying from a shortage of this nutrient every year. Iron deficiency in women is especially common due to the high iron needs of the female body. If you find that you are often fatigued, have trouble concentrating or have other vague and insidious symptoms, you may simply need more iron.

Why Do We Need Iron?

Iron plays a variety of vital roles in the human body. First and foremost, it is one of the basic building blocks of hemoglobin, which carries oxygen in the blood from your lungs to the cells that need it. Iron is also important in the manufacturing of ATP, the molecule that cells use for energy. It is part of many different enzymes involved in growth and metabolism. Iron is also used by cells of the immune system to help fight infections. Last, iron is used in muscle cells to store oxygen for times when it is needed faster than the bloodstream can supply it.

Because our bodies use iron in so many ways, we have very high needs for this mineral. When people do not get all of the iron that they need, they have trouble converting food energy to cell energy, cannot carry oxygen to their cells and cannot perform a variety of crucial functions. In severe forms, iron deficiency can even be fatal.

Iron Deficiency in Women: A Common Health Problem

There are three basic ways that iron deficiency can occur: either not enough iron is being taken in, it is not being absorbed effectively or it is being lost somehow. Many people do not get enough iron-rich foods in their diet, which includes red meat, eggs, shrimp and the dark meat of poultry. In addition, people can get iron from vegetables such as legumes and leafy greens, although this kind of iron needs to be eaten with acidic foods in order to be absorbed by our bodies.

Even if you eat enough iron, you still may not be absorbing enough. Inflammatory conditions of the gut can make it difficult to absorb iron. In addition, you may simply be losing more iron than you naturally take in through diet. People lose iron mainly through bleeding, which is why people with ulcers or intestinal parasites are at high risk of anemia. This is a very important reason that you see high levels of iron deficiency in women, especially women who menstruate or have recently had a child.

Signs You Have Iron Deficiency

The signs of iron deficiency can be subtle and yet have a huge effect on your quality of life. The most common symptom is fatigue, because your cells are not making enough ATP and also are not getting optimal levels of oxygen from your blood. In addition, iron deficiency in women and men can manifest in a variety of other ways, such as:

dizziness
shortness of breath
heart palpitations
headache
pale skin
cold hands and feet
odd food cravings, especially for things that are not food (pica)
brittle nails
hair loss
muscle aches
difficulty concentrating
restless leg syndrome

When your body does not have the nutrients that it needs to performs all of the cell processes that iron supports, you will feel the effects in a variety of ways. Many people blame the effects of iron deficiency on not getting enough sleep, growing older, or having a hectic schedule when in fact they simply need to take in more vitamins and minerals.

Treating Iron Deficiency Safely and Naturally

If you believe that you are suffering from a deficiency of iron, there are several ways to quickly build up healthy levels of this vitamin. Many people simply add more iron-rich foods to their diets and take care to eat vegetarian sources of iron with an acidic food such as lemon. However, it can be difficult to get the iron that you need from diet alone, especially for women of reproductive age and young children who are growing quickly. For these people, taking an iron supplement or a multivitamin with their daily allowance of iron is the answer.

Getting enough iron is crucial for good health. However, iron deficiency in women and children is, unfortunately, only too common. While it can be difficult in the modern world to get all of the iron that you need to sustain optimal health, a well-balanced multivitamin ensures that you are always covered.

Complex Connections Between the Gut and Brain Influence Mood, Behavior and More

Sep 15 by Ewcopywriting Leave a Comment

Your digestive tract is an essential part of your body. We depend on our gut and intestinal flora to digest and absorb food as well as to get rid of waste products. However, there has been a great deal of research in the past few years regarding other, more surprising, roles that our gastrointestinal (GI) tract may play in our whole body health. Our GI tract affects every other system in the human body and is affected by them in return. New studies have found that even the brain has ways to communicate and receive communication from the gut.

The Circadian Rhythm of Your Digestive Tract

Our circadian rhythm tells our bodies when to perform a wide variety of tasks, including sleeping and eating. This central control is mainly governed by a clock in the hypothalamus of the brain, which is called the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN). When our retinas sense light, they pass messages to the suprachiasmatic nucleus to halt melatonin production and ramp up production of cortisol to keep us alert and energetic. Without light, the opposite happens and our bodies prepare for sleep.

However, this central clock is not the only timekeeper in our bodies. Each organ system and even some small groups of cells maintain their own circadian rhythms. The circadian rhythms of various systems in the body communicate with each other to coordinate their activities. This becomes especially complicated in the gut because the cells that maintain the digestive system include not just human cells, but a wide variety of bacteria. Our gastrointestinal flora, the 40 trillion or so tiny microbes that help us to digest food and produce vital nutrients, also keep their own circadian rhythms. They undergo cell division and become more active in the presence of food. They are even affected by melatonin, ramping up activity as the rest of our bodies prepare for sleep. In addition, they send biochemical signals to the brain in a complex back-and-forth communication channel.

The Gut-Brain Axis: Complex Connections Between the Gut and Brain

The communication between the gut and the brain, along with the effects of this communication, have been dubbed the gut-brain axis. This two-way signaling system allows our brains and our guts to coordinate important activities. These activities are related to much more than mere digestion and hunger. Gut flora can activate a stress response by stimulating the vagus nerve, which directly connects our brains and our intestines. In addition, gut bacteria produce so much melatonin that there is actually more of this hormone in our gastrointestinal tracts than in the pineal gland, where it is made and stored in the brain. Gut bacteria influence our brain, our hormonal balance, and thus our health in a variety of ways, many of which we are just beginning to understand.

While more study is needed in this area, throwing off the bacterial balance may have effects such as memory loss, anxiety and depression. The simple act of taking a probiotic can be helpful in conjunction with the treatment of complex psychiatric problems such as OCD. Our brains are dependent on cues from the gut, so an imbalance in microbes can have far-reaching negative effects.

Could Your Gut Flora Be Affecting Your Sleep?

The role of your gut flora in maintaining a healthy circadian rhythm and sleep is one of the most surprising connections to have sprung from modern chronobiology studies We already knew that these bacteria are important players in health, synthesizing nutrients and helping to break food particles in our diets. However, new research is finding that your mental health, autoimmune activity, and, yes, even sleep may depend in part on having a health gastrointestinal tract.

If you are having trouble sleeping, an imbalance in your gastrointestinal flora may be leading to a decrease in melatonin and thereby insomnia. Conversely, it is also possible that low melatonin production in your brain may be affecting your digestion in a variety of ways. In either case, taking either melatonin or a probiotic may be an answer.

Our bodies are not a bunch of unconnected parts, but rather a whole that functions in a synchronized way thanks to complex communication and interrelationships. Not only does our circadian rhythm affect every cell in our body, but it appears to also be affected by these cells in turn. Getting enough sleep and good nutrition, two simple and common recommendations may be more important to our whole body health than we previously could have imagined.