How Depression Is related to Your Gut Health ?
How the gut and brain are related to depression
Have you ever experienced indigestion, and along with it, your mood also deteriorates, or when your mood is low for some time, you tend to experience digestive issues after some time. This suggests that our gut and the brain are related. It is evident that our brain is connected to different organ systems in the body, but this gut-brain connection has direct implications for our digestive and brain health. Research focusing on Gut-Brain Axis (GBA) reveals the connection between the gut and the brain. There are billions of microbes in the gut. They communicate with the central nervous system that involves three parallel but interacting pathways, including the nervous system, endocrine system, and immune response. The brain, in turn, can influence the abundance of the gut microbiota and alter its function through the channels of the autonomic nervous system. For example, it can regulate the permeability of the gut wall, can affect gut motility, and affect the transit and secretion of certain substances through the gut.
Explaining the mechanism of the GBA
The central nervous system and mainly the HPA axis, which is a complex set of interactions between three components: the hypothalamus, the pituitary gland, and the adrenal gland, can be activated to stress or experience emotions. HPA is responsible for releasing cortisol guided by the limbic system. The hypothalamus releases corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) hormone, which stimulates the release of adrenocorticotropic hormone from the pituitary gland, which leads to the release of cortisol from the adrenal glands. Parallelly, the central nervous system communicates with the gut through different autonomic pathways and regulates the enteric nervous system (ENS) functions, affecting motility and permeability of the gut wall. Thus, the gut microbiome has bidirectional communication with these intestinal areas, hence regulating the gastrointestinal functions and getting modulated by brain-gut interactions.
These studies show how our brain and gut are connected at the physiological level. They communicate with each other through neural pathways and affect each other’s functioning. It’s only natural that a malfunction at the end of the Gut-Brain axis or anywhere along the axis is likely to create a disbalance in the system. Certain diets as a saturated or high-fat diet, adversely reduce the healthy gut bacteria and increase the growth of unhealthy ones, dysbiosis in the gut flora occurs.
Reference: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4838534/
FACTORS AFFECTING THE GUT HEALTH AND DEPRESSION
After understanding the connection between the gut and brain, it is essential to understand the role of various factors, such as foods, substances and other environmental factors that affect our gut health.
- Fried Foods
Fried foods are quite difficult for the body to digest. Most of the time, they are cooked using oils rich in saturated or trans fats, which are associated with symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) such as abdominal pain, diarrhoea and gas. These are foods that promote the growth of harmful bacteria as well. Reference:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32247914/
Increased use of alcohol
The use of alcohol in larger amounts or frequently is very harmful to the body. It is certainly problematic for the liver, and chronic alcohol abuse is known to cause liver cirrhosis, a late-stage liver disease. Apart from this, regular use of alcohol has detrimental effects on intestinal health as well. Studies show that people with alcohol consumption are more likely to experience gut dysbiosis than those with no alcohol consumption.
Reference: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22241860/
Use of antibiotics
Antibiotics are medicines that are used for treating bacterial infections. But they come with their limitations as they affect not only the bad bacteria but also the good bacteria. Increased use of antibiotics is known to cause a short-term decline in healthy bacteria, namely, Bifidobacteria and Lactobacilli, and can temporarily increase bad bacteria such as Clostridium.
Reference: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2685866/
Lack of physical exercise
Physical exercise is important for both our physical and mental health. There is significant evidence linking lack of physical exercise with chronic heart diseases, obesity, high BP, and high blood cholesterol. Reference:https://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/resources/publications/factsheets/physical-activity.htm Low-intensity exercise or lack of physical activity has been linked to gastrointestinal problems. This increases the contact time between the pathogens in the gut and the gastrointestinal mucus layer.
- Cigarette Smoking
Tobacco contains thousands of harmful chemicals, and it is dangerous for each and every organ of the body. The use of smoking has also been studied with its relationship to intestinal health. Active smoking is a significant factor in causing inflammatory bowel disease. Moreover, it increases the risk of developing Crohn’s disease (CD), a severe type of IBD.
Lack of Sleep
Getting adequate sleep is important for the efficient cognitive and physiological functions of the body. Evidence obtained through various research has demonstrated the effect of lack of sleep on our gut health. They suggest that due to disruption of our circadian rhythm caused by either lack of sleep, shift work, or poor sleep leads to harmful effects on the gut bacteria and is likely to lead to various gastrointestinal diseases such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) or peptic ulcer disease. Reference Link
Chronic Stress
Excessive or chronic stress drains the body of its resources to fight the stressor. It affects the body in many ways, but in regard to its effects on gut microbiota, it has been observed that chronic stress can create dysbiosis in the gut along with certain changes in the microbial markers, which may lead to the onset of severe neurocognitive deficits. Reference: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26479188/
join whatsapp group for live webinars- https://chat.whatsapp.com/JaYHjunYjWt0RLN18HhD1q
