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A doctor may not be able to examine the patient's intestines to look for the cause of the depression, but George Porter-Phillips was intrigued at the turn of the twentieth century.
While he was walking in the hallways of the Bethelm Psychiatric Hospital in London, he noticed that patients with "malenachia" or "blacks" also suffered from severe constipation and according to " BBC "
It was normal for doctors to assume that depression was the cause of these physiological symptoms, but Phillips thought differently and began to look for something going on in the intestines and the stomach that was causing depression rather than the one that was going on. reverse. This led him to wonder if the condition of the affected person could be improved by treating his intestines.
To ensure this virtualization, Phillips reduced the amount of food consumed by patients and consumed totally banned meat, with the exception of fish, and focused on eating a fermenting milk containing bacteriostatic bacteria useful for digestion.
The surprise was an improvement in their mood: of the 18 patients tested by Phillips, 11 were completely cured and two patients were significantly improved, which clearly indicates the strong effect of gut bacteria on human mental health.
The BBC has had a positive or negative impact on several episodes of microbes in the gut, but their impact on mental health could have been more difficult. So, how do microscopic organisms that feed on food scraps affect the mind?
More than a century after Phillips' first experience, the belief that there is a fundamental relationship between the abdomen and the brain has become more firmly established. "I do not doubt that microbes affect mental health," says Jane Alison Foster, whose laboratory at McMaster University, Canada, says that mental health can be improved by treating the stomach .
Foster notes that intestinal problems can be one of the possible causes of mental illness. New treatments can therefore lead to a clear improvement in patients with intestinal dysplasia.
Despite early studies, including that of Phillips, scientists neglected to assume that intestinal health and mental health were related to most of the twentieth century until strong evidence of this ambiguous relationship emerged. in the last two decades.
One of the most recent experiments was conducted by the Kyushu Japanese University in 2004.
Researchers showed greater volatility of corticosterone and stress-associated ACTH hormones in rats whose microbes had been deactivated as a result of reproduction in a sterile environment that could affect in a specific manner. or from another bacterial environment of the rat intestine.
The researchers administered doses of bactericidal bacteria to a group of mice – the same beneficial bacteria used by Philips with melanocytes. Although the stress symptoms in this group were greater than those of mice raised in a normal environment, their stress was significantly lower than that of mice with no microbial treatment.
There is even evidence of the possibility of transmission of depression between different species – from humans to mice, for example – through microbes in the gut.
In a study, Chinese researchers in Chongqing took a sample of microorganisms from the intestines of patients with depression and implanted them with mice, which allowed them to discover that mice could escape more quickly than their peers when they were forced to swim. When the mice were put in a box, they spent less time exploring the surroundings and blocking the wall of the box where they felt safe.
"What surprised us was that animals that received the" symptom of depression "showed signs of depression, which meant a change in behavior by changing the delicate environment of the intestines, said Julio Lesnio of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of New York, co-author of the study.
Other studies have followed the spread of depression and its symptoms among a large number of people, most recently on February 4, 2019, and have again shown a connection between the intestinal environment and many diseases. mental disorders, including anxiety and depression.
Surprisingly, one of Lesnio's recent articles has shown a link between schizophrenia and a mediocre micro-intestinal environment. When samples were taken from mice, patients appeared to have altered brain activity, highly associated with the disease.
Intestinal microorganisms also affect the digestion and representation of important neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine, which have been shown to be in direct contact with the vagus nerve, which contains receptors located near the wall of the body. intestine to monitor the functioning of the gastrointestinal tract. Thus, intestinal microbes can transmit messages via chemical compounds that secrete them into vaginal nerve messages and thus affect brain activity.
Brain activity can also affect the composition of microorganisms in the intestine, for example, anxiety can increase inflammation, which in turn affects intestinal microorganisms, and so things happen in a closed circle.
Foster says university professors and business companies are constantly looking into the issue and that there is hardly a week going on without many academic meetings to discuss the results.
The researchers hope this will help them find new treatments for diseases such as depression.
Several attempts, including Phillips' attempt in 1910, to give patients fermented drinks that promote beneficial bacteria in the intestine and useful proteins for digestion, as well as fine fibers supposed to be useful for promoting microorganisms in the intestine, but unfortunately these studies were limited and limited to a few patients. The results were inconclusive: some cases showed improvement, but in others, the placebo effect was not improved.
Foster believes that this may be due to the fact that unsuccessful studies have not targeted the candidate patients to the maximum benefit of this type of treatment. A person may be depressed for many reasons: the intestinal environment can be a cause of depression and anxiety, but the cause can be very different, so that the digestive syrup will not improve .
What is even more complicated is that the micro-intestinal environment varies from one person to the other and any treatment must take into account the unique nature of the environment intestinal of the individual. In general, the tuning zone in micro-environment form does not exceed 10%.
But at the very least, there is more evidence of the role of a balanced health food in disease prevention, as it can prevent the onset of diseases such as depression.
Several studies have focused on what is called "Mediterranean cuisine" – a diet rich in vegetables, fruits, seafood, unsaturated fats and vegetable oils. A study carried out in Spain revealed that the depressives of those who ate traditional Mediterranean dishes were almost four years behind.
"Evidence of the importance of foods for mental health and the brain is becoming more and more consistent," says Fletchi Yaka, a psychologist and dietitian at Deakin University in Australia and author of How Your Brain Changes: Food. It has been proven that Mediterranean food increases the intestinal environment of bacteria and reduces other physiological changes that appear to accompany depression.
More than a century after Phillips' experience at the Royal Bethel Hospital, the world is still far from a definitive cure for depression, but some may find, if not all, that the good spirit – and happiness – are in the right belly!
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