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https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24332460-500-how-what-you-eat-directly-influences-your-mental-health/?fbclid=IwAR0mjsVTbxCGhoIY6xVPMbl8W2hx6_-awZsvXwmI6d9ZpHSoFFg0DliaS2k#ixzz5yxnVvEdu 1/6
9/16/2019 How what you eat directly influences your mental health | New Scientist
Peter Strain
REMEMBER the last time you had a stomach bug and just wanted to crawl into bed and pull up the covers? That is called
“sickness behaviour” and it is a kind of short-term depression. The bacteria infecting you aren’t just making you feel
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9/16/2019 How what you eat directly influences your mental health | New Scientist
nauseous, they are controlling your mood too. It sounds absurd: they are in your gut and your feelings are generated in your
brain. In fact, this is just an inkling of the power that microbes have over our emotions.
In recent years, such organisms in the gut have been implicated in a range of conditions that affect mood, especially
depression and anxiety. The good news is that bacteria don’t just make you feel low; the right ones can also improve your
mood. That has an intriguing implication: one day we may be able to manipulate the microbes living within our gut to change
our mood and feelings.
It is early days, but the promise is astounding. The World Health Organization rates depression and anxiety as the number
one cause of disability, affecting at least 300 million people worldwide. The new findings challenge the whole paradigm of
mental illness being caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, and offer an alternative to drug treatment. You’ve probably
heard of probiotics, but these are their new incarnation – psychobiotics. They could be about to change the mood of the
planet.
Read more: Healthy gut, happy mind – What to eat to boost how you feel
Bacteria have been associated with sickness almost since they were discovered 350 years ago by …
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Healthy gut, happy mind: What to CRISPR could lead to gene-editing Don’t go bananas: Should we be Police robot can be flung through
eat to boost how you feel fix for a form of male infertility cutting down on the fruit we eat? windows and distract suspects
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