Nature's Bounty: The Psychobiotic Revolution

[Mosby]

Ninety percent of what we lug around with us is not human. It's microbial, and it's vital to our health, our moods, even the decisions we make.

There are roughly 15 trillion cells in our body—and over 100 trillion bacteria, most of them in the gut and most of them supporting such essential functions as digestion, immunity, metabolism, even mental health in ways that are only now being understood. The body is an ecosystem of interdependent parts relaying messages to each other, explains Ted Dinan, a psychiatrist at the University of Cork, Ireland.

So influential are the thousands of species of gut flora on health that Dinan aims to harness the power of microbes to treat depression. Recently, he coined a term for the live organisms in the gut that are psychoactive and of potential benefit to those suffering from a variety of psychiatric illnesses—psychobiotics.

Not only can researchers now discern which strains of gut bacteria affect the nervous system, they can also map the exact pathways through which specific gut bacteria influence the brain.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201403/natures-bounty-the-psychobiotic-revolution

[Nitram]

1. This is a very important area of study. But we know very little at this point.

I suspect that the statement, "Not only can researchers now discern which strains of gut bacteria affect the nervous system, they can also map the exact pathways through which specific gut bacteria influence the brain" is a vast exaggeration. but we are working on it.