New Study Finds Probiotics Dramatically Reducing
the Symptoms of Depression
by Andy Corbley
Probiotics have already been identified in published studies as providing an ability to help alleviate allergy symptoms. Now, the same can confidently be said of regulating mental health.
Some of the most extensive research into the human microbiome has revealed that the diversity of certain bacterial species in your gut can help, sometimes significantly, with many of the most commonly diagnosed mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, or PTSD.
This includes work from the American Gut Project, which sources the world’s largest collection of gut microbe samples—more than 11,000—for use in scientific research. The project findings, while purely observational, suggest that bacterial diversity and richness in the human gut has the capacity to improve a variety of depressive symptoms.
In this paper that was recently published in the journal Nutrition, Iranian scientists found that markers for depression were reduced when taking a probiotic supplement containing particular microbes called lactobacillus casei and lactobacillus acidophilus.
In this small randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled trial, 40 people with major depressive disorder were given an 8-week course of probiotics. Diet and exercise activity were reported and controlled for, and after the 8 weeks ended, self-administered questionnaires revealed that the patients who had received a probiotic supplement had significantly lower scores on a Depression Inventory than those who had received placebo.…
