Gut Feelings: Bacteria and the Brain (2013) | Hacker News Reader

Gut Feelings: Bacteria and the Brain (2013)

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

115 pointsHillaryBriss54 comments

I live with IBS and although I'm better now, I was in a terrible shape for about 2.5 years. Very expensive rabbit hole of doctors and tests that lead nowhere. Long story short, this is true. Gut bacteria (an imbalance in the case of IBS) is a real thing. Never mess with your diet doing stupid stuff. Always be weary of anti-biotics. And if you're suffering a lot at the moment look up the low-fodmap diet from the Monash University. That's the only thing that really helped me.

I've had it too -- perhaps not quite as bad as you. When I cut sugar back to about 20% of former consumption, things finally got back on track for me. Anecdotal, but maybe it'll help someone.

Lots of people have the same experience as you with LCHF/Ketogenic diet

I've checked some of the diets but it is not explained why I should avoid garlic? Can you elaborate? Another problem is that by avoiding all the stuff in the "stuff to avoid" list makes dietary fibre intake problematic. How do you add more fibre to your diet if you can't eat legumes nor fruits like pear.

Asafoetida tastes like garlic but does not ferment - replace garlic with it and then try reintroducing. Try eating raw vegetables or pho style (where the veggies cook lightly in the broth after being served but not enough to become easily fermented and soluble). What you are aiming for is high insoluble fiber and limited soluble fiber - so you can still eat things high in insoluble fiber like banana, bok choy, green beans, nuts.

Get the FODMAP-guide app from Monash University, it's on iOS and Android. It tells you exactly how you should treat most foods with a red/yellow/green system and a textual explanation. For garlic: "1/2 clove contains high amounts of Oligo-fructans.

your microbiota are primed at birth, then over life they change at each stage of development, around 6, around 13, around 26, around 40 and later in life, they impact your microbiome which effects the way you feel profoundly as well as the function of your immune system, the clinical research is out there to support this. http://www.nature.com/articles/srep23075

try a search for metabolomics and microbiome and metagenomics and enjoy a taster of patientcentric 22nd century medicine...

so can you control this in order to improve your life?

ultimately I believe that artificial enzymes will unlock the secret to eternal life, I do not think I will be around to see that, yes, you can certainly 'set yourself up for success' by understanding nutrition and trying to make sure the chemistry set that is your body gets the right access to the stuff it needs to operate your biochemistry, which has a large influence over physical and mental well being.

where can I read more about this?

Google "Psychoneuroimmunology" for the mental health implications and "Neuroimmunology" for the broader physical ones.

thank you

What are your thoughts on telomere extension? I feel like a combo of the two fields will have great results.

seems like a good avenue to explore, http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101128/full/news.2010.635.ht... there seems to be a fair bit we don't know about telemerase, well, lots I don't know! http://www.jneurosci.org/content/22/24/10710.short http://molehr.oxfordjournals.org/content/3/9/769.short

"Resveratrol is a stilbenoid, commonly found in grapes and in the roots of the Japanese Knotweed during stress and bacterial or fungial infection. In mouse and rat experiments, resveratrol has been shown to play a role in telomere lengthening, telomerase activity enhancement, blood sugar-lowering, inhibition of platelet aggregation, promotion of vasodilation by enhancing the production of NO and have anti-inflammatory properties."

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2016/0030530.html

Have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactobacillus_reuteri : "...those consuming L. reuteri daily end up falling ill 50% less often, as measured by their decrease use of sick leave."

That is based on a single study and not a fantastic one. I would be a bit skeptical of it.

Nothing new. Not sure why HN is obsessed with old articles about gut bacteria.

Soft marketing for that company that sells gut bacteria pills, they post ads on here fairly often.

because we spend so much time reading HN while sitting on the toilet

quick easy hacks solving complex hard-to-debug problems have its appeal. I spent bunch of years suffering from what happens to be candida overgrowth and its feels really great once i was able to take it under control.

How were you able to solve your problem? And if you don't mind me asking, what were some symptoms that made you want to get checked out?

Also, how were you able to get tested?

Sorry for bombing you with questions, but I'm just genuinely curious as I've wanted to get tested but my primary physician instantly dismissed it and made me feel like I was suggesting voodoo rituals.

the same about physician :). Anyway - i'm not a doctor, so it is just a personal anekdot. To me it was very active fermentation and resulting excessive unstoppable belching (impacting/stumbling the natural breathing movement of the chest/lungs and that breathing problem made it very hard to for example concentrate or to get to sleep, etc.), fatigue and brain fog. Reading Internet made it pretty clear that yeast/candida is the primary (and basically the only) candidate. Antifungals drugs seems to be the medical way to go. On the other side - giving that candida is the natural tenant inside our GI system, it seems to me (again, i'm not a doctor, it is just my understanding) that full "cure" isn't really possible and one can only control the issue. Giving that people reported very different results with those drugs and those drugs may be heavy on liver i decided to go initially with more natural alternatives. I'v been so far fortunate that it works for me. Specifically well known natural antifungals - garlic (as pills because real garlic smell is an issue at home and at work :), apple cider vinegar (for me it works as 2 tablespoons diluted in a glass of water 2 times a day), ginger (several cups of ginger tea during the day. Also instead of apple cider vinegar i frequently use vinegar based tonic like Kevita, specifically the "Tumeric Ginger" one. The tonic also contains probiotic cultures and that works great for me). I use all 3 of them - garlic, vinegar, ginger - as at the beginning i noticed that when using only one the yeast seems to adjust after some time and the issue starts to come back. In general it seems very individual, takes some time and experimentation. It took me several months to develop my regimen mentioned above and achieve current stable good results. Again, i'm not a doctor and this is just a personal anekdot.

Sounds nice but we don't have Kevita in our country (Hungary). Can you name some alternatives?

1. Systemic yeast infections are caused by gut dysbiosis. Gut dysbiosis is basically overgrowth of bad bacteria.

2. Migranes, bloating, brain fog, thrush all over body, bowel transit issues (too fast or slow), anxious

There is a medication that is sold OTC called Diflucan. It is magical if you have this problem. The only long term fix is stop eating food that makes the cell walls of your bowels disintegrate. The goal is for large proteins to remain in your intestines and not leak into your body and cause your immune system to attack itself.

Part of what leaks out is yeast cells that can infect different parts of your body. Candida is a bad Google term to use, because of the magical voodoo associations, but gut dysbiosis is well studied and found often in the immunocompromised (ie. AIDS patients).

More common than AIDS is that it is a chronic food allergy that goes undiagnosed for years and leaks to deterioration of the quality and accuracy of the immune response, paired with the leaking of proteins out of your gut. All fairly new science too so doctors still consider it voodoo.

Some foods make your gut leaky (alcohol, egg whites, sugar) and some cause the problems when they leak out (gliadin, casein, yeast). It is very complex if you rabbit hole it. In general it falls under neuroimmunology.

I have been very curious how the use of antibiotics at a very young age has tied in with food allergies.

Has anyone read or researched this topic?

https://www.caltech.edu/news/microbes-help-produce-serotonin...

Although serotonin is well known as a brain neurotransmitter, it is estimated that 90 percent of the body's serotonin is made in the digestive tract. In fact, altered levels of this peripheral serotonin have been linked to diseases such as irritable bowel syndrome, cardiovascular disease, and osteoporosis.

All children with Autism have gut issues. They have dysbiosis which causes them to behave like they do. Many children recover when their gut micro-biome is fixed. Organic Castor Oil taken regularly twice a week for an year will fix it. I know that people will not believe it. But I would just like to post it here just for future reference.

Speaking of reference, why don't you provide one?

Saying something like that without something backing it up is pretty fucked up.

It is comparable to telling a cancer patient "Praying to god is the best option, the expensive medicine you are taking is useless."

Give autistic children ALL THE RICIN!

Unfortunately these kind of beliefs can be harmful not only to autistic children but their parents also. This is not about 'belief', it's simply that you have no evidence to support your claims.

Huge doses of probiotics have done wonders for me.

Would you mind telling me more specifically what you mean by "huge"? And do you take them in capsule form?

Curious as well.

I've noticed no benefit in any area with probiotics, although his post did say "huge doses".

Anecdotes are fun!

I agree - I am taking Alice Foods Bifidus Best Advanced Probiotic[1], except I take 8 caps instead of recommended 2.

1) https://alicefoods.com/product/bifidus-best-advanced-probiot...

Also Saccharomyces boulardii is good, and it can be taken at the same time with antibiotics, unlike probiotics. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccharomyces_boulardii)

> Researchers have recently shown that the presence of gut microbiota during early development influences the brain’s neural connectivity related to anxiety and depression. Gut microbiota has been linked to behavior, to stress, and to stress-related diseases. Changes in gut microbiota may influence risk of disease, and manipulating microbiota may provide novel ways to intervene in clinical situations related to mood and anxiety disorders.

Am I imagining that the enthusiasm for gut bacteria research is driven in part (potentially in large part) by the failure of more classical physiological paradigms for understanding mental illness? Anything to avoid confronting the fact that people have real, profound problems, eh?

Perhaps. There's also evidence that gut bacteria produce a significant amount of neurotransmitters, such as serotonin. There's always the cause/correlation piece, but it's not unreasonable to believe that gut bacteria play some role, regardless of the ultimate cause.

https://www.caltech.edu/news/microbes-help-produce-serotonin...

> the fact that people have real, profound problems, eh?

What does that even mean? Gut bacteria not real and profound enough for you?

I think the inverse is actually the truth. "Classic" physiological paradigms have failed only in the sense that that early findings were represented far too simplistically by those who benefitted from simplistic models (pharma companies). No respectable neuroscientist has ever claimed anything even approaching a coherent understanding/model of mental illness.

The discovery of gut/vagus interaction and its direct effects on mental function is simply an extension of the monoamine research. The enthusiasm for gut biome research lies in the fact that it's a relatively new field and may contribute a lot to our understanding of nature vs nurture (heritability vs environment) due to how gut bacteria cause direct and measurable changes to neurological function via the vagus nerve, which (at least in mouse models) directly affects behavior. This research isn't somehow replacing other ideas, but rather acting to supplement and help paint a more complete picture of a very incomplete understanding.

I'm not sure what you're referencing by 'avoiding confrontation...'.

A friend of mine has depression, and yet externally his life is excellent (he knows this, but that doesn't change how his mind perceives reality). I've had very large problems, and maintained mental health throughout.

Do external factors influence mental health? Undoubtedly. But that hardly means things like bacteria aren't a factor as well.

From my own experience and that of friends/family, when you really dig deeply you'll find that there is actually a reason for depression most of the time. The question to ask is: is this really what I want to be doing with my life right now? You may be making great money as a stockbroker on Wall Street with a great family, or earning $200k at google, but if that's not really what you want to do deep down, you may get depressed.

>I've had very large problems, and maintained mental health throughout.

There are a lot of factors that determine whether life shit causes depression.

>But that hardly means things like bacteria aren't a factor as well.

Agreed, but there isn't much evidence of that at the moment.

What if what you really want to do is lay on the couch and read or watch TV all days?

Except for some days, where you feel better, and want to be more active, and you get shit done?

And then you wish more of the former days were like the latter days, but don't understand why they aren't?

That, or if you don't have any clue what you might do differently that would make any difference at all.

>Agreed, but there isn't much evidence of that at the moment.

I haven't actually evaluated the state of the evidence. I was mainly writing to say the comment I was replying to had made a fallacy.

[2013]

Gut bacteria seem to be the phrenology of the 21st century.

I'm sure it will all be debunked in 20 years.

Care to explain your stance, or should we just agree with a brand new HN account saying a published research paper is false?

Sure: Personal acquaintance with a published researcher (professor) who did not know when to use MANOVA in his own experiment.

Student of another professor who was told to repeat his PhD experiment until the p-value was "acceptable".

Being published means very little in medicine.

Also, constant hype on HN for gut bacteria with credulous comments (or advertising, as another poster pointed out).

I work in the field. The statistical mistakes are only one problem- researchers in the field also make huge mistakes in understanding both microbial diversity and computational genomics. It is partly because many of these studies are run by human biology-minded researchers who know very little about either statistical analysis or microbial diversity (IMO ignorance of microbiology is as big an issue in the field as ignorance of stats).

The other issue is this is a uniquely and enormously complicated intersection of science- there simply are few to no people who are simultaneously knowledgeable about immunology, statistics, computational genomics, microbial physiology, and microbial diversity- the bare minimum number of fields that will come into play when dissecting a host-microbe interaction.

That being said there are some very brilliant and rigorous people working in the field. 10%-20% of the research is high quality. In a 5-20 year range we'll discover exactly how enormous the true impact of commensal microbes on human biology is, even if the path is not a straight one and every publication is not correct. So science goes.

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