Can probiotics improve mental health?

Mental Health 

Probiotic foods and supplements have exploded in popularity due to their potential health advantages, which include mental well-being. Depression is a common mental illness that is a primary cause of disability around the world. Researchers and therapists are looking for ways to improve existing therapies and create new and effective ways to cure depression and help patients cope as more people succumb to its horrors.

Researchers have been attempting to figure out how probiotics can help people with depression for years. This quest led to the discovery of a new class of probiotics known as psychobiotics, which may aid in the treatment of a variety of mental illnesses, including depression and overall mental health.

According to research published in the journal Translational Psychiatry by a group of researchers from the University of Basel and the University Psychiatric Clinics Basel (UPK), probiotics can help with the treatment of depression when combined with antidepressants.

Mental Health 

The Benefits of Probiotics in the Treatment of Depression

This new study is based on prior discoveries showing the composition of the bacterial flora in the gut has a major impact on depression symptoms. The effects of probiotics on the treatment of depression were investigated in a study led by Dr. André Schmidt and Professor Undine Lang.

The study's subjects were inpatients at Basel's University Psychiatric Clinics (UPK). They were randomly assigned to one of two groups: one received probiotics in addition to antidepressants for 31 days, while the other received a placebo with antidepressants. Throughout the investigation, neither the study personnel nor the participants had any idea what was being given to the people in either group.

Although depressed symptoms decreased in both groups, the participants in the probiotic group showed signs of better improvement than those in the placebo group, according to analyses conducted before the therapy, at the end of 31 days, and four weeks later.

The administration of probiotics also resulted in a change in the composition of the participants' gut flora. This change, however, was only transitory, since the amount of health-promoting gut bacteria reduced over the next few weeks.

"It's possible that four weeks of treatment isn't long enough, and that the new gut flora composition takes longer to consolidate," one of the study's authors, Anna-Chiara Schaub, reasoned.

PROBIOTICS 

Probiotics' Effect on Brain Activity

Probiotics and brain activity were also investigated by the researchers. Patients with depression, on average, have brain areas for emotional processing that function differently from those in people who are in excellent mental health. Researchers discovered that after four weeks of probiotics, only the patient in the probiotics group's brain activity had normalized using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

Although this study showed that probiotics improve mental health and lessen depression symptoms, Schaub stressed that probiotics should not be used as a stand-alone treatment for depression, but rather as a "support treatment" for antidepressants.

"Although the microbiome-gut-brain axis has been studied for some years, the exact mechanisms are still unknown," she said. With more information about the effects of various bacteria, it may be feasible to improve the selection of bacteria and employ the appropriate mix to support depression treatment."

PROBIOTICS

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