[HN Gopher] Gut-Brain axis
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Gut-Brain axis
Author : yamrzou
Score : 123 points
Date : 2023-06-25 13:04 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (en.wikipedia.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (en.wikipedia.org)
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| The microbiome for the baby comes from the mother as it passes
| through the birth canal or in the case c-section to a lesser
| degree via breast feeding - bootstrapping us for healthy
| digestive tract.
| deepsquirrelnet wrote:
| Of note - it is common for mothers to receive antibiotics
| during delivery for a great many reasons. This can delay the
| development of the gut microbiome in babies, and is potentially
| linked to colic.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8170024/
| Vaslo wrote:
| I always wondered how much conjecture this was but a few years
| ago I had severe IBS problems when I would get very nauseous
| about 30 mins after I ate among some other gut stuff Ill spare
| you details on. Got every test done, saw multiple specialists who
| willing to try anything to help me. Nothing was helping.
|
| Finally went to a specialist who said "I think I know what's
| wrong with you. Take these 2 tests and if both are negative for
| another condition i have a medicine to start you on. "
|
| Tests came back negative and he prescribed something called
| Nortriptyline. It's a 1970s anti depression medicine they dont
| usually prescribe anymore because of the side effects at the dose
| to affect mood (150-200mg). However, at small doses (25 mg) it
| can solve a lot of pain and gut malfunction problems. When I
| started it, I immediately got positive results almost like taking
| an ibuprofen for a headache. I was 5'11'', 130 lbs before and
| from the pill, lifting weights, and fight training I got to 200
| lbs and in the best shape I've ever been.
|
| My sister in law is also on it for her back at a low dose and
| it's the only thing that helps her.
|
| This cheap pill was a miracle for me. I now believe in the axis
| and see the real connection between the brain and the gut.
| seiferteric wrote:
| Now you got me thinking about the idea of "gut brain"
| depression just like our normal brains can get depression...
| MarkMarine wrote:
| An interesting thing to think about, science isn't really
| sure why SSRIs work the way they do on depression [0]. The
| effect of the SSRI on brain serotonin is immediate, but the
| drugs take 3-4 weeks to actually have an effect on depressive
| symptoms.
|
| There is a suspicion that SSRIs may change the gut
| microbiome, and that's why it has an effect and why there is
| a time delay.
|
| [0] https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/how-
| antidepressants-...
| meindnoch wrote:
| Actually SSRIs usually have an immediate _worsening_
| effect, which then gradually resolves by week 3-4.
| mahathu wrote:
| Are there any other credible hypotheses for why SSRIs take
| weeks to affect mood according to the literature, when
| their effect on the serotonin is immediate?
| rubicon33 wrote:
| Yes, another is that they cause an increase in BDNF in
| the hippocampus, which stimulates neurogenesis there.
| This process of literally growing neurons takes weeks,
| even months.
| fire wrote:
| do you happen to know what the other two tests were / what the
| other condition being tested for was?
| kimbernator wrote:
| The same drug also had immediate effects for me when I was
| getting daily migraines a few years ago.
| e40 wrote:
| What's the idea for why it helps your sister's back problem?
| xgb84j wrote:
| I cannot speak for OP's sister, but I personally feel gut
| problems in my back. There is no medical explanation for
| that, that I am aware of. But when I eat certain foods, I
| have intense back pain the next day.
|
| The only reason I think it is related to gut problems is
| because the back pain is perfectly correlated with certain
| foods (e.g. large amounts of gluten, smoked meat) and has 0
| correlation with normal reasons for back pain.
| [deleted]
| afandian wrote:
| It could be inflammation making the joints unhappy. You
| could do worse than get some blood tests done for CRP.
| Vaslo wrote:
| My answer would be trash because I don't quite understand it,
| except to say it seems to regulate some common chemical
| pathways in the body. The way it was explained to me is that
| it clears up a bad signal between the brain and nerves,
| particularly in the gut. My gut was just overreacting to any
| food put in it and the pill helps restore normal "talk"
| between the brain and the gut. Every other doc was trying to
| treat my gut to make it better which is logical - this other
| specialist used my brain to fix it.
|
| I know the back thing isn't gut brain axis but I just figured
| I'd mention it.
| amelius wrote:
| The gut also has a nervous system, it's like a second
| brain. So the drug might have targeted just the "brain
| cells" of the gut, and your recovery might have nothing to
| do with an "axis" between gut and real brain. Note, IANAMD.
| manmal wrote:
| Nortriptyline is used for neuropathic pain.
| rubicon33 wrote:
| > I was 5'11'', 130 lbs before and from the pill, lifting
| weights, and fight training I got to 200 lbs and in the best
| shape I've ever been.
|
| Very curious about this.
|
| What were your IBS symptoms before taking Nortiptyline?
| randcraw wrote:
| This article asserts that the gut-brain axis model theory is more
| than just a theory. But AFAIK, this has yet to be demonstrated
| medically, via FDA-approved therapies that treat the brain by
| changing the gut. Thus the idea is intriguing, but IMHO, unproven
| where it counts, in treating and curing sickness.
| 23B1 wrote:
| It's good to be skeptical, but my wife works in this field and
| I can tell you that there's a lot capital flowing to this area
| of research, and a substantive body of research that supports
| it.
| captainbland wrote:
| I believe the opposite is actually applied in practice, e.g.
| prescribing antidepressants to people with IBS for instance
| where the physical cause of the bowel symptoms isn't obvious/is
| suspected to be neurologically related.
|
| From the point of view of somebody with IBD, negative cognitive
| effects in the middle of a flare seem pretty "common sense"
| obvious but it could also be down to dehydration etc... But
| that's in the case where there is a specific physical gut
| disease process in progress. I imagine that treating mental
| health conditions by altering the gut in people who have
| healthy bowels is probably a dead end.
| gavinray wrote:
| I'll challenge that, to me this is a no-brainer with mountains
| of evidence.
|
| You can look at research about using antibiotics or fecal-
| matter transplants and outcomes on both physiological and
| psychological health.
|
| Too many to list for antibiotics and host health:
|
| https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C10&q=ant...
|
| Here's one about treating metabolic syndrome with fecal-matter
| transplants to cause a shift in host microbiome
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5045147/
| "The human gut microbiome is recognized as an independent
| environmental modulator of host metabolic health and disease.
| Research in animal models has demonstrated that the gut
| microbiome has the functional capacity to induce or relieve
| metabolic syndrome."
| fluoridation wrote:
| How is that different from saying that there's an arm-brain
| axis, because breaking your arm causes psychological effects,
| and treating the fracture alleviates these effects?
|
| The question is if you can treat the brain by doing something
| to a healthy arm, or vice versa.
| echelon wrote:
| I certainly hope it's more than a hypothesis! [1]
|
| If true, this could potentially provide breakthroughs against
| Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, autism, and a whole host of other
| diseases.
|
| [1] I know hope isn't science. But let's give the investigators
| plenty of money to continue this research. This is the most
| promising new line of thinking we've had towards solving these
| diseases in my entire lifetime. beta amyloid, tau, and the rest
| haven't gotten us anywhere.
| piyushpr134 wrote:
| We also know that science doesn't do a very good job when it
| comes to long term effects on human beings. They took awfully
| long time to declare that smoking is bad, despite plenty of
| evidence. Same goes for alcohol. They have still not figured
| out fat, carbs, sugar etc.
|
| I feel, science when it comes to directly observable and
| measurable systems works pretty well and is accurate.
| However, when same is applied to systems which are not lab
| controlled/controllable (like human diet) then it really hard
| to prove of disprove anything. We are better off believing
| things which are proven in practice than believe bigpharma
| funded studies which can be (and are) manipulated by fudging,
| manufacturing and/or simply twisting data.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| I'd cut scientists some slack here. People often forget
| that almost all of the actually useful and used medicine is
| less than 100 years old; that almost all that goes into
| items of everyday life is less than 100 years old too.
| Cigarettes in the form we recognize today are less than 200
| years old, and for most of the time since then 'till now,
| neither medicine nor biological sciences knew shit about
| anything, or had any useful equipment to measure anything.
|
| The exponential progress of technology isn't just the
| Internet and rockets and GDP. It's all knowledge and all
| tools derived from it, many of which are necessary to make
| further scientific advances. Arguably, all that's useful
| has been invented or refined in the last 200 years, with
| the distribution leaning heavily towards the present.
|
| So yeah, it took scientists a while to declare that smoking
| is bad. There were many reasons for it, but a major
| contributing factor was that they had neither good models
| nor good tools until very recently.
| Klinky wrote:
| Science is a method/study, not an isolated entity. Who is
| "they"? You mean "scientists"? Which ones? The ones paid
| off by Big Tobacco? Often the negative issues we face are
| ignored due to conflicts of interest, bias, and
| societies/economies valuing certain things (wealth of few)
| over other things (health of many). That is not the fault
| of "science".
| [deleted]
| edgyquant wrote:
| It cites multiple studies though. E.g.
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4367209/
|
| Just because there are not currently any FDA approved medicines
| doesn't mean it isn't science. I also would push back at anyone
| asserting government approval is required for science to be
| accurate.
| piyushpr134 wrote:
| 100%. FDA approval is nonsense. FDA plays in arms of big
| pharma to provide you good advice which also makes money.
| They hardly peddle any advice which doesn't make money. For
| instance, linkage of cancer, heart disease, kidney disease
| etc with processed foods, sugar, fructose (fruit juice, corn
| syrup) etc despite tonnes of contrary evidence
| wswope wrote:
| Nah bro, this is just like all rare cancers and orphan
| diseases, which are also fake. If they were real, the FDA
| would be on top of that.
|
| Get a load of this literature review on the gut brain axis
| from pages 88-137, 49 pages listing over 1694 totally bogus
| citations: https://journals.physiology.org/doi/pdf/10.1152/ph
| ysrev.0001.... There's clearly no epistemological basis for
| this stuff!
|
| (\s)
| parentheses wrote:
| I know someone who has crippling anxiety at a level that requires
| medication. She has always stated that when she has any stomach
| issues, it increases the risk of any panic events. Additionally,
| she found that consuming a daily probiotic reduces her baseline
| anxiety.
|
| The more we learn about it (this article included), and change
| variables in our lives, the more certain we are that all types of
| non-gut-health metrics can be improved by improving gut
| microbiome.
| alexcaza wrote:
| I developed a panic disorder over the pandemic. Did all the
| things--meditation, therapy, vitamins, minerals and medication,
| in that order. All of them took more and more of the edge off,
| but it wasn't until I started an SNRI that I was able to better
| pull the signal from my gut. It turns out I have at the very
| least non-celiac gluten intolerance. Once I went on a strict
| gluten free diet practically all of my physical and mental
| symptoms have vanished.
|
| Now, when I consume something with gluten accidentally, I'm met
| with pretty much all of the fun depression, anxiety and
| physical pain I was feeling before. Our gut health influences
| _a lot_ more than we probably realize.
| turtledragonfly wrote:
| People are wowed by animals that have multiple brains (eg:
| octopus' arms), perhaps not realizing that humans do too, in a
| sense -- the enteric nervous system (described in the article).
|
| It's the reason you can still digest food if you're a
| quadriplegic, for instance.
|
| The enteric nervous system has about the same number of neurons
| as a cat brain, for point of reference.
|
| Sometimes I think of the activity of my guts as my little cat
| brain, taking care of things down there, so I don't have to (:
| turtledragonfly wrote:
| Also, if you're interested in what intestines look like
| squirming about in real time: (beware! NSFW, medical gore,
| blood/guts/etc)
| https://old.reddit.com/r/medizzy/comments/ttz995/peristalsis...
|
| Gross, but fascinating too.
| vram22 wrote:
| >beware! NSFW, medical gore, blood/guts/etc
|
| Same for a human brain, or heart, whether pumping or not.
| Comment based on seeing a NatGeo photo of a human brain (not
| a diagram), and a real human heart in the hand of a medical
| student friend of mine, at his college exhibition.
|
| The brain photo grossed me out more than the real heart;
| don't know why. :)
|
| Edit: the heart didn't gross me out at all, actually.
| mock-possum wrote:
| Wow that's great! Reminds me of the Cerebretes in StarCraft,
| long fleshy undulating coils
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| I am 100% positive that is the gut brain that is listening to
| my microbiota saying that yes I should buy those chocolates in
| the grocery store and no I will not eat them all in one
| sitting. My head brain knows better but with that confident
| voice speaking differently what am I to do?
| agumonkey wrote:
| You could also layer the emotional / sexual subsystems on top of
| the gut one.
| gavinray wrote:
| What I always thought was interesting was that when you take
| psychedelics, despite whether it's mushrooms, LSD, or 2C-B (and
| what have you), you can feel this little ball of energy in your
| stomach (particularly noticeable when starting to come up) that
| persists for most of the trip.
|
| My woo-woo theory is that there's some kind of serotonergic
| activity happening in the gut (which is responsible for some ~95%
| of the body's serotonin production) that is so profound you can
| physically feel it.
| pazimzadeh wrote:
| The main receptor for LSD is the 5-HT2A receptor. There is a
| ton of 5-HT2A receptors in the gut, mainly an enterochromaffin
| cells.
|
| The amount of 5-HT2A receptors expressed in the intestine
| increases as you go down the length of the intestine.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Your gut has it's own nervous system and sensory nerves
| including taste buds. I think the burden of proof would be on
| explaining why it's doesn't trip balls.
| wunderlust wrote:
| How do/would we know it doesn't?
| deepsquirrelnet wrote:
| I'm not sure I have anything too enlightening to add, but my
| anecdotal experience with IBS resonates with this.
|
| I have gotten my IBS under control through a variety of ways, but
| perhaps my first realization of this was around 15 years ago. I
| had not received much help from my doctor or gastroenterologist,
| and back then, gastroenterologists did not like to approach IBS
| at all, because it's a tricky syndrome and their training at the
| time didn't have much to offer.
|
| At some point, I noticed that it was a two way street between
| anxiety my IBS. If I was having anxiety, then I'd often start
| having digestive problems. If I started having digestive
| problems, I'd also have increased anxiety. This was first
| apparent to me around traveling, because all of the hustle and
| bustle of getting through airports was an anxiety trigger, and I
| w was simultaneously disrupting my diet, causing an IBS flair
| every time I went somewhere.
|
| Back then, I had been reading about the potential positive
| effects of cognitive behavioral therapy for IBS. So I began to
| practice awareness and some simple CBT, anticipated by knowing
| I'd be anxious about traveling.
|
| Much to my surprise, it helped immensely in that particular
| scenario. It's hard to have that level of emotional awareness all
| the time though.
|
| In case it helps anyone, I've tried a ton of things over the
| years. The things that have helped me most are - probiotics
| (histamine degrading), soluble fiber supplementation (acacia
| root) and low histamine diet.
| nness wrote:
| Similar experience, IBS + anxiety combo knowing me out on the
| daily. CBT was also the only thing I've tried which I would say
| had a positive long-term and measurable improvement.
|
| (In the UK, CBT is a common treatment for IBS and free with the
| NHS. It was never recommended to me in Australia, and had I
| known, I would've sought it our far earlier in life.)
| potomak wrote:
| My mother is a dietitian and she started a podcast this year
| where she's talked a lot about the microbiota and how it affects
| our organisms in a lot of different ways.
|
| For instance, did you know that bacteria in our guts help us
| "digest" and expel heavy metals?
|
| In the third part of the episodes about the microbiota[0] she
| talks about the gut-brain axis:
|
| > l'intestino puo comunicare al cervello uno stato di disagio o
| disbiosi procurando, oltre al gonfiore, anche un possibile stato
| d'ansia o abbassamento dell'umore
|
| that translates more or less to:
|
| > the gut can communicate with the brain a dysbiotic state
| causing, in addition to swelling, a state of anxiety
|
| The podcast is in Italian, but the transcriptions can be easily
| translated in English.
|
| [0] https://dietista.it/2023/03/29/e-la-pancia-non-c-e-piu-
| terza...
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