Human gut microbiome and the brain

[Pen]

There is a good series on the human micro biome on BBC World Service radio program Discovery currently available free on podcast. I found the third part especially interesting and maybe relevant for threads about anxiety, depression, learning disabilities, and some health challenges including Parkinson’s.  An earlier part had aspects that relate to weight loss issues. It even appears from animal studies that the micro biome may relate to sociability. 

I am unable to do links at this time, but maybe if someone else finds it who can do links you would be kind enough to put one. 

I would be interested in more on this topic if anyone else is. 

[jen3kids]

 

Thank you so much.  This is what my dd is going through.   It is an awful cycle that is so hard to break out of.   Podcast

 

 

[Liz CA]

Researchers have found a definite direct connection through the Enteric Nervous System. The vagus nerve is its highway and main connecting path as far as I know. I would also be interested in scientific studies regarding this - if someone can provide a link. This discovery has proven helpful in trauma patients who often present with digestive issues.

[Arcadia]

Link to podcast https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csxgw4

The right mix of gut microbes relieves autism symptoms in the long run https://www.sciencenews.org/article/gut-microbes-autism-symptoms

“Autism risk determined by health of mom's gut

Could preventing autism be as simple as changing expectant mothers' diet?

Date: July 18, 2018

Source: University of Virginia Health System

Summary:

The mother's microbiome, the collection of microscopic organisms that live inside us, determines the risk of autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders in her offspring, new research shows. The work raises the possibility we could prevent autism by altering expectant moms' diets.”

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/07/180718113343.htm

[Clemsondana]

There is some really cool microbiome stuff out there - we usually do a unit about it in my senior seminar class.  One thing to keep in mind for things like autism is that there's no guarantee that the 'autism' in mice has the same cause as autism in humans (or even that all human autism has the same root cause).  They select for mice that have behaviors that seem to correspond to what is seen in autistic humans, but since they don't necessarily know what causes the behavior in humans, they don't know if the same thing is causing it in mice.  That said, I hope that the model is accurate, just because what they're doing in mice seems like things that would be easy to implement in humans.  

[Pen]

7 hours ago, ClemsonDana said:

There is some really cool microbiome stuff out there - we usually do a unit about it in my senior seminar class.  One thing to keep in mind for things like autism is that there's no guarantee that the 'autism' in mice has the same cause as autism in humans (or even that all human autism has the same root cause).  They select for mice that have behaviors that seem to correspond to what is seen in autistic humans, but since they don't necessarily know what causes the behavior in humans, they don't know if the same thing is causing it in mice.  That said, I hope that the model is accurate, just because what they're doing in mice seems like things that would be easy to implement in humans.  

 

Good point , however, 

The first autism study Arcadia linked above is in people, not mice. 

Edited July 19, 2018 by Pen
Clarity

[Pen]

8 hours ago, Liz CA said:

Researchers have found a definite direct connection through the Enteric Nervous System. The vagus nerve is its highway and main connecting path as far as I know. I would also be interested in scientific studies regarding this - if someone can provide a link. This discovery has proven helpful in trauma patients who often present with digestive issues.

 

I remember that being mentioned in one of the episodes, I don’t think the 3rd that I just heard today. It might give the name of whoever they were interviewing when vagus nerve came up, and the name might lead you to research. 

Did you try “google scholar”?

 

 

[Ann.without.an.e]

I find this topic so interesting.  I have an auto immune condition and all of my kids do so far except for my youngest.  As the studies come out on this, I always wonder about the antibiotics women are given when they go into labor if they have strep b (I had with all of my kiddos).  Also, my DS with crohns was on a lot of antibiotics as a baby/toddler for ear infections.

[Guest]

Hello ☺️

I don't normally post here. Just helping Pen out since she has been having difficulties linking.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Note: Cross-posted from the Learning Challenges board

Pen, this does not appear to have made it into the US National Library of Medicine yet, as from the dates it is pretty apparent that it just came out. However, I  did find in the US National Library of Medicine what appears to be the original study.

- Microbiota Transfer Therapy alters gut ecosystem and improves gastrointestinal and autism symptoms: an open-label study

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5264285/?report=classic

You will see Krajmalnik-Brown's name up at the top with the other contributors. All the particulars of the study match. What you appear to have come across is the follow-up.

ETA: Just fixed the link to classic view.

[Paige]

I also find this topic really interesting. If we are more non-human than human, as far as human cells on and in our body vs microbe, and we evolved with these microbes, then it should be obvious that there is some kind of symbiotic relationship. We know very little about why these microbes are with us and what they do, yet we are very careless about how we have been changing their habitats over the past 100 years. It's also exciting to think of all the new possibilities and discoveries that may come with better understanding of and research into the human/microbe relationship. 

[BeachGal]

2 hours ago, Attolia said:

I find this topic so interesting.  I have an auto immune condition and all of my kids do so far except for my youngest.  As the studies come out on this, I always wonder about the antibiotics women are given when they go into labor if they have strep b (I had with all of my kiddos).  Also, my DS with crohns was on a lot of antibiotics as a baby/toddler for ear infections.

 

Antibiotics definitely affect the microbiome. Other medications do, too.

For someone with autoimmune conditions, Valter Longo is worth following. He is doing human studies using fasting or a fasting-mimicking diet (specific nutrients) to treat individuals and is seeing very good results. The first video is from 2016 and the second is more recent, 2018.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6PyyatqJSE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evGFWRXEzz8

[BeachGal]

The Sonnenburgs, husband and wife who run the Sonnenburg Lab (studies the microbiota) at Stanford, have written a book called The Good Gut that discusses the human microbiota. It's easy to understand and has helpful suggestions and recipes. Here they are with Rhonda Patrick, a scientist who among other things, has studied Vitamin D, serotonin and autism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOZcbNw7sng

[Laurie]

Teresa Conrick writes frequently about the microbiome at the Age of Autism website.   

http://www.ageofautism.com/teresa-conrick/

My son and daughter have both seen gastroenterologists in the same practice.  The doctor that my son went to wasn't focused on dietary things at all.   My daughter saw a different doctor, and I was pleasantly surprised when he talked about dietary approaches and even said that what's going on in the gut affects the brain.  At the time, I wondered if his approach was so different because he was born/educated in Japan.  

 

 

[Guest]

8 hours ago, Moved On said:

Hello ☺️

I don't normally post here. Just helping Pen out since she has been having Pen, this does not appear to have made it into the US National Library of Medicine yet, as from the dates it is pretty apparent that it just came out. However, I  did find in the US National Library of Medicine what appears to be the original study.

- Microbiota Transfer Therapy alters gut ecosystem and improves gastrointestinal and autism symptoms: an open-label study

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5264285/?report=classic

You will see Krajmalnik-Brown's name up at the top with the other contributors. All the particulars of the study match. What you appear to have come across is the follow-up.

ETA: Just fixed the link to classic view.

Cross post....

I haven't had the chance to listen to the podcasts yet, and I assumed that the podcasts were talking about the study found in Science News. It was Arcadia that contributed that link. Apologies for the confusion!

[momacacia]

Gut and Psychology Syndrome and the Body.Ecology Diet have been on this path for almost a decade...the Specific Carbohydrate Diet even longer. They're just finally starting to somehow get peer-reviewed research behind it (curious where the $ is coming from). 

The GAPS diet healed my daughter's epilepsy 7 years ago...there's so much gut-brain connection. It's hard, but so real. 

[TravelingChris]

On a different note, you know that toxaplasmosis (which you can also get from meat too, not just cat litter   It affects most mammals) has definitely been shown to change behavior.  Mice change behavior which causes them to be caught easier by cats but one of the strange results with humans at times is becoming fashionable.  Now I would guess that is so that they would be more showy and more likely to be targets??? 

Anyway, my dh and I are kind of enjoying, kind of being horrified by our current Great Courses course we are watching- Mysteries of the Microscopic World by Prof. Fleury at Tulane.

[Pen]

21 minutes ago, TravelingChris said:

On a different note, you know that toxaplasmosis (which you can also get from meat too, not just cat litter   It affects most mammals) has definitely been shown to change behavior.  Mice change behavior which causes them to be caught easier by cats but one of the strange results with humans at times is becoming fashionable.  Now I would guess that is so that they would be more showy and more likely to be targets??? 

Anyway, my dh and I are kind of enjoying, kind of being horrified by our current Great Courses course we are watching- Mysteries of the Microscopic World by Prof. Fleury at Tulane.

 

Do you mean the toxoplasmosis makes human want to be “fashionable”?

Weird and kind of creepy. Sounds a little like when we saw some Nature documentary where fungi took over an ant’s brain. 

[Pen]

And mitochondria in our cells could be related to the gut micro biome too, I would think. 

Has anyone run across anything about that?

 

[TravelingChris]

That is exactly what I read in a long article a few years ago.  Fashionable and more outgoing.  Like previously nerdy introverted shy guy becomes outgoing fashionably dressed guy type thing.

[BusyMom5]

There was a new Nova series that discusses this link.  

[TravelingChris]

And then there is also the autoimmune connection to mental health. 

[Joules]

5 hours ago, TravelingChris said:

And then there is also the autoimmune connection to mental health. 

And this goes both ways...The Body Keeps the Score by van der Kolk is an excellent book on how trauma can cause disease.  

I imagine continued stress causing a change in gut flora is a part of this.

[Pen]

2 hours ago, Joules said:

And this goes both ways...The Body Keeps the Score by van der Kolk is an excellent book on how trauma can cause disease.  

I imagine continued stress causing a change in gut flora is a part of this.

 

In addition to epigenetics and the emotional milieu people grow up in, this could be another way in which trauma can keep going intergenerationally. And affect behavior and health. 

[Teaching3bears]

Sorry to be late to the discussion.  I am very interested in this topic.  I was on daily antibiotics as a child and two of my kids are very ill and suffering special needs kids.  

I don't think changing my diet during pregnancy would have had much of an impact.  I was eating very healthy and very pro-gut.   I think probiotics are key.   The problem is we don't know which probiotics to supplement.