Dr. Emeran Mayer on the Gut-Brain Connection: Psychology, Mental Well-being & Diet
Today, Dr. Emeran Mayer, a renowned expert in the gut-brain axis, discusses the profound impact of gut health on our psychological and mental well-being. Learn about the latest scientific discoveries connecting your gut microbiome to your brain and how modern agriculture, diet, and environmental factors play a crucial role.
Dr. Mayer's Background
I'm a gastroenterologist. I've seen hundreds, maybe thousands of patients in my career. I've also had a career-long interest in the science of brain-gut interactions and the last 10 years of brain-gut microbiome interactions. And about 10 years ago, I came out with my first book, “The Mind-Gut Connection, which influenced my trajectory.
Communicating scientific breakthroughs that have happened in microbiome science and in gut health to the public is now the second hat I am wearing. Unfortunately, many people who are communicating this information are not necessarily the scientists or the main players in the field. They're self-appointed influencers.
So it's become a very prominent task for me to really fill that vacuum with evidence-based, scientifically-based information. And it takes a long time to go from a clinical study to the lay public. And what I'm trying to do is really close that gap.
Cutting-Edge Discoveries in Gut-Brain Connection
The most surprising finding was really in the early days of this brain-gut microbiome field. I've worked on brain-gut interaction scientifically all my career. We were the first ones to use brain imaging to see what happens in the brain if you stimulate the gut, and what happens in the gut when you stress the brain with emotional stimuli and stress stimuli. We really thought we had figured it all out and that there weren’t that many holes in the story.
Then, when the first papers came out from animal studies, from John Cryan, his lab, and a few others in the world, I was very skeptical. I thought this was just not necessary. It took me a couple of years to accept those studies. Then we did our first human study where we demonstrated this effect of a probiotic mix on brain circuits in healthy women. This discovery that there's something “non-human” in our intestine that essentially uses the brain or the gut-brain connection for its own purposes was an amazing find.
And it doesn't really stop at the microbes in our gut, because these microbes are nurtured by the food that we eat, and the plants we eat are influenced by the soil microbiome. So the roots interact with the soil microbes, and then the soil microbes stimulate the plant to produce molecules that help the plant survive and defend the health of the plant. And then when we eat these plants, our microbes pick up the same molecules that their cousins in the soil stimulated, and then we pick those up, and then they become health benefits for us and for our brain. That to me is still one of the most amazing stories in this field.
I completely agree that the soil and the gut, there's this kind of comparison between the two. The roots of the plants going into the soil are like the enteric nervous system going to the gut. So there's certainly this amazing concept that nature's put together for us. -Kriben Govender
Impact of Modern Agriculture on Gut Health
People always say, “to feed the billions of people in the world, we need to expand conventional agriculture first with chemical fertilizers”, which has done wonders. It’s prevented mass starvation in the world, and we totally accept it as a normal part of agriculture now.
Another thing that is being celebrated is the ability to grow tomatoes and other vegetables in water without soil. In my opinion, we don't really have to expand our food production if we change the way that we do things, and we won’t have to throw away half of it. There will be enough food for 8 or 10 billion people in the world. But, you know, people like these modern fads, not thinking about the consequences.
With chemical agriculture, for example, the plants are growing beautifully, they're getting bigger. If you go to an organic farmer's market on the weekend, the food doesn't look that nice. So what happens is that the concentration of the phytonutrients in these plants that are grown in an organic or regenerative organic soil is much higher. And when we eat these beautiful plant products that are grown with chemical agriculture, it’s like plants being on steroids. They contain fewer of these health-promoting molecules. The plants will also become more susceptible to:
- Diseases
- Insects
- Pests
- Fungi
- UV light
So we need to add this on top of the fact that many of these plants are grown chemically, with fungicides and insecticides. And so there are multiple consequences. Now, ultimately, this is particularly important today. I promote a largely plant-based diet. But when you think about it, most of our plants, certainly in North America, are grown with GMOs. And it’s not the gene modification itself that’s the concern; it’s actually what we spray on these GMO-produced products.
There’s also the way they’re grown, without the natural system of soil microbes that would normally stimulate their health benefits. So we think we’re doing something good for our health, but in reality, these are depleted products. They still have vitamins and other phytochemicals, but some key components, like polyphenols, are diminished in these plants. So if you want to eat a truly healthy diet, it’s not just what you eat, it’s also where the food comes from and how it is grown.
The Role of GMOs and Glyphosate
When glyphosate was originally approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the decision was largely based on in vitro studies using isolated cell systems. In those studies, glyphosate did not appear to have a negative effect on the cells. That’s because human or animal cells don’t have the enzymes needed to metabolise glyphosate into potentially dangerous chemicals. But we now know that some microbes do have these enzymes.
Most of the time, microbes are doing positive things for us. They help break down large molecular structures so they can be absorbed by the body. In general, most of what they do is beneficial, but when microbes encounter chemicals they have never seen in their evolutionary history, they may sometimes convert them into more harmful compounds that can affect our health.
I’m certainly not someone who believes in conspiracy theories, but I once had someone come to my office very discreetly and explain how research on glyphosate may have been suppressed by parts of the agricultural lobby. The concern was that more detailed studies today could reveal effects mediated through the microbiome. And as you know, there have been major lawsuits involving Bayer related to glyphosate-based products. So there has been a lot happening behind the scenes around this topic and what microbial processing of glyphosate might mean for human health.
To add a bit more context, glyphosate would be considered a xenobiotic, a foreign compound that microbes encounter. Microbes have had billions of years of evolution, first in the oceans and later in association with plants and animals. Over time, they became masters of cellular communication and interaction with their environments. As a result, they carry an enormous genetic capacity, far more genes collectively than humans have.
But microbes were never exposed to most modern chemicals. Today, humans encounter hundreds, maybe thousands, of synthetic compounds, things like microplastics, for example. Microbes in evolutionary history never encountered plastics, yet they can still interact with and sometimes break them down. The same is true for many medications. In some ways, the microbiome functions like a second liver, metabolizing many drugs. Sometimes that metabolism is beneficial, but other times it can change how medications work.
For example, with certain medications used to treat Parkinson's disease, microbial metabolism can influence how the drug behaves in the body. In some patients, the medication works very well, while in others it may have reduced effects or different side effects. A significant part of that variability may come from differences in the microbiome.
I'm sure there are so many other conversion processes that are happening in the gut via the microbiota and their genes that could be leading to potentially negative (but also positive) outcomes. I love how you highlight the point that our modern inventions, these chemicals that these microbes might not have been exposed to in the past, could be leading to detrimental effects on the body. - Kriben Govender
Microplastics and Potential Microbial Solutions
I want to come back to a positive example with potentially huge implications, and that’s microplastics. Certain microbes can actually break down microplastics into CO2 and water. Companies are working on this right now. One in particular, Melius, is developing beneficial microbial strains that specialise in breaking down the microplastics we ingest, converting them into water and CO2, which are harmless substances.
When you look around, it’s unlikely that we’ll eliminate plastics anytime soon, certainly not in the next 20 years. Researchers are already detecting microplastics in places like the heart and even the testicles, and we still don’t fully understand what effects they might have. Since we’re unlikely to dramatically change our behavior around plastic use, it would be remarkable if bioengineered microbes could help convert these microplastics into harmless substances.
My prediction is that this kind of solution is a likely future scenario. We may modify the genetic code of certain microbes to give them functions they didn’t develop over billions of years of evolution. But now we may need those functions because we’re dealing with entirely new chemicals and environmental pressures.
Over the past few years, we’ve seen huge news about the accumulation of microplastics in the human body through environmental exposure. And you’re absolutely right, microplastics aren’t going away anytime soon. So it’s exciting to hear about developments in synthetic biology that might help mitigate some of these risks. -Kirben Govender
The microbes we are talking about are things like Lactobacillus or Bifidobacterium - microbes that normally grow in our intestines, but with changes made to their genetic code so that when they encounter microplastics, they can metabolise them.
The whole field of synthetic biology or genetic engineering of microbes sometimes leaves a bad taste for people. They think, “We don’t need genetically modified foods or microbes.” But there may be opportunities to use this remarkable system that already lives inside us, provided we confirm that it’s safe. Any time you modify a genetic code, you have to make sure there are no unintended consequences.
I also have mixed feelings about synthetic biology. But cases like this are exciting because we know we have a serious problem that’s very difficult to solve. As more research emerges about microplastic accumulation in the body, it makes sense to explore innovative solutions like these. -Kriben Govender
Soil-Grown vs. Hydroponic Foods
When you look at root products, for example, in traditional medicinal practices, ginger and turmeric, there are many roots used this way. I don’t know how many of the bacteria that live in what’s called the rhizosphere (basically the rootlets that come out) are still present after drying, processing, and turning these roots into powders. There certainly are bacteria present. There have been studies on organically grown oranges, looking at how many bacteria coat the peel. And that’s likely true for many foods. But I couldn’t give you a fully informed answer about how important that bacterial load is when we consume it.
I think it’s more important to consider the role microbes play in the development of these plant-based foods. As we talked about earlier, microbes interact with the roots and the leaves as the plant grows. If you take that away, you remove a whole class of beneficial molecules, like polyphenols. Polyphenols are a very interesting group of molecules. The name literally means “many phenols.” A phenol is a chemical ring, so polyphenols are many of these rings linked together, forming very large molecules.
Because of their size, these molecules can’t be absorbed in the first half of the small intestine. We simply don’t have the enzymes to break them down, and they’re too large to be absorbed passively. Instead, we rely on our microbes to break them down into smaller molecules in the later part of the small intestine and the beginning of the colon. Those resulting molecules, in many ways, reflect the history of the plant, how it evolved, how it was grown, and what interactions it had in the soil. And if that natural process is taken away, we also lose part of that beneficial chemical complexity.
Benefits of Regenerative Agriculture
We had planned a study comparing the polyphenol content of plants grown in the laboratory with plants grown in regenerative organic soil. Regenerative organic agriculture, for people who may not know, is a rapidly growing movement. It’s not just about avoiding chemicals. It’s about giving back to the soil. Instead of continually taking nutrients out and depleting the soil, regenerative practices restore it, through crop rotation and other techniques that have been shown to be both practical and cost-effective.
Regenerative organic agriculture isn’t some “hippie” approach that can’t make money. There are real examples proving that it works at scale. One well-known example is Joel Salatin, a farmer in Virginia who has clearly demonstrated that food can be mass produced using regenerative practices while still generating sufficient profits. So the idea that you can’t build a viable business around regenerative agriculture is simply wrong. It’s largely a myth promoted by the industrial agricultural lobby.
To summarise the plant story we were discussing: it’s not so much about the microbes we ingest from food. It’s more about how soil organisms convert plant chemicals during the growing process. Those interactions in the soil influence how these compounds, like polyphenols, ultimately interact with our bodies.
When soil microbes are removed or damaged, through chemical inputs or through systems like hydroponics that remove soil entirely, you interrupt that whole pathway. Regenerative agriculture is incredibly important not only for the quality of plant foods, but also for the quality of meat that’s produced and for the environmental benefits as well.
Understanding Bovar
Consumers have recently been asking about the addition of Bovar into the animal’s life cycle, presumably through a feed supplement that suppresses methane production. There’s been a significant public backlash around it lately. From my perspective, the uncertainty is about the downstream effects. I don’t know what happens when a chemical like this is introduced into the system, particularly what the effects might be on the microbiome. A lot of methane production in cows comes from microbes in the gut, so altering that system could have ripple effects.
Yes, the fermentation process in cows, the entire digestive process, is completely dependent on microbial populations. And that system has already been significantly altered by modern meat production. For example, feeding cattle corn instead of grass can be harmful to their digestive systems and can lead to inflammation. That’s a good example of ignoring a biological system that evolved over thousands of years in the ancestors of cows, bison, and other grazing animals. In many areas of nutrition and food production, the role of microbes has been overlooked for a long time.
Another issue is how farm animals are raised in large-scale industrial systems. Many animals are kept in conditions that cause chronic stress. Even though they may be considered “healthy,” if you examine them closely, through biopsies or inflammatory markers, you often see widespread inflammation in their intestines, especially in the large intestine. This inflammation is caused by several factors, including chronic stress and the way the animals are fed. Microbes play a role here as well. In a healthier system, gut microbes can produce substances like butyrate, which has anti-inflammatory effects.
This brings us to another potential development. One approach currently being explored is modifying microbes or probiotics so they can survive in inflammatory environments. Normally, many beneficial microbes don’t thrive under those conditions. But if they were engineered to do so, they could produce anti-inflammatory compounds like butyrate. Butyrate acts almost like an endogenous aspirin for the body or the microbiome. Early research in animal models suggests that these engineered probiotics may have beneficial effects. It’s possible that in the next generation, version 2.0 or 3.0, probiotics could provide much stronger health benefits than the ones we use today.
Right now, probiotics can make some people feel better, but they rarely have dramatic effects. In the future, we may see probiotics that help treat diseases, not only in humans but potentially in animals as well. When you think about it, it’s a troubling situation that we often consume meat from animals that are not truly healthy because of:
- How they’re raised
- What they’re fed
- The antibiotics they receive
Learning about the widespread inflammation in modern livestock systems gives another reason why some people choose to avoid red meat altogether. We’ve already talked about chemical agriculture and how it can damage plant foods. When it comes to animal agriculture, many of the practices can be equally detrimental. And unfortunately, many of these systems are supported by government subsidies. For example, the United States Government spends hundreds of millions, or even billions, of dollars supporting certain large-scale agricultural practices.
So raising awareness among consumers is crucial. It really has to start with the consumer asking questions like: Where does this meat come from? Are these animals healthy? Were they grass-fed and free-roaming? Consumers are being asked to be much more inquisitive and aware of where their food comes from and how it’s produced.
To summarise, the practical takeaway for consumers is to ask more questions and be more curious about what they’re putting into their bodies. In terms of meat, that might mean choosing pasture-raised, regenerative, organic, or grass-fed options. And in the vegetable world, choosing foods that are grown with fewer chemicals, ideally organic and grown in healthy soil, so that natural processes, like the microbial transformation of polyphenols, can occur. -Kriben Govender
The Power of Polyphenols for Gut and Brain Health
One thing that recently caught my attention was a study that looked at certain polyphenols in coffee and found that these compounds promote the growth of a particular organism in the gut. The organism itself is still largely unknown, but we do know that it produces butyrate. The study showed that coffee drinkers had higher levels of this organism, and it was conducted with a fairly large cohort. -Kriben Govender
I am actually a huge fan of polyphenols. Even before microbiome science really exploded, it was clear that plant-based foods were healthy in part because of their fibre content. People have known this for a long time. As a gastroenterologist, you often saw the effects through improvements in bowel function and relief from constipation, but that’s really just a small part of the story. Fibre is one of those compounds that requires microbes to break it down. These complex carbohydrates are metabolised by gut microbes into smaller molecules that can then be absorbed in the later part of the small intestine or in the colon.
For our ancestors, this microbial assistance was even more important. Before the use of fire and food processing, humans depended much more heavily on microbes to break down plant-based foods. Today, cooking and processing already break down many complex molecules, but microbial metabolism is still essential.
Polyphenols work similarly. Much of the early science around polyphenols came from laboratory studies showing that these compounds act as antioxidants. That’s generally what people think about when they hear the term: antioxidants that protect cells from damaging free radicals. But that antioxidant effect occurs when the intact molecule interacts directly with cells in a lab environment. When we actually eat polyphenols, the situation is different. These molecules are often too large to be absorbed intact. Instead, they must first be broken down by microbes before their components can be absorbed. As a result, polyphenols have multiple beneficial effects:
1. They nourish beneficial microbes and help increase microbial diversity.
2. Microbes break them down into smaller molecules that can be absorbed and used by the body.
These processes appear to contribute to a range of health benefits, from gut health to brain health, including potential protection against early cognitive decline and cardiovascular disease. There have even been some large, well-controlled studies in this field, which is relatively rare in nutrition research. One group of polyphenols that has been studied extensively is flavanols, which are found in foods like cacao and many types of berries.
The polyphenol field actually went through a bit of a roller coaster. About 10 to 15 years ago, there was an explosion of interest in antioxidants. At the time, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration even hosted a database ranking the antioxidant potential of various compounds. The supplement industry quickly jumped on this idea. But later studies showed that when people consumed polyphenols (either as extracts or whole foods), very little of the original compound appeared in the bloodstream. As a result, the FDA eventually removed that database, and the field lost some credibility. Now we understand why those compounds weren’t showing up in the blood: they weren’t absorbed intact. Instead, they had to be metabolised by microbes first. As this mechanism has become clearer, interest in polyphenols has started to grow again.
Personally, I think polyphenols are one of the most interesting components of a largely plant-based diet. If you look at the main drivers of the health benefits of such a diet, you could really narrow it down to three key components: fiber, polyphenols, and fermented foods. So why didn’t those polyphenols show up in the blood in earlier studies? It’s because they were simply too large to be absorbed in their original form. They travel down to the ileum, the last part of the small intestine, where there is already a significant concentration of microbes. It’s not just the colon that contains microbes; the end of the small intestine does as well.
There, microbes break these large molecules into much smaller phenolic compounds. Those smaller pieces can then be absorbed. At the same time, those breakdown products also help feed the microbes themselves. I often say that identifying a healthy diet becomes much simpler when you look at it from the perspective of the microbiome. A diet that supports healthy microbes, rich in fiber, polyphenols, and fermented foods, will generally deliver the greatest health benefits.
One of the key factors here is something called gut microbiome diversity. Consuming a wide range of plant fibres, polyphenols, and similar compounds helps foster that diversity, which appears to be strongly linked to better health outcomes. -Kriben Govender
Importance of Microbiome Diversity
There’s a lot of speculation involved in this area, but researchers have looked closely at two key concepts in the microbiome: diversity and richness.
- Diversity refers to the number of different types of microbes present.
- Richness refers to how many of each of those strains exist.
So it’s not enough to simply have many different strains present in very small numbers. You could technically have a thousand different strains in your gut, but if there’s only one of each, that wouldn’t create a healthy microbiome. You need both diversity and richness, many types of microbes, and sufficient numbers of each.
The microbiome really functions like an ecosystem. If you think about a city as an ecosystem, the same principle applies. A healthy city has people with many different professions and cultural backgrounds. Having just one person from a particular region doesn’t meaningfully contribute to the diversity of the city. But if you have large numbers of people from many different parts of the world, that diversity strengthens the system. Cities like London or Los Angeles are good examples of this principle. Their diversity and richness contribute to the vitality of the ecosystem. Whether this translates directly into brain health is still being investigated. Some studies have tried to link microbiome diversity to mental health outcomes, but the results haven’t been as clear-cut as researchers initially hoped.
Today, when scientists try to define what a healthy microbiome looks like, they often return to the broader principles of ecosystem health. Whether you’re looking at an ocean, a forest, or a city, the same core principles tend to apply: multiple interconnected players, each present in sufficient numbers. That interconnectedness is key.
There’s also another complication. When researchers study “healthy” control populations in the U.S. or the U.K., those groups may not actually represent the healthiest microbiomes in a historical sense. If you compare them with hunter-gatherer populations, such as communities living in parts of the Amazon or along the Orinoco River, the difference is striking. Those traditional populations often have microbiomes that are far more diverse and richer. Modern populations have already lost many of those ancient microbes.
This idea was explored in the book Missing Microbes by Martin Blaser. He describes how modern lifestyles are through:
- Antibiotics
- Diet
- Sanitation
May be gradually reducing microbial diversity, similar to how species are disappearing from ecosystems around the world. So when we compare people who don’t yet have disease with those who do, it doesn’t necessarily mean the “healthy” group has an optimal microbiome. It may already be depleted.
What we do know comes largely from dietary studies. When people improve their diets (often by moving toward a diet that is about 75% plant-based), epidemiological studies consistently show associations with better brain health. These studies don’t necessarily prove causation, but they do show links between diet and improved outcomes related to emotional disorders, cognitive decline, and low-grade brain inflammation.
Large long-term studies, such as those conducted by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (including the well-known Nurses' Health Study) have followed tens of thousands of participants for decades. These studies repeatedly show strong associations between healthier diets and better long-term health outcomes.
Interestingly, many of these early studies didn’t include microbiome measurements from the beginning. It would be fascinating to see how closely microbiome diversity tracks with those health outcomes. When it comes to specific microbes that may support mental health, the simplest answer is this: many beneficial bacteria are butyrate producers.
These microbes break down complex carbohydrates and fiber into butyrate, a short-chain fatty acid with strong anti-inflammatory properties. Butyrate supports the gut lining, reduces inflammation, and appears to have important effects on brain health as well. At the brain level, the anti-inflammatory effects may be particularly important. Chronic low-grade inflammation is increasingly linked to depression, cognitive decline, and neurodegenerative diseases.
In some ways, you could think of diet as a balance—almost a yin and yang. Even if someone eats less-than-ideal foods, consuming enough fiber-rich foods that promote butyrate production could potentially offset some of the negative effects of diets high in fat or red meat. The key point is that many of the strongest butyrate-producing microbes increase when people follow a more plant-based diet.
Key Beneficial Bacteria: Butyrate Producers & Akkermansia
Akkermansia has also become popular. It’s a microbe that plays a big role in mucus production and in the regulation of mucus. The mucus in the intestine is a key component of intestinal permeability. A lack of this mucus layer is associated with increased permeability, what people call “leaky gut.”
Akkermansia is an interesting organism because it can feed on mucus (you can think of this as sugar molecules). If you don’t eat a high-fibre diet and your gut microbes don’t get enough fibre, Akkermansia has a mechanism to survive by switching to mucus consumption. But it’s not just consuming the mucus. Through this process, the organism also triggers increased production of new mucus. So essentially, what Akkermansia does is change the turnover of the mucus layer, which appears to have a health-promoting effect. This is somewhat different from mechanisms like butyrate production.
Then there are microbes that play a role in the conversion of tryptophan into different molecules. Tryptophan is the precursor of serotonin, which many people like to call the “happy hormone”.
Tryptophan can also be converted into other metabolites, such as kynurenine or indoles. The balance between serotonin and these other metabolites matters. Kynurenine, for example, is not considered a healthy metabolite. If it reaches the brain, it can lead to increased excitability of nerve cells and even degeneration. So microbes that play a role in tryptophan metabolism are also important in this system.
There are multiple mechanisms at work:
- One is the generation of beneficial substances, what we call neuroactive compounds, that support brain health.
- Another involves Akkermansia, which helps improve the mucus layer and strengthen the barrier in the gut.
- A third involves complex carbohydrates that lead to butyrate production.
These are just three examples of how different populations of microbes can contribute to both gut and brain health.
Fermented Foods and Mental Health
There’s a whole range of fermented foods that people can consume, things like:
These foods can contain various beneficial components, including microbes similar to probiotic organisms, beneficial bacteria, and other compounds such as metabolites, postbiotics, and prebiotics.
So how do these fermented foods exert a positive impact on mental health?
A lot of the evidence comes from preclinical studies, particularly in mice. These studies suggest that certain microbes associated with fermented foods may have beneficial effects. It’s important to note that fermented foods themselves are not necessarily considered probiotics. For something to be classified as a probiotic, there must be scientific evidence demonstrating a specific health benefit.
For many fermented foods, like sauerkraut, for example, we don’t yet have that level of controlled scientific evidence. It’s difficult to study them in the same way you would a standardised probiotic product. That said, many microbes commonly found in fermented foods, such as Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium, have shown beneficial effects in laboratory and in vitro studies. These microbes appear to influence gut permeability and inflammation, both of which are closely tied to overall health and potentially to mental health as well.
However, it has been challenging to reproduce these findings consistently in human studies. There simply aren’t many well-controlled human trials yet. There was one particularly interesting study a few years ago that produced somewhat surprising results. Researchers compared people who consumed a diet rich in fermented foods with those who consumed a diet rich in fiber. The investigators initially expected the high-fiber diet to show the greatest benefits. Instead, the group consuming more fermented foods showed a stronger initial reduction in inflammatory markers and improvements in microbiome diversity.
One of the most fascinating findings was that the microbes detected in the participants’ guts weren’t necessarily the same organisms found in the fermented foods themselves. Instead, other microbes appeared in greater numbers. Researchers still aren’t entirely sure where these organisms came from, whether they were already present in the gut at very low levels and then expanded, or whether they were introduced indirectly through the foods themselves. This study has sparked renewed interest in the benefits of fermented foods.
This is what I often recommend to patients: rather than focusing solely on probiotic pills or capsules, try incorporating a variety of fermented foods into your diet, depending on your taste preferences and food tolerances. While many people in the U.S. are starting to do this, there’s still a common perception that you need to take a probiotic supplement to experience the benefits. In many cases, eating whole foods rich in these components may be a better approach.
That said, it’s not a one-size-fits-all situation. Some populations may have limited access to fresh, healthy foods or fermented products. People living in “food deserts”, for example, may not have easy access to a wide variety of nutritious options. For those individuals, supplements that contain beneficial molecules or microbes might be a helpful alternative.
Ultimately, the approach should depend on the individual. If people have access to healthy foods, including a variety of fermented foods, incorporating them into the diet is often ideal. Interestingly, many cultural food traditions already include fermented foods as a regular part of meals, even in communities that may not have access to the same kinds of supermarkets found in more affluent areas.
Something very popular right now is taking capsules of Lactobacillus reuteri and making yoghurt-like products out of it. This was popularised by Dr. William Davis, and you can learn more about this in this blog post: The Power of L Reuteri for Skin and Gut Health with Dr William Davis - Kriben Govender
The Microbiome and Psychedelics
Psychedelics have also become a hot topic in psychiatry and medicine. The microbes have serotonin receptors, the same receptors that psychedelics stimulate in the brain.
There are a few different phases with these psychedelic experiences:
- An initial visual experience
- A phase where prolonged verbal communication increases
- And then a months-long phase as well
The delayed effects may have something to do with the microbes. I would bet money on it right now that this is another area where we’ll see long-term benefits. These substances also have neuroplastic effects that impact brain circuits. There have been studies showing effects on PTSD and depression. This may become one of the main topics we’re talking about in the future.
The Importance of Diet for Gut-Brain Health
Focus on a healthy diet and its components, like the Mediterranean diet or something similar, foods that are grown organically and in a regenerative fashion. That is the number one best thing you can do for your gut-brain health. Make sure to share this article with a friend who could benefit from this information!
