A common bacteria found in yogurt and other fermented foods may hold the key to an effective, nonpharmaceutical approach to treating depression and anxiety.
The results of a recent study on mice by University of Virginia School of Medicine researchers suggest that the presence of adequate amounts of Lactobacillus in the gut microbiome helps the animals maintain levels of interferon gamma, a cytokine that regulates the body’s response to stress and helps protect against anxiety and depression.
The study, published in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, describes how researchers transferred the microbiota of mildly stressed lab mice with microbiome dysbiosis to nonstressed, germ-free mice; this initiated behavior that was suggestive of mood disorders.
When subsequent tests exposed separate groups of mice to environmental stress, the researchers found that the brains of mice with lower levels of Lactobacillus in their gut microbiomes showed increased activation in neural regions associated with fear and anxiety when compared with those with higher levels of the bacteria.
“With these results in hand, we have new tools to optimize the development of probiotics, which should speed up discoveries for novel therapies,” study collaborator Andrea Merchak, PhD, said in a press release.
This article originally appeared as “Your Gut and Your Mood” in the July/August 2024 issue of Experience Life.
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