Research conducted by UCLA scientist has revealed that diet
affects the microbes in human guts which in turn affects how humans feel
emotionally. There was little evidence at first to prove the hypothesis, “You
are what you eat.” This new study consisted of 36 women, a third of them were
on a diet with lots of yogurt and probiotics. Another third of them ate a
substance that looked like yogurt but did not have probiotics. The other third did
not consume any probiotics at all. The women received MRIs before and after the
four week trial. The MRI was used to scan their brain function; when they were
relaxed and when they were put under emotional stress. The scientists wanted to
see if diet affected brain function.
The
data showed that the women who ate the yogurt that contained probiotics had a
decrease in function in the insula (which processes the internal bodily
sensations) and in the somatosensory cortex. These women also had a decrease in
the engagement in the certain parts of the brain: emotion, cognition, and
sensory areas. The other women who were in the other two dietary categories
showed an increase or were stable in all the same areas.
It was
surprising to the scientists that there was such a range in the data. They
expected to see change in the emotional part of the brain but not in the
sensory or cognition. This new discovery will lead to more research aimed at
finding new strategies to prevent digestive, neurological, and mental
illnesses.
Microbes
never cease to amaze me, they do so much in our bodies and we still know very
little about them. This research could lead to amazing treatments; imagine
someone being cured of Alzheimer’s by simply changing their diet and gut
flora.
The fact that medication is dying and not being used as often as it was years ago. Its incredible how using nature and simply diets can be the cure to many illnesses. As your article is in process for more research its incredible that the scientist have found these facts; yet at the end of the discovery will be even more astonishing.
ReplyDeleteIt’s amazing how microbes have so much affect on our bodies. When I first took this class I just thought microbes were components to getting you sick. After weeks in this class and reading all the blogs, I learned microbes not only help you, but also can affect many other pars of your body! This article has a lot of interesting conclusions and it brings a couple questions to mind. Did the certain diet affect all microbes or just certain microbes? If the diet only affected certain microbes, what were those microbes? This finding is amazing because just like you said in your blog; this research can lead to treatments and even possibly cures! Microbes are a big part of our human body and I think research such as this, can go a long way in finding those helpful treatments. Microbes seem to be connected to every part of our body and I think more research will definitely help us; now and in the future!
ReplyDelete-Angelo V.
It is very interesting to know that your diet can affect your mood! I know that not eating for a while might cause moodiness but I didn't know certain foods can cause problems too. With more research, we may be able to find certain microbes and introduce them to our daily diet in order improve our emotions and general psychological life.
ReplyDeleteIt's crazy how our diet has an effect on our mood. Often people recommend exercising to uplift emotional distress, but in this case, it could be as simple as changing what we eat. It makes me wonder what other kinds of foods we can eat that would affect our emotions. What about foods out there that affect our emotions in a negative way? I'm curious on the process of this, how microbes are working in our gut to communicate with our brain. This research really could lead to some amazing treatments in our health, and hopefully, we'll come up with it sooner than later.
ReplyDeleteIt was really interesting to learn that our diet can actually affect our gut microbes, which in turn affects our emotions. So now when we see people acting emotional we know that its because of what they have been eating, which is kind of funny and interesting at the same time. I find this discovery to be really interesting, because I always thought that it did not matter what food source the gut microbes got their nutrients from and that it was all the same nutrients in all food sources. But apparently not and the fact that the different foods have an affect on our microbes is just mind-boggling. And like you said this research could possibly lead to discovering new treatments for diseases and maybe even being able to cure someone of Alzheimer’s disease, which would benefit many people because it is such a prevalent disease in our todays world.
ReplyDelete