ARE YOU STRESSED? MOODY? DEPRESSED? FORGETFUL?
YOUR SECOND BRAIN- IN YOUR GUT- MAY BE TO BLAME!
The connection between the gut and the brain is an everyday experience! When you are stressed or anxious, say before a public lecture, you have butterflies in your stomach. When you hear shocking news your stomach turns! You may even move your bowels.There is indeed a nervous connection between the brain and the gut, mainly through the vagus nerve. The nervous system in the gut regulating its activities comprises about 100 million nerves which together are regarded as the second brain.It has long been known that the gut has more functions than food motility, digestion, absorption and waste elimination. The gut produces energy, synthesizes vitamins and it is a source of several hormones and neurotransmitters in the same class as the brain neurotransmitters with which the nerve cells communicate with themselves.The gut also has the highest concentration of immune cells being a first point of defense against whatever germs or other harmful agent may come into it from outside.In addition the gut is home to a huge quantity of bacteria numbering more than the number of cells that make up the body. Some of these bacteria are harmful and the rest, some 85%, should be useful and health-promoting under normal circumstances. These health promoting bacteria are called probiotics.These probiotics owe their health-promoting roles to their abilities to: enhance digestion and absorption, synthesis of vitamins B and K, lowering cholesterol and triglycerides, lowering BP, lowering stress, producing natural antibiotics and keeping bad bacteria and fungi under check, detoxifying cancer-causing agents, maintaining the integrity of the gut lining and enhancing immune function.Many things can harm these probiotics and disrupt their function. These include antibiotics, pesticides and stress itself.Just like stress can adversely affect these probiotics so can an imbalance in their population and disruption of their function also cause stress because of the reciprocal connection and influence between the brain and the gut.When due to inflammation or damage in the gut some immune signaling chemicals called cytokines are released thereby, these chemical get to the brain setting off processes that are known to affect our mental and emotional states. Also the nervous transmissions going on in the gut and which depend on the balance of neurotransmitters and other factors, get transmitted to the brain thereby also powerfully affecting our mental state, mood and emotions. In support of this gut-brain influence is the fact that stimulating the vagus nerve, for example, is known to alleviate depression. Further, it has been clearly demonstrated that the supplementation of certain probiotics has been known to reduce stress.
So, when you are stressed, moody, depressed, irritable, on
edge or beginning to lose your memory, the fault may be in your second brain-
in your gut!
For your overall general health and your mental and emotional
health in particular a healthy gut is a prerequisite! One of the ways of
achieving this is through probiotics supplementation some of which are
specifically composed with the brain in mind like ProBrainBiotics.
Some are composed with general overall health in mind like ForeverActive Probiotic.
Dr. A B Aiyesimoju
