Skip to main content
Forums Home
Illustration of people sitting and standing

New here?

Chat with other people who 'Get it'

with health professionals in the background to make sure everything is safe and supportive.

Register

Have an account?
Login

cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Our stories

Rossco
Casual Contributor

Improving Gut health and mental health

I had moderate depression 5 years ago which lasted about 2 years. My depression began with a very stressful event. It often seems to begin that way but I think that is a trigger rather than the actual cause. My personal belief is that the cause has been building for a while largely unnoticed and the stress tips you over the edge so to speak.

Most/many of the drugs to treat depression are in a group called SSRI drugs or Selective Serotonin Re uptake Inhibitors. The key word here being Serotonin.

I’m not allowed to mention the names of the SSRI drugs, but you can look them up.

Serotonin is a neurotransmitter and commonly called the happy chemical, happy neurotransmitter or happy hormone.

Basically what an SSRI drug does is recycle the serotonin (well really it makes it stay longer in the synapse) but lets just say recycle for now.

I guess the theory also says that you are low on serotonin so you need to conserve it or make better use of it.

Well it would seem easier just to get more serotonin, right? If it were only that easy, that would be great. But it doesn’t seem to work that way. You cant just get a serotonin pill like you do a vitamin pill. Well maybe you can but it still doesn’t work. The serotonin has also to cross the BBB or blood brain barrier, and it has to be regulated, like for example you can’t get all your daily oxygen needs all at once, you need a constant supply, not a one off hit, and you might need a little extra now and a little less later, like more oxygen when you are exercising and less while sleeping.

When everything is working well, this natural system works fine. When you have depression the system is “Broken”, but it can be fixed.

Just to be fair there are about a dozen neurotransmitters but the big ones for us depressives are Serotonin GABA, Noradrenaline (Adrenalin) and Dopamine.

For now I would like to focus on Serotonin.

So heres a biggy. 90% of your serotonin lives in your gut. When I say Gut I mean the large intestine.

I know, whats that got to do with my depression which is in my head? Well first of all I don’t believe depression is in your head, but I will go along with that theory for the moment, lets assume it is in your head. Your gut/your colon is connected to your head/brain through an information superhighway called the VAGUS nerve. That’s not Las Vegas, its Vagus, meaning wandering in latin. The vagus nerve is like a wandering tree that connects all the organs to all the other organs including your brain and your colon.

So if you believe me then your brain communicates with your gut through the vagus nerve. If you have enough serotonin in your gut, you will have enough in your brain.

If your gut is happy your brain will be happy.

What makes your gut happy? Well food for one thing, and vitamins , minerals, fibre (we will get to that). I mean on a practical note it shouldn’t be so hard to believe. When you are full of good food (Not burgers and chips but real food) you are much happier than when you are starving or haven’t eaten for a few days. Now when I say real food, I don’t mean just pizza and salad sandwiches, but real honest to goodness old fashioned meat and vegetables. We will get to that.

So heres the big bopper. Your gut, your colon is home to about 100 trillion bacteria, or at least it ought to be. That’s 100 followed by 12 zeros.

 

So look these bacteria are everywhere, like on your skin, in your mouth, in your ear and in your hair. Most of them are good and we want them there, a few are bad guys and that’s ok too and there are a lot we just don’t know yet if they are good or bad. Mostly they are all happy to get along together. Again we will get to that later but the big thing is they are mostly in your colon/ your gut and they are very helpful. Just on numbers, the number on your skin are not even 1% of the total, not even close, lets say about 99.9% are in your gut and they are very helpful.

Why are they helpful? Well for a start they actually produce vitamins like B12 and folate. They can’t produce minerals, but they produce healthy acids and compounds like for example Butyrate which is an anti inflammatory fatty acid.

 

Heres the second Big Bopper. Your gut bacteria produce serotonin.

If you get your gut bacteria right then you produce more serotonin.

Happy Gut = Happy head.

Why would my gut bacteria not be right?

Well I will give you some examples,

Antibiotics

Low fibre in the diet (Bacterial food)

Chlorine in the water supply. Its there to remove bacteria.

Too much sugar. Promotes bad bacteria and yeast.

 

How do I get my gut bugs right?

Take probiotics for a start.

Eat some more fibre.

Filter your water.

Ask your doctor or naturopath about probiotics and gut bacteria and how it may effect your mental health.

Oh and one more thing. Yoghurt is not enough.

4 REPLIES 4

Re: Improving Gut health and mental health

@Rossco Hi Rossco thanks for the post. I have a son with Autism and other problems like schizophrenia like many parents with Autistic children (he is an adult now) tried the gut diets but unfortunately for us it had little or no difference but it was worth a shot. I know for other parents they swear by the diets to help with children's speech and other thought processes.

 

 

Re: Improving Gut health and mental health

Wow thanks Rossco. I had never heard of the VAGUS nerve before. I have felt empty in my gut since I was 22. I am now 38 and I still feel empty. In my first psychotic episode I thought that my intestines were going to fall out of my bum-hole. Weird right? Well if you were addicted to using a computer 24/7 like I was, it would be enough to drive anyone crazy. Then I thought for two days that the Freemasons were coming after me and I was highly suspicious that the AFP had tapped my home phone. So the CATT team got me onto Antipsychotics which stopped my paranoia but did nothing about my gut. I hope that I will feel normal again, but for now I feel that my insides are wasting away and empty.
Does anyone feel anything remotely anything similar to what I have gone through?

Re: Improving Gut health and mental health

Great post johnnymarrfan, you have a way with words and a refreshing honesty.

I dont know much about psychosis but if you have a gut feeling that your gut is a problem then your gut may well be right. Your gut is often referred to today as your second brain. Dont take my word for it look it up on the net. My first episode of mild depression occurred 30 years ago after a round of strong antibiotics to treat food poisoning. Because I was young and fit I got over it reasonably well. Antibiotics are really tough on your gut flora.

Flora are the community of bacteria that live in your colon. You can improve gut health by taking probiotics. PREBIOTICS are important too. Prebiotics are food for the bacteria.

The wonderful thing about Prebiotics is that they give you an incredible feeling of fullness in your gut as well as looking after the little critters.

Re: Improving Gut health and mental health

 

Hello Greenpea,

 

I hope this reply reaches you, not sure how this works.

That Autism thing is a super tough gig. I have heard a bit about its relationship to gut health.

It is certainly worth a try. I mean diet is quite important for all of us.

Fermented foods are fantastic for gut health like live sauerkraut (I make my own)

But good luck getting children to eat the stuff, its an acquired taste as they say.

The other way is probiotics (live bacteria) in a formula.

My experience is you must buy the good stuff and it must be refrigerated.

I hope this helps.

 

Rossco

Illustration of people sitting and standing

New here?

Chat with other people who 'Get it'

with health professionals in the background to make sure everything is safe and supportive.

Register

Have an account?
Login

For urgent assistance