Practitioners of a growing medical discipline called neurogastroenterology insist that human beings have a kind of “second mind” located in our gut. This scientific medical practice, which studies the links between the nervous system and the gastrointestinal system, has grown in popularity in recent years, as people have begun to notice the effects of healthy food not just on their bodies, but on their minds. Dr. Michael D. Gershon, author of The Second Brain, is considered to be the original neurogastroenterologist. He claims that there is a two-way communication process between our gut and our brain, and that influential factors like poor diet, inflammation, and antibiotic drugs have a neuropsychiatric effect on us.
Essentially, this means that the state of our gut heavily affects not just our physical health, but also our mood and overall mental health. When you consider that our intestinal walls have over 100 million nerve cells, it stands to reason that whatever food we allow to enter will affect our brain in some way. It’s important to understand a little about the makeup of the “gut microbiome” in order to understand how it can be affected. Our gut is home to trillions of bacteria and other microorganisms. These bacteria help us to digest food and absorb nutrients. Research is beginning to show that everyone’s gut microbiome is unique, but one thing that’s certain is that keeping a balanced and abundant bacteria population is of the utmost importance.
We can do this by eating “probiotic” foods which contain live bacteria. It’s for this reason that doctors and nutritionists now encourage us to eat foods like kimchi, sauerkraut, kombucha, and fermented yoghurt. This is where mental health comes in, as new research has shown that the majority of people with depression also have very low levels of the “good bacterium” bacteroides. So, according to the school of neurogastroenterology, before you seek out antidepressant medications, perhaps you could try upping your consumption of probiotics!
