Anyone seen this kind of stuff on your "second brain"?

[Meat-Head]

There are newer studies connecting gut health to anxiety.

Some have found relief by treating the gut health. Pretty interesting stuff. I just ordered a book on this.

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apparently i need 10 posts to do links.

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Has anyone looked at the GAP diet stuff for this?

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I ordered this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Syndrome-D-D-D-H-D-Schizophrenia/dp/0954852028/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418063945&sr=8-1&keywords=gut+and+psychology+syndrome

and this article is interesting:

http://www.news-medical.net/news/20141204/Advanced-prebiotic-Bimuno-has-ability-to-reduce-anxiety.aspx

[MyNameIsTerry]

I think its an interesting subject too and there have been several on this website that have reduced or eliminated their anxiety by removing gluten or cheese or move towards a paleo diet and probiotics.

Another interesting issue is that we don't digest a great deal of the nutrients in our food thesedays, often due to how our diets have moved towards processed foods. This can have a knock on effect to the brain because whilst we may 'think' we are getting enough from our food to create the amount of serotonin we need, how would we ever know?

The same can be said for vitamins & minerals and how I think its very unlikely RDA's are much use to people like us because we are burning through our nutrients quicker just as anyone who trains a lot does. If we were training hard 5 days a week, we would be compensating for the extra demand with our diets & supplementation but we don't consider this with anxiety, but we should. I haven't searched for any articles on this but it would be interesting to see some recommendations.

Without the digestive enzymes we need, without keeping optimal levels of probiotics (and feeding them with prebiotics) in order to reduce candida overgrowth, we are not operating at full capacity and I'm finding this a really interesting area that GP's just don't think about because they just throw the pills & CBT at us which will do very little if its nutritional.

[Carnation]

Terry, I am constantly eating and still don't gain any weight!
I have also cut out cheese, find it bad for sleep and Anxiety. Same with coffee. But, nuts seem to help my digestion and give me good fat.
I also can't go any longer than 4 hours without eating.
I think diet plays a huge part in our functioning as well as our health.
We all need to go back to making our own food, instead of buying already prepared meals and takeaways.
Good thread Meat-Head. :)

[Meat-Head]

Apparently some are having a lot of success with prebiotics/probiotics, and there are studies showing promise with anxiety.

I found some cheap pro/prebiotics that I'm trying. I'll let you know how it goes.

[Nat2015]

Great thread! I've been following the research around gut bacteria and diet for a couple of years now. I eat a "clean" diet as much as possible in that I eat almost no processed food at all and try and stick to eating food in its most purest state as possible. I am also about 80% primal blueprint. (moderate to high fat/low carb based diet) I have eaten like this for a few years now and I can tell it has a difference. It isn't a cure but it certainly helps a lot.

Another thing that surprised me (when I found out) was that 95% of the serotonin in our bodies is made in the gut by the gut bacteria! This is when I realised how important it was to nourish my body and gut bacteria with good wholesome food.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Great thread! I've been following the research around gut bacteria and diet for a couple of years now. I eat a "clean" diet as much as possible in that I eat almost no processed food at all and try and stick to eating food in its most purest state as possible. I am also about 80% primal blueprint. (moderate to high fat/low carb based diet) I have eaten like this for a few years now and I can tell it has a difference. It isn't a cure but it certainly helps a lot.

Another thing that surprised me (when I found out) was that 95% of the serotonin in our bodies is made in the gut by the gut bacteria! This is when I realised how important it was to nourish my body and gut bacteria with good wholesome food.

Amazing isn't it. Its also interesting that the brain and gut separate in the birth process but they are from the same material. Once we are formed, we have a vagus nerve that runs between the two and acts as the communication channel for signals back and forth.

Its becoming more interesting now that probiotic studies are starting off and how our brain is affected by them.

With going primal, have you thought of making your own probiotics? I guess with primal you will have cut out dairy (is that correct for primal?) but there is a water based version called water kefir as opposed to milk kefir. Kefir is far stronger than the probiotics on the market unless you want to be paying sums like £60 for a few days worth when kefir is fermented so you just need a culture and the equipment. Any cost before start up is purely about feeding the bacteria with sugar and any flavouring you need for the stuff you make. I plan on doing this myself, I just haven't got around to it yet.

[Nat2015]

Amazing isn't it. Its also interesting that the brain and gut separate in the birth process but they are from the same material. Once we are formed, we have a vagus nerve that runs between the two and acts as the communication channel for signals back and forth.

Its becoming more interesting now that probiotic studies are starting off and how our brain is affected by them.

With going primal, have you thought of making your own probiotics? I guess with primal you will have cut out dairy (is that correct for primal?) but there is a water based version called water kefir as opposed to milk kefir. Kefir is far stronger than the probiotics on the market unless you want to be paying sums like £60 for a few days worth when kefir is fermented so you just need a culture and the equipment. Any cost before start up is purely about feeding the bacteria with sugar and any flavouring you need for the stuff you make. I plan on doing this myself, I just haven't got around to it yet.

Thanks for your reply. Yes I still eat dairy atm and some dairy is ok on primal (its in the grey area it seems! lol). Ideally it should be from organic grassfed cows and unpasturised if possible but I can't afford that yet. I eat butter, full fat milk and cheese. I don't have too much milk though as my drink of choice is decaf green tea and I normally only have milk on my oats (thats in the 20% non primal part of my diet :whistles: lol) each morning. I'd like to go fully primal one day but for cost and ease of use I've had to compromise some things. I wish I liked yoghurt for the bacterial benefits but I don't like the texture of it. :sad:

I looked into the probiotics but there is also some really good research on prebiotics coming out atm. I eat certain foods for the prebiotics such as bananas, onions, garlic etc. I've experimented a lot over the last couple of years with various foods just to see how it helps.

Your homemade probiotic sounds great and I'd love to hear how it goes when you get round to doing it. :) It's is definitely something I would consider trying myself at some point.

[MyNameIsTerry]

The brain and the stomach are the same tissue in foetus development and they split in two leaving the vagus nerve as the connection. It is a two-way communication channel for the brain to influence the gut and the gut to influence the brain (aside from all of its other functions e.g. heartbeat, breathing, blood pressure stimulation, etc).

There is an interesting article about a study of how the nerve impacts our brains in fearful situations:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...ncts-the-brain

Its interesting how this occurs and suggests that we may be able to calm our anxiety by working with our guts.

[Zeldagirl]

I seen a functional medicine doctor a few weeks ago. They are really knowledgable in this area. He wants me to cut out gluten, dairy, white potatoes, night shades and any grains... So basically I am supposed to eat: meat, eggs, vegetables (no corn or nightshades), sweet potatoes, 2 pieces of fruit a day and brown rice. Then I will slowly reintroduce the foods one at a time and see if I have a reaction to any of them. Sounds promising but I am waisting away and am already loosing weight from all this stress and if I start eating like that I will for sure loose more. I weigh what I did in high school right now and I was super skinny. The weight loss is starting to scare me. Plus if I don't eat all of those things for awhile I will convince myself I'm having a reaction when I re introduce them even if I'm not. I hate my mind!