Unhealthy Gut Bacteria Can Bring Down Your Mood
If you’re feeling tired, foggy, sluggish and moody, your gut flora might be out of balance. Yes, the health of your gut affects your mood. Often considered your second brain, your gut and its health has direct impact on how you feel, both physically and mentally. Here’s a simple explanation why.
A large number of people tend to eat too much sugar or processed foods. It’s just so easy to do, and most people aren’t even aware of just how bad their sugar and processed food intake is.
Too much sugar, in particular, can cause inflammation in your body in several ways. For one, it can trigger a candida or yeast overgrowth that can be present throughout your system, and especially in your gut. Bad gut bacteria and issues like a candida overgrowth can weaken your system, and lead to leaky gut.
Also known as intestinal permeability, leaky guy means that the surplus of toxins, microbes and undigested food can escape from tiny holes in your gut and back into your bloodstream, making you feel sick. It can be a sickness you can’t seem to shake. You may feel dragged down, or suffer constant indigestion, or have skin issues, or a myriad of other discomforts. And this can become your new normal, robbing you of energy, vitality, and eventually, your good health.
How Gut Bacteria Affects Your Mood
Once the bad toxins and microbes are back in your bloodstream, they can also travel to the blood-brain barrier, the area between the brain and the rest of the body. This is where the relocation of gut bacteria, or bacterial translocation, can weaken the permeability of the brain barrier, and impact your mood.
The toxins, yeast and microbes can suppress your ability to create and secrete adequate amounts of the feel-good chemical and neurotransmitter serotonin.
Scientists have not only found that your body’s immune response to these toxins can result in depression, they have also found that many people who are diagnosed with depression also have leaky gut.
This is only one way your mood is affected. A number of exciting mind-gut studies are underway that will help educate the public on the importance of gut health, and the gut-brain connection.
Sources:
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/healthy_aging/healthy_body/the-brain-gut-connection
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gut-bacteria-may-exacerbate-depress/
