Nathalie hosts a podcast about vitiligo.In this episode, Nathalie and Emerald talk about the importance of gut bacteria to our overall health. Nathalie introduces her new vitiligo healing experiment with turmeric.
Show notes:
Lactobacillus is a type of ‘good’ bacteria found in yogurt, among other foods. The role of the gut microbiome — the bacteria which live in our gut — has become a focus of research interest recently.
The researchers found a mechanism for how this change in the gut led to depression (it is through a metabolite called kynurenine).
Simply put, ‘your brain spurts happy chemicals which reward you with good feelings when you do something it perceives as good for your survival’.
We have two different brain systems – the limbic system and the cortex – which keep us alive and protect our DNA. The limbic system produces the neurochemicals that tell your body what’s good or bad for you. It’s a survival mechanism: in the presence of something good, the brain releases four main ‘feel-good’ chemicals – endorphin, oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine – and in the presence of danger, the ‘bad feeling’ chemical – cortisol – comes in.
Oxytocin is the ‘bonding’ chemical.
Endorphin is nature’s pain relief – it’s stimulated by pain.
Dopamine helps us release the energy we need to get the rewards we want
Serotonin How to increase serotonin in the human brain without drugs
- The idea that alterations in thought, either self-induced or due to psychotherapy, can alter brain metabolism is not new- like meditation.
- Exposure to bright light is a second possible approach to increasing serotonin without drugs.
- A third strategy that may raise brain serotonin is exercise.
Gut bacteria may hold key to treating autoimmune disease
Defects in the body’s regulatory T cells (T reg cells) cause inflammation and autoimmune disease by altering the type of bacteria living in the gut, researchers from The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston have discovered.
T reg cells suppress the immune system and prevent it from attacking the body’s own tissues by mistake. Defects in T reg cells therefore lead to various types of autoimmune disease.
Autoimmune diseases can also be caused by changes in the gut microbiome, the population of bacteria that reside within the gastrointestinal tract. The researchers discovered that by feeding the mice with Lactobacillus reuteri, they could “reset” the gut bacterial community and reduce the levels of inflammation, significantly extending the animals’ survival.
Newly reported on May 8, 2018, according to a new Yale study, researchers also found that the autoimmune reaction can be suppressed with an antibiotic or vaccine designed to target the bacteria
In models of genetically susceptible mice, the researchers observed that in tissues outside the gut, E. gallinarum initiated the production of auto-antibodies and inflammation — hallmarks of the autoimmune response. They confirmed the same mechanism of inflammation in cultured liver cells of healthy people, and the presence of this bacterium in livers of patients with autoimmune disease.
“Treatment with an antibiotic and other approaches such as vaccination are promising ways to improve the lives of patients with autoimmune disease,” he said