Can the Bacteria in Your Gut Explain Your Mood?

The New York Times Magazine ^ | June 23, 2015 | Peter Andrey Smith

[2ndDivisionVet]

The rich array of microbiota in our intestines can tell us more than you might think.

Eighteen vials were rocking back and forth on a squeaky mechanical device the shape of a butcher scale, and Mark Lyte was beside himself with excitement. ‘‘We actually got some fresh yesterday — freshly frozen,’’ Lyte said to a lab technician. Each vial contained a tiny nugget of monkey feces that were collected at the Harlow primate lab near Madison, Wis., the day before and shipped to Lyte’s lab on the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center campus in Abilene, Tex.

Lyte’s interest was not in the feces per se but in the hidden form of life they harbor. The digestive tube of a monkey, like that of all vertebrates, contains vast quantities of what biologists call gut microbiota. The genetic material of these trillions of microbes, as well as others living elsewhere in and on the body, is collectively known as the microbiome. Taken together, these bacteria can weigh as much as six pounds, and they make up a sort of organ whose functions have only begun to reveal themselves to science. Lyte has spent his career trying to prove that gut microbes communicate with the nervous system using some of the same neurochemicals that relay messages in the brain.

Inside a closet-size room at his lab that afternoon, Lyte hunched over to inspect the vials, whose samples had been spun down in a centrifuge to a radiant, golden broth.....

[Yaelle]

I have been researching fecal transplants. One day they will be easier. Good luck to your little guy.

Maybe you can try Prescript Assist by mixing a teensy bit from the capsule into something that tastes good, like a smoothie of some kind. That brand saved my sanity, really did wonders for me. Read the Amazon reviews. I haven’t even written one but I should.

Also if he can tolerate drinking a bit of the juice from real sauerkraut (not the kind made with vinegar, the real probiotic kind), even a spoonful at a time? High fat kefir with some honey or jam mixed in - or all those little high quality flavored kid kefirs in the little squeeze tubes? (Not Go Gurt which is not even yogurt at all).

Fir her first three years, my daughter had baby bifidus powder added to her bottles, that might help too - a 1/4 tsp every day might help get it down there.

Prebiotics like cooked and cooled white rice and potatoes will help the new bacteria seed and stay in the colon. Potato salads, rice salads, sushi rice...

[Yaelle]

Start reading here and see where it takes you.

http://freetheanimal.com/2013/12/resistant-primer-newbies.html

There are a lot of places. Read the comments, follow links that attract you. It’s late so I’m just giving you a point to start your research.

[Yaelle]

Another link for you:

http://evolutionarypsychiatry.blogspot.com

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

Thanks brother! I heard a Doctor fellow on the radio saying something similar to what you wrote in the thread, and got interested. I really do need to start eating healthier.

[Yaelle]

They always say at least 80/20. Eat perfectly 80% but don’t stress over the other 20%.

[Rudder]

The Bacteria in my gut is illiterate.

[muggs]

Thanks Yaelle. I will look at the Prescript Assist and bifidus powder. My grandson needs all the help he can get. We have found an omega3 and Vitamin D3 that he will take, we can hide them in his bottle. He sees a doctor that prescribes supplements but many of them he flat out refuses. He has an extremely limited diet and it’s getting worse. Hopefully after dental surgery his diet will improve.

I will also check out the other links you posted.

The fecal transplants have been approved for bowel issues, but not for autism but I think it could help both his issues. He sees a special needs GI doctor.

[muggs]

I don’t remember where I read about it but there have been people with C-Diff that have done their own fecal transplants. They were originally in a study and dropped out, did their own and the results were comparable to the results of the study.I don’t think it’s anything I would want to do but it was interesting to read.