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.....

[867V309]

Can the Bacteria in Your Gut Explain Your Mood?

It's obvious biological organisms are affected by electro-mechanical-gravitational-chemical-thermal and who knows what else stimuli.

[Fungi]

Only if it is a fungus and you believe everything you read.

[Pelham]

Drink your kefir...

[Fungi]

Yogurt my friend too.

[Cowboy Bob]

Lyte’s interest was not in the feces per se but in the hidden form of life they harbor.

I believe that the consumption of feces has in impact on your mood. It makes you feel fabulous!

[blackdog]

"Can the Bacteria in Your Gut Explain Your Mood?"

I don't know about that, but my gut seems to know a lot about my wife's moods.

[Carthego delenda est]

Ah yes, but can your mood explain your bacteria?

[Jemian]

Well, I can certainly affirm that if it is giardia or amoeba in my gut, I am NOT in a GOOD MOOD! But, cramps, vomiting and diarrhea are definitely good mood killers.

[ETL]

No, of course they can’t! They’re just simple organisms. They can’t talk!

[ETL]

...or think.

[Pelham]

Kefir acts a bit differently than yogurt. The probiotics of yogurt provide a benefit as you are digesting it, whereas the probiotics of kefir actually colonize your gut. How much benefit depends upon whether this gut flora really enhances your immune system or not.

[ETL]

You know why you're a such a cranky SOB today.
Well, it's because..."

[ETL]

You're feeling like crap because you were out drinking
all friggin night!

[donna]

If I eat pink icing, I sing “I feel pretty...”.

If I eat hot dogs, I sing “Who let the dogs out...”

Is that what they mean?

[MaxMax]

I get plenty from fermented foods. No more digestion problems like
acid reflux anymore.

[LibWhacker]

Mmmm, monkey feces! Makes me happy as bug in a rug.

WTF??? Somebody's trying to sell us a bill of goods. Probably liberals, as usual. Here, eat this monkey feces. It'll pick you right up. Black is white. Good is bad. Bad is good. Want some cat feces? Two bucks.

[ETL]

Who let the dogs out? Who, who, who, who, who?
Who let the dogs out? Who, who, who, who, who?
Who let the dogs out? Who, who, who, who, who?
Who let the dogs out?
Well, the party was nice, the party was pumpin'
Yippie yi yo
And everybody havin' a ball
Yippie yi yo
Who let the dogs out? Who, who, who, who, who?

[Berlin_Freeper]

I have no mood.

[Pelham]

If lacto fermentation would cure my allergies I’d sure be pleased. But I do think there’s something beneficial to it, I don’t seem to catch many of the bugs going around and if I do it’s a mild case. Knock on wood.