The Quiet Link Between Food, Gut Bacteria and Mental Wellbeing

The brain is considered the command centre of the human body, taking care of thought processes, movement, your senses, breathing and still not switching off when you sleep.

However, you are responsible for the food that enters the body, fuelling and nourishing this vital organ during its 24-hour-a-day watch on the other organs and vital processes. Thereby, it manages to remain in charge of the overall maintenance and vigilance that protects us from harm.

Here we find that this constant need for sustenance cues how our brain takes care of its responsibilities via the type of nutrition that we feed it, affecting the immediate function and structure of the brain and ultimately our mood too.

When considering an ideal variety of nutrients needed to feed the brain, you may hear more often than not about vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. These are all available from your daily food options or supplements. These defence mechanism providers fight off the free radicals that are created when the body breaks down oxygen.

The supply of these nutrients is selective since some foods, like processed or refined foods (white flour products, white rice, cakes, biscuits and sugary breakfast cereals) contain very little of them. The brain for all its abilities, finds it hard to get rid of these harmful substances; you could consider as ‘low quality’ fuel. 

Diets with substantial amounts of refined sugars adversely affect some of the body’s best effort to allow you a trouble-free existence. Regulation of insulin is one of the pancreas’ jobs, and too much refined sugar can overwhelm this organ.

Worryingly, these foods also promote oxidative stress and inflammation, damaging cells and also driving up the development of major age-related and degenerative diseases.

Making the most of the nutrition out there isn’t that the food groups are not available. A varied diet containing vegetables, fruits, wholegrains, legumes, nuts, seeds, herbs and spices, with some fish and dairy has been highlighted by such luminaries as Harvard University as rewarding enough to give you a better chance of remaining out of the doctor’s surgery or hospital.

As regards to your mental wellbeing, neurotransmitters such as serotonin, of which 95% is produced in the gastrointestinal tract, is important for the regulation of sleep, appetite, modulation of moods and pain inhibition.

The production of serotonin is affected by the billions of ‘good’ bacteria that live in your gut. They protect the lining of your intestine, while providing a barrier against some of the ‘bad’ bacteria. Furthermore, they improve your ability to absorb nutrients from your food and activate pathways between the gut and the brain.

This data regarding the effectiveness of good bacteria for your overall physical and mental health is being recognised now far more than it used to.

Studies of ‘Western’ vs Mediterranean and Japanese diets are discovering that the risk of depression is lower in the traditional diet, where consumption of vegetables, fruits, unprocessed grains, fish and seafood are greater.

They tend to have less processed and refined sugars in their dietary regime. This presents them with a bonus since their diet provides a natural probiotic emanating from the fermented foods they consume.

Cutting out sugar and processed foods for a fortnight may avail you of an informed response as to whether your mood has altered for the better during this time. Try reintroducing the excluded foods gradually to check for any notable changes.