Microbiome of the Gut

Learning about the Role of Bacteria in Mental Health

A couple of months ago I read something that absolutely floored me:

It said that 90% of our body’s serotonin is produced in our gut.

What? W.H.A.T??!!?!!???

I kept looking at that number, amazed.

Here’s why:

I have been on anti-depressants (SSRI’s - Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) for nearly twenty years, for the most part. So, I know that serotonin plays an important role in mental health and moods, and when your body doesn’t produce enough serotonin on its own that it can make life very difficult. It can make you feel crazy. It can make you miserable and depressed and want to die. It can make you not sleep. Among a whole bunch of other things.

I’ve done to therapy. I have read about depression, even medical, science-y stuff that I don’t enjoy and have a hard time understanding.

And I had never heard this.

I’ve done to general practitioners, psychologists, psychiatrists, and yet, I had never known that so much serotonin comes from the belly.

I always thought that serotonin was almost exclusively made in the brain. Because from everything that I had read, it portrayed serotonin as a neural thing…produced in the brain. And SSRIs helps the body to get the serotonin that people with depression often lack.

I also thought that because it was connected to mental illness, which I always thought of as a problem within the brain…a neurological failing, mental health…in the mind, so I thought my brain was broken in this way.

So, to read that any substantial amount of serotonin comes from elsewhere in the body, would have shocked me. But this high of an amount, astounded me. And I kept coming back to that number.

So, my next logical question then was, so is there anything I can do to help my gut produce more serotonin?

I had heard others talk about the benefits of gut health for awhile. Some people focused on it because of IBS or an auto-immune disease. But I honestly didn’t think it pertained to me because I didn’t have tummy issues. I have a strong stomach and I had no problem with food sensitivities, constipation, diarrhea, etc.

But I wanted to see if it would make a difference.

So, at the end of September of 2021, I started to take supplements from Plexus to improve the good bacteria in my gut and do a cleanse/get rid of the bad bacteria.

Please note: I’m not trying to sell Plexus products. The supplements don’t have to come from Plexus; it could be any supplier, but the supplements are all plant-based: pro-biotics, a drink heavy with Chromium and a Bio-cleanse pill that contains Magnesium, Sodium, Bioflavonoid Complex, Ascorbic Acid.

But the results to me were striking.

I did have some gas and bloating, as well as minimal tummy pain and diarrhea for awhile, off and on for about a week or so. This process is the body’s way of killing off the bad bacteria.

But what I recall is this feeling of calm and peace after a week on these supplements. And to someone who has generalized anxiety, PTSD, someone who over-thinks, overanalyzes and worries, sometimes has obsessive-compulsive thoughts, to feel my body relax was such a blessing.

I remember texting my best friend and telling her— “I feel light. I just feel so light. I feel almost normal. Is this how normal people feel?”

It has made a difference to me. I feel lighter, calmer, healthier. Things don’t bother me or get under my skin as much.

I talked to my therapist about this and she wondered if my body just needed a reset, a cleanse, after all the surges of cortisol post-traumatic stress.

Maybe. I don’t know.

This is what I do know—it hasn’t completely wiped out my depression and anxiety. It’s not some miracle drug, but it has helped me immensely.

I also know that gut health supplements haven’t worked the wonders for a few others that it has for me. I know others who have come off anti-depressants and anxiety medications, along with migraine meds and found their IBS improved.

But, as I said in previous posts, options are important.

It was worth it to me to try. I am glad I did. I am so thankful I had the means to do so.

Since September, I have done a lot of reading on studies from researchers and scientists from Harvard and the like…they are making fascinating discoveries about the role, the importance of gut health in mental illnesses. And most of them are new, as recent as only a few years old. Sometimes not even that.

They are finding that the prevalence of certain bacteria, or lowered levels of one strand versus another in the microbiome of the gut play a role in determining whether or not someone is more likely to suffer from mental illness.

I honestly think we’re only scratching the surface of all there is no know about gut bacteria and the role it plays in mental health.

It’s only one part, one piece of the puzzle, but every bit helps. We have so much learn to help people who experience mental illness.

Things like bacteria get me excited because it provides some hope that there one day may be a way to treat the cause, to provide a cure, rather than just treat the symptoms.

I once heard a podcast that likened anti-depressants to tylenol, treating the symptoms of, say, a bacteria infection rather than the actual problem. For many of us, we have come to believe that this is the best that we can hope for. You don’t hear much about cures for mental illnesses. But what if we can find one? The equivalent of providing an antibiotic to treat an infection…What if there is a substance to treat the cause of depression? Another example may be what if there was a way to restore the pancreas to be able to again produce insulin for Type I diabetics, instead of just accepting that they would need to administer insulin shots to oneself for a lifetime?

I so want there to be.

I want actual hope for an end to mental illness for those of us who suffer.

Finally, as I have said before, depression and anxiety isn’t all the same for everyone. No one remedy to cure all. I’m not a doctor or a nutritionist, and I’m not saying your experience with gut health supplements would be the same as mind. But, I also believe we—even doctors and researchers—-still don’t know enough yet about how to treat mental illness…to cure it.

So, we might as well learn about and explore our options.

So we can keep the faith, to persevere, with hope.

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