You’ve eaten, now feed your microbes. How the gut microbiome can help with managing anxiety and depression
«Simple Words»
Podcast about mental health
Why is kutia, a wheat berry porridge traditionally eaten in Ukraine on Christmas, a superfood that we should incorporate into our diet throughout the year? How many fruits and vegetables a day do we really need to eat? How can understanding your gut microbiome help you manage anxiety or depression?
Viktor Dosenko, a pathophysiologist, geneticist, and the Head of the Department of General and Molecular Pathophysiology at the Bohomolets Institute of Physiology, Ukraine, answers these questions and more in the latest episode of the In Simple Words podcast.
The ‘Science of Resilience’ season of the In Simple Words podcast is supported by Ukraine’s First Lady, Olena Zelenska’s How Are You? mental health initiative, the Coordination Centre for Mental Health of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, and the World Health Organization.
You can find the episode wherever you listen to podcasts
What you eat is an intimate issue
Many of us become wary and hostile when someone takes an interest in what we eat. We tend to eat the way we were taught by our parents, society around us, or our own taste receptors. This keeps us alive. Not necessarily healthy, but alive. We work, achieve certain milestones, make discoveries, and fight. When someone comes along and starts telling us that what we eat is wrong, it feels like a personal affront, Dosenko says.
Evolution makes us crave sugar and fat
Our taste receptors are the most important. We prefer foods that are high in calories and nutrients. Our taste receptors can recognize fatty acids and sugars. This makes sense because our ancestors’ taste receptors evolved to seek those things out in the jungle and the savannah, where access to them was limited. Our ancestors’ brains rewarded them whenever they were able to access these elements.
We find glutamate (found in MSG) particularly appealing because it tastes like foods rich in amino acids, which our bodies use to synthesize proteins. But it turns out food producers don’t need to add every amino acid to a food to make it taste like it’s packed full of them. Glutamate can trick our taste receptors into thinking that’s the case. Dosenko says that while this perception is false, we still find foods rich in glutamate tasty.
The food industry is parasitic. It feeds off our weakness and produces food that can trigger our taste receptors.
Food is a major source of pleasure and joy
Delicious, calorie-dense food is a major source of pleasure and joy. It activates our brain’s pleasure centers and promotes a sense of well-being. It’s difficult to beat its effect, but we can find alternative sources of pleasure in interactions with others, new discoveries, creativity, and spirituality.
If those things are missing from your life, food often becomes your primary source of pleasure. It becomes a drug, Dosenko says, and you direct all your efforts towards procuring it.
A 2023 study by Picodi found that people in Ukraine spend nearly half of their budget (41.6%) on food, and rank 93rd in the world in terms of the share of budget spent on food, with Cambodia ranking 92nd with 42.7% and Ethiopia 94th with 41.3%.
Type 2 diabetes is a major global health challenge
A large majority of people with type 2 diabetes have consumed excessive amounts of plant-based refined foods or meat-based products. Dosenko says that they were eating the way their bodies craved – the way all our bodies crave.
The more affluent a society, the more likely it is to encounter type 2 diabetes, as well as stress disorders, depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorders, as endemic problems. These diseases are less prevalent in countries with lower affluence.
Anxiety is linked to undernourished gut microbiomes
Refined foods, which we naturally find tastier, offer few nutrients to our gut microbiome. This is ironic. Economic growth, new technologies, and developments in agriculture have led to the fact that the food we eat today, while greatly pleasurable, is detrimental to our gut microbiome.
Our gut microbiome starves in the absence of adequate amounts of fiber, Dosenko explains. This causes dysbiosis, an imbalance in the composition and function of the microbiome, which sees useful bacteria die while putrefying bacteria that can survive without fiber remain.
This bacterial imbalance is a factor involved in anxiety, depression, behavioral issues, aggression, and so on, Dosenko says.
Can gut microbiome help manage stress?
Studies show that gut microbiome is directly linked to how we respond to and recover from stress, as well as to our resilience.
For example, research on chronic social defeat found that when mice were introduced to a new environment where a group of previously unknown mice were hostile to them, some of them showed resilience and were able to find their place in this new group. Others became very ill, suffered from the new group’s aggressive attacks, and resorted to hiding in the corner of the cage.
Researchers found that while the resilient mice harbored a specific type of bacteria in their gut, the mice that couldn’t overcome the stress of the new environment lacked these bacteria completely.
These bacteria and their metabolic products are also extremely beneficial to humans. They secrete substances that can reach the central nervous system, which absorbs them and feeds them forward to the brain, where they act as neurotransmitters: dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin. Our gut bacteria, then, are capable of producing all these substances that are responsible for our sense of well-being and pleasure.
What are some common sources of good bacteria?
People experiencing chronic stress, like every Ukrainian in the wake of the full-scale Russian invasion, are desperately in need of healthy gut bacteria.
To keep your gut microbiome happy, you need to consume around 25 grams of fiber a day. Dosenko says you can’t get away with snacking on an apple or a carrot. This amount of fiber is equivalent to consuming 2–3 kilograms of fruits, vegetables, and nuts daily.
According to Dosenko, you can also buy supplements that can help increase the number of your gut bacteria, but you have to first undergo a screening to understand which bacteria you’re lacking.
The genetic screening is fairly accessible, Dosenko says, and produces an overview of the types and amounts of different bacteria in your gut. This can help you figure out which bacteria are over-abundant and which are absent or lacking.
The next step is to determine what each of these bacteria thrives on: some prefer proteins or fats, while others thrive on plant-based foods, such as fiber, bran, and pectins. If you’re lacking bacteria that live off fiber, introduce more fiber into your diet. You might find out that this bacterial deficit was the cause of your bad mood, poor resilience, or anxiety.
Not all vegan food is good for you
Humans are omnivores, but an optimal diet for us is 95% plant-based and only 5% based on animal products. Plant-based foods we need to focus on must contain fiber and unrefined (rather than refined) sugars. Dosenko quips that while ethyl alcohol is totally vegan, it doesn’t make it a healthy choice as it’s essentially refined sugar.
Cereals that have had their bran and hulls removed, such as white rice or flour, do not offer much nutrition to our gut microbiome because they contain too little fibre.
Kutia is a superfood
No culture traditionally prioritizes healthy foods, instead focusing on those that taste good and are calorie-dense. Ukrainians are no exception. The best food in traditional Ukrainian cuisine is kutia, a wheat berry porridge rich in fiber. Dosenko recommends introducing kutia, which is traditionally made on Christmas, to your diet outside of the festive season.
Our bodies are not made to process sugary drinks
Anything that we have not adapted to over hundreds of thousands of years of evolution can be potentially harmful to us. We have not evolved to process artificial sweeteners. Soft drinks high in sugar are a real issue, in part because their producers often directly appeal to kids and young people, effectively pumping them full of sugar. Consumption of sugary drinks causes glucose spikes, which in turn lead to our bodies producing higher levels of insulin to balance our blood sugar levels.
On the other hand, if we eat things that we have evolved to process, such as an apple, our bodies have adapted to break it down and process it slowly. Whole foods cause no sudden surges in insulin.
Evolutionarily appropriate food doesn’t necessarily cause a spike of pleasure, Dosenko says, but it contributes to a more even process of digestion.
The only way to eat healthy is through discipline and commitmen
Healthy food is something that we have to force ourselves to eat. The only way to eat healthy is through discipline and commitment.
On a more hopeful note, research shows that people informed about the basic principles of healthy eating are more resilient in the face of stress, regardless of whether they eat a vegan, vegetarian, or omnivore diet. Dosenko says that once you’re informed, you're more likely to engage in physical activity and monitor your diet, which ultimately leads to better mental health outcomes.
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THE SEASON "SCIENCE OF RESILIENCE" OF THE "IN SIMPLE WORDS" PODCAST IS RELEASED AS PART OF THE INITIATIVE OF FIRST LADY OLENA ZELENSKA TO IMPLEMENT THE ALL-UKRAINIAN MENTAL HEALTH PROGRAM "HOW ARE YOU?" THE PROJECT WAS IMPLEMENTED IN COOPERATION WITH THE COORDINATION CENTER FOR MENTAL HEALTH OF THE CABINET OF MINISTERS OF UKRAINE, WITH THE SUPPORT OF WHO
