Can a gut microbe really calm your mood and sharpen your mind? Discover Lactobacillus!

Are you or your child finding it tough to focus, remember things, relax and get a good night’s sleep? And at the same time do you feel that your gut feels slightly bloated, gassy or inflamed or you have recently taken antibiotics? There may well be a connection! This blog shares with you information about a key gut bacteria called Lactobacillus and how this friendly flora plays an important role in keeping the mind and mood in balance.

Finding things that can make a difference to yours or your child’s mind and mood can be a lengthy and frustrating journey, and you may be surprised to learn that your gut symptoms can be related. Over the past few years, exciting breakthroughs have been made in understanding the links between the microbial community in your gut called the gut microbiome and how you think and feel mentally, emotionally and cognitively.

Microbiologists have studied Lactobacillus extensively, and we are now learning how it communicates with your central nervous system to directly influence your brain, as well as your gastrointestinal, endocrine, and immune systems. Lactobacillus levels are often reduced when you take antibiotics and in our clinical experience, we find that a very high proportion of people who have needed to take antibiotics, take a long time to build their Lactobacillus levels up to a healthy level.

Luckily you find Lactobacillus in delicious foods such as live yoghurt, kefir and sauerkraut, so it can be replenished through your diet. Read on to discover more about Lactobacillus and the ways in which it helps to make vital brain chemicals called neurotransmitters, which in turn can bring better brain clarity and emotional balance. Find out below how you can support your own Lactobacillus community inside your belly.

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Your “Second Brain” – How your brain and your gut communicate

Scientists have been researching the connection between your brain and gut for decades, and we now understand a great deal about their two-way communication methods. Your gut is capable of sending and receiving so many millions of signals that some scientists call it your “second brain”.

One of the ways it communicates is through the gut microbiome. The microbiotics in your gut produce clever things called neuroactive metabolites, which communicate with your central nervous system via the bloodstream, by stimulating the vagus nerve, and by modulating the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. The HPA is how your body deals with a high fight or flight state when you are put under stress.

Through these same mechanisms, our brains are able to communicate in return, forming a bidirectional connection. Think of the vagus nerve as a superhighway between your brain and your gut sending signals to each other in both directions. Research suggests that 90% of the signals are from your gut to your brain and only 10% from your brain to your gut. So, your gut flora are super important if you want to think clearly and have a balanced mind.

What’s special about lactobacillus?

It turns out Lactobacillus is particularly vital in this important communication between the gut and the brain.

Lactobacillus plays many roles to keep us healthy within the digestive system. It helps you to digest milk and its sugar component, lactose. Many people who think they have a dairy intolerance, find things improve once they have repopulated their gut flora with lactobacillus strains.

It also supports your immune system to help fight off infections and there have been plenty of studies showing that children who take a live bacteria supplement containing lactobacilli strains get ill less and have less school absenteeism.

It seems that Lactobacillus also plays a key role in dialling down inflammation, which may translate into reduced aches, pains and stiffness as well as less skin redness and irritation. Chronic inflammation also drives many metabolic issues such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular illness.

However it is lactobacillus’s main role in the nervous system that we’re interested in here; and this is probably down to its role in two key neurotransmitters, Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and acetylcholine. You should see lactobacillus as the building block which helps to create these vital brain chemicals that help us feel calm and switched on.

What is GABA?

GABA is often known as the calming compound – think of that lovely calm feeling you have after a massage or a yoga session and that is your brain having produced lots of GABA. GABA can also help you to feel more relaxed by calming the noise in your mind.

It has an inhibitory effect on the neurons in the brain that receive it, decreasing the rate at which the neuron sends off its usual signals. This protects your brain cells from overfiring which can can cause cell death in the brain. In turn, this cell death can result in the loss of brain and bodily functions controlled by them, such as impaired movement, speech, thinking, and memory.

Without enough GABA we may feel stressed, irritable, anxious and unable to sleep. In fact, many commonly-prescribed anxiety medications target GABA receptors, with the aim of increasing GABA levels in the brains of people with anxiety or depression.

A teen or tween in a low GABA state might be more prone to risky behaviours like climbing on roofs or dabbling with alcohol or drugs. An autistic child with low levels of GABA might escape from the house or run across the road without looking out for cars.

Lactobacillus strains are known to produce good levels of GABA within the gut. Scientists have found that this may calm the vagus nerve, which in turn leads to reduced stress hormones and improved emotional behaviour.

Research has also found that GABA can cross the intestinal barrier, allowing it to interact with GABA receptors in the peripheral and central nervous systems, where it may have the same effect as the GABA made in your brain.

Why is Acetylcholine important?

Acetylcholine is another neurotransmitter built up by Lactobacillus strains within the gut microbiome. You also make acetylcholine from eating choline-rich foods, which include eggs, liver, beef, fish or shiitake mushrooms.

The role of acetylcholine is involved in lots of your basic everyday functions, from regulating your heart rate and blood pressure to stimulating your skin to sweat when it’s time to cool down.

Within the brain, the function of acetylcholine is strongly associated with learning and memory, motivation, attention, learning, and sleep. It can help with both self-regulation and emotional regulation which is one of the key challenges that many people experience these days. Low levels of acetylcholine have also been linked to neurodegenerative disease such as dementia and Alzheimer’s. Acetylcholine treatments have been proposed to support children with ADHD and autism, but this research is still in its infancy.

Neurodivergent kids with poor working memory and processing difficulties may be low in acetylcholine. These learning difficulties, which affect retention of information in the brain, are common amongst people living with dyslexia and ADHD.

While acetylcholine cannot cross the blood-brain barrier, the acetylcholine released by Lactobacillus can stimulate your peripheral nervous system. There, it can help your body enter a relaxed but switched on state, sending signals to your brain to follow suit.

How can I increase my Lactobacillus?

You can support your own gut Lactobacillus by consuming Lactobacillus-rich foods such as live yoghurt, kefir, and fermented foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, pickled cucumber, miso, and apple cider vinegar.

However, it can be difficult to obtain enough Lactobacillus from diet alone – particularly for those who are dairy-free, or who find fermented foods unappealing. Antibiotics and proton pump inhibitor medications for reflux can cause havoc on Lactobacillus levels too. In these instances, I recommend adding a Lactobacillus-rich live bacteria supplement to your diet.

Round up

To uncover whether low levels of Lactobacillus strains in your gut microbiome is part of the reason you feel anxious, find it tricky to sleep, or find your brain is not working as well as it should, you may wish to learn more about your own gut microbiome. For personalised information and individual gut health recommendations for yourself or your child, you can book a microbiome stool test through our NatureDoc clinical team. We look forward to supporting you!

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