From the front line in the fight against depression and anxiety

You may have heard of serotonin, a neurotransmitter produced by the body, and maybe you’re familiar with the mode of action of a whole class of anti-depressant drugs. These selectively inhibit the uptake of serotonin, increasing its extracellular concentration, but despite widespread prescribing of these Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors (SSRIs), mental health issues such as depression and anxiety are not at all well controlled. Simply put, SSRIs don’t work very well, but if your were also aware that there are more serotonin receptors in your gut than in your brain, the fact that they're less than truly effective starts to make more sense.

Now the evidence is mounting and it’s pointing to the seat of a host of mental and emotional health issues - in the health of your gut! So whether you're worried about your mental health, your digestive health, your immune response, your hormone balance or whether you already feel and plan to stay truly well in all of those departments, a regular dose of a high potency probiotic is the product you need. And better still, with regular probiotic intake, all your other health-promotion measures and your supplement program will be enhanced!

More good gut news

and great news for any breastfeeding Mum who has ever suffered from mastitis. Now a world-first, retail, probiotic product, isolated from breastmilk has been released in Australia. Even better is the fact that medicos are promoting it as an alternative to antibiotics. Mastitis is an extremely painful inflammation of the breast and a major reason that women stop breastfeeding, so a natural, immune-boosting product to treat it is a real advance. 

But I’m a great believer that prevention is a better way to go, even if treatment with probiotic is preferable to antibiotics, so I advocate establishing optimal gut health before conception and maintaining it during pregnancy. In fact, this was the subject of my February 2012 paper presented at the International Symposium: Probiotics and Prebiotics in Pediatrics, held in Istanbul Turkey. 

Prevention of mastitis aside, healthy gut microbiota is also a powerful contributing factor to optimal fertility and a full-term pregnancy, with other studies confirming that those optimal healthy bacteria in the mother have a role in reducing obesity and diabetes in her offspring.

Is your family getting your daily quota of the good guys that grow in the gut? Look for my best-of-breed product at Jan’s Picks.

The good guys that grow in your gut

I’m hopping on the “healthy gut” soap box again! The research, expanding at a phenomenal rate, confirms the importance of the gut microbiota. Quite apart from preventing a host of directly, gut-related, health issues, the good gut bacteria go a long way towards establishing and maintaining normal weight, hormone balance and emotional stability!

And relevant to my work, Yale and Harvard researchers have identified a brief window of opportunity postnatally when optimal gut health can be established. Take advantage of that window and you bestow a lifetime of better health on the child. WOW - what an opportunity we have, or conversely, what an opportunity we miss. Caesarean-section means a baby born into a sterile environment, failing to acquire his mother’s bacteria as he passes down the birth canal. Formula feeding presents a similar story, delivering an equally unfortunate impact on the infant's gut health. Those US researchers make a direct link to the extremely high C-sec and formula feeding rates to the epidemics of obesity and depression! 

But no matter how deplorable the statistics, the good news is that probiotics can act as a surrogate with probiotic-containing products of potential benefit to the whole family. But there’s madness in the air! As of December 14 2012 in the EU, the word “probiotic” can no longer be used on product labels since it infers a “health claim.” EU consumers will have to look for the names of specific strains to find what they want - a move that defies logic and will no doubt deter the less well-informed. When will restoring optimal (normal?) status of naturally occurring bacteria, trace elements, vitamins or whatever be the RIGHT OF and made EASY for the health-conscious consumer? Before the madness reaches Australian shores,  get a product with multiple strains and get those good guys growing in your gut!

More important than vitamins and trace elements

Wow, what an eye-opener the Congress in Istanbul - Probiotics and Prebiotics in Paediatrics! Latest research confirmed the absolute and fundamental importance of establishing healthy gut ‘microbiota’ which is the official term for 1.5Kg, mostly bacteria, containing 100 times more cells and 100 times more DNA than our body! ‘Important’ isn’t really strong enough to describe all the things this colony of microorganisms is responsible for, including integrity of gut lining, nutrient absorption and vitamin synthesis, immune function, energy metabolism, hormone production and balance and neurotransmitter production. All of that said you won’t be surprised when I tell you that compromised gut health (fewer of the healthy bacteria, or an overgrowth of unhealthy species) are linked to a host of gastrointestinal health issues but also to the obesity and depression epidemics. Wondering about the health of your gut? Don’t wonder, make sure! Invest in a potent probiotic product and take it on an on going basis.