Microbiota-targeted interventions for mental health

Abstract

Purpose of review The gut microbiota has emerged as a key conduit in mental health and is a promising target for interventions. This review provides an update on recent advances in using microbiota-targeted approaches for the management of mental health. Recent findings Approaches that have emerged as microbiota-targeted interventions in the management of mental health include probiotics, prebiotics, synbiotics, fecal microbiota transplant as well as diet. Among these approaches, probiotic supplementation has been investigated most prominently, providing promising evidence for its use in improving mood and anxiety. There is also growing interest in the use of multistrain probiotics, whole dietary interventions or combined approaches, with encouraging results emerging from recent studies. Summary Although the current literature preliminarily supports targeting the microbiota to manage mental health and use as adjuvant therapies for certain brain disorders, large gaps remain and especially data including clinical cohorts remains scarce. Research studies including larger cohorts, well-characterized clinical populations and defined duration and dosage of the intervention are required to develop evidence-based guidelines for microbiota-targeted strategies.

The Impact of Probiotic Bacillus subtilis on Injurious Behavior in Laying Hens

“…In addition, probiotics have successfully attenuated anxiety and depressive behaviors in rat offspring separated from their mother [ 158 , 159 ] and the obsessive-compulsive-like behaviors in mice [ 160 , 161 ]. These results support the psychobiotics theory [ 15 , 162 ] (i.e., a special class of probiotics (beneficial bacteria) delivering mental and cognitive health benefits (such as anxiolytic and antidepressant effects) to individuals) and provide a potential to use probiotics as a biotherapeutic strategy for improving a host’s mental and cognitive function in humans and other animals including chickens [ 163 , 164 , 165 , 166 , 167 , 168 , 169 , 170 ]. Probiotics may have similar effects on chicken behavior due to the human–animal transmission occurs during the evolution and ecology of gastrointestinal microbial development (the host–microbial coevolution) [ 171 , 172 ].…”

Diet and the microbiota–gut–brain-axis: a primer for clinical nutrition

“…In addition, gut bacteria can stimulate the conversion of neurotransmitter precursors into active forms, such as the dietary tryptophan (Trp) into 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) by Enterochromaffin cells (5). Other bacteria can produce active neurotransmitters such as norepinephrine and dopamine that can interact with the enteric nervous system or stimulate vagal sensory neurons (e.g., neuropod) in the gut ( 6), leading to activation in the brain structures, controlling homeostatic and reward-related feeding behaviour (7). Contrary, a western-like dietary pattern comprising processed foods lacking dietary fibre and with higher content of saturated fat, salt, and food additives (red box, 8) can lead to decreased gut microbiome's diversity, altered bile acids metabolism, lower abundance of mucusstimulating microorganisms and consequently, compromised gut-barrier integrity, including loosening of tight-junctions (9).…”

Natural and Semi-Synthetic Flavonoid Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Agents for the Treatment of Long COVID-19 Disease and Neurodegenerative Disorders of Cognitive Decline

“…The full impact of the gut microbiome on the attainment of tolerance to certain foods and the neurological pathways that train innate immune responses is, however, incompletely understood. Dietary flavonoids have been shown to interact with the microbiome [425] and the gut microbiome has emerged as a key conduit in mental health and a promising target for interventions [426][427][428]. Dietary flavones and chalcones can have important cell regulatory and tissue protective properties positively impacting on a number of diseases, many studies have shown how flavones and chalcones can impact diabetes, liver fibrosis, cancers and bacterial infections and these can also be beneficially regulated by dietary control [11,[429][430][431][432].…”