How Happiness Is Connected to Intestinal Bacteria

Have you ever wondered why we tend to get very moody?  Have you ever wondered why we can get depressed for a long stretch and some of us are perpetually depressed?  I’m sure some of us have noticed that more and more people are taking antidepressants all the time.

Many of us are exercising to restimulate our seratonin levels so that we can control our mood swings without having to resort to powerful anti anxiety drugs or anti depressants with harmful side effect.  A hormone called seratonin is what determines our happiness level.  The more seratonin we have in our brain, the happier we get.  Less seratonin usually leads to depression.

Here is an interesting facts, based on latest scientific research from Oxford, England: Only 10% of the seratonin exists in our brain!  90% of the seratonin or produced by intestinal bacteria!  Can you believe that the answer to anxiety and depression problems is in your stomach?  Well, lets back up and explain what all of these things mean and how this ties in with curing anxiety and depression.

For years, the scientists have associated anxieties and mood swings with gut flora but they weren’t able to prove the connection until recently.  They were specifically interested in balancing the bad flora in the stomach with more beneficial bacteria.

Scientists were very curious as to why patients who used good bacteria killing medications such as anti biotics often left with depression and they theorized that it killed enough good bacteria that produced seratonin to unbalance the delicate eco balance of the gut flora.  This was confirmed in the later research when it was discovered that up to 90% of the seratonin were produced by the good bacteria in our intestines.

The latest research also uncovered something that literally blew the lid off the long held belief that brain controls our moods.  They found that:

1 – 1 trillion bacteria lives in our gut and

2 – 100 million neurons are in our intestines

Can you see how keeping beneficial bacteria healthy is critical to keeping us from chronic anxiety and depression?  This research shows that these beneficial microbes can only live in our stomach and small intestines to keep us healthy as long as we are providing healthy, nutrient rich environment.

This is why you need to eat a healthy balanced diet and supplementation to ensure that we keep at least 80% good bacteria in our body to keep healthy.