Could bacteria be the answer to treating autism, depression and anxiety?
A Gut Feeling
by Nancy Averett
Coloradan Magazine, Univ. of Colorado
Does a healthy gut lead to a sound mind?
It is a question that intrigues professor of biochemistry Rob Knight, who has a family history of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Knight is a trailblazer in the expanding field of microbiome research, studying the trillions of microscopic organisms that live inside the human body, especially the intestinal tract.
A better understanding of these organisms — how many species exist and how they interact in our bodies to cause or prevent disease — could revolutionize how doctors diagnose and treat such gut-related illnesses as colon cancer, obesity and diabetes.
What’s more, researchers like Knight believe it could lead to better treatment for depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and autism, diseases that at first glance seem more neurological than gastrointestinal.
Knight believes the people who suffer from these conditions may have different gut bacteria than that found in healthy individuals. As a result, he and others are busy gathering fecal matter samples from individuals so they can identify and categorize the hundreds of different species of bacteria, fungi, viruses and other microscopic organisms that live in the human gut.
(More here.)
by Nancy Averett
Coloradan Magazine, Univ. of Colorado
Does a healthy gut lead to a sound mind?
It is a question that intrigues professor of biochemistry Rob Knight, who has a family history of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Knight is a trailblazer in the expanding field of microbiome research, studying the trillions of microscopic organisms that live inside the human body, especially the intestinal tract.
A better understanding of these organisms — how many species exist and how they interact in our bodies to cause or prevent disease — could revolutionize how doctors diagnose and treat such gut-related illnesses as colon cancer, obesity and diabetes.
What’s more, researchers like Knight believe it could lead to better treatment for depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and autism, diseases that at first glance seem more neurological than gastrointestinal.
Knight believes the people who suffer from these conditions may have different gut bacteria than that found in healthy individuals. As a result, he and others are busy gathering fecal matter samples from individuals so they can identify and categorize the hundreds of different species of bacteria, fungi, viruses and other microscopic organisms that live in the human gut.
(More here.)
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