Join Dr. Joshua Goldenberg on the Dr. Journal Club podcast for a quick dive into probiotics and their impact on mental health. Uncover the latest research linking probiotics to symptom reduction and inflammation relief, while exploring potential pathways for enhancing mental well-being and innovative approaches to integrative mental health care. Tune in for rapid insights and compassionate discussions on healing. Remember, always consult a healthcare professional for personalized medical advice.
Join Dr. Joshua Goldenberg on the Dr. Journal Club podcast for a quick dive into probiotics and their impact on mental health. Uncover the latest research linking probiotics to symptom reduction and inflammation relief, while exploring potential pathways for enhancing mental well-being and innovative approaches to integrative mental health care. Tune in for rapid insights and compassionate discussions on healing. Remember, always consult a healthcare professional for personalized medical advice.
Check out our complete offerings of NANCEAC-approved Continuing Education Courses.
Introducer:
Welcome to the Dr Journal Club podcast, the show that goes under the hood of evidence-based integrative medicine. We review recent research articles, interview evidence-based medicine thought leaders and discuss the challenges and opportunities of integrating evidence-based and integrative medicine. Continue your learning after the show at www. drjournalclub. com.
Dr. Goldenberg:
Please bear in mind that this is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Talk to your doctor before making any medical decisions, changes, etc. Everything we're talking about that's to teach you guys stuff and have fun. We are not your doctors. Also, we would love to answer your specific questions on drjournalclub. com. You can post questions and comments for specific videos, but go ahead and email us directly at josh at drjournalclub. com. That's josh at drjournalclub. com. Send us your listener questions and we will discuss it on our pod.
Dr. Goldenberg:
Hello and welcome to another super speedy summary. This is your host, dr Joshua Goldenberg, and today we're going to be talking about this really cool topic of probiotics and mental health, and this is a really, really cool systematic review and meta-analysis that was reviewed by our own Dr Hughes. So go ahead and watch the full basic level video for this one. But in brief, mental illness, as you probably know, is pretty common. About one-third of adults will experience some form of mental illness in their lifetime, so pretty, pretty common Patients with mental illness have twice the mortality rate of the general population. That blew my mind a little bit when I first heard it, and so the question is, you know, will giving probiotics help people with mental illness? Now, the rationale for this is quite interesting. So we would assume that probiotics, prebiotics, symbiotics would help with dysbiosis in the large intestine. That seems reasonable. What we're learning is that that helps with overall inflammatory loads. So having a dysbiotic gut can lead to inflammation. So the theory is, if you give probiotics, that'll decrease inflammation. We also have evidence that inflammation can actually damage neural tissues themselves and that may have impacts on mental illness and manifest in that way. So this is the proposed mechanism, and what's really cool about this study is they meta-analyzed data not just from the patient-borne outcome of mental illness and the symptoms they're in, but also all along this pathway, right? So what was the evidence that inflammatory load was decreasing? What was the evidence that antioxidant load was decreasing, etc.
Dr. Goldenberg:
So, like I said, systematic review and meta-analysis. They found 12 randomized controlled trials. They had a very broad screen. They were looking for any mental health illness, but they were really only able to find for depression. There just wasn't enough research out there yet. This is a very new field. And what did they find? So what they found was, when meta-analyzed together, probiotics and symbiotics are associated with a significant reduction in depression as measured with the HAMD. They did not see a significant reduction with the Bex depression inventory, reductions in inflammation as they saw with CRP, a relatively large impact on CRP and a smaller impact on TNF-alpha, and reduction in oxidative stress in some but not all markers. So very, very interesting study.
Dr. Goldenberg:
Go ahead and watch the basic level video where Dr Hughes really walks you through in very nice detail, including some important background, the results of this meta-analysis background, the results of this meta-analysis Apple podcast or any other distributor. It would be greatly appreciated. It would mean a lot to us and help get the word out to other people that would really enjoy our content. Thank you, hey y'all. This is Josh.
Dr. Goldenberg:
You know we talked about some really interesting stuff today. I think one of the things we're going to do that's relevant there is a course we have on Dr Journal Club called the EBM Boot Camp. That's really meant for clinicians to sort of help them understand how to critically evaluate the literature, et cetera, et cetera Some of the things that we've been talking about today. Go ahead and check out the show notes link. We're going to link to it directly. I think it might be of interest. Don't forget to follow us on social and interact with us on social media at DrJournalClub. Drjournalclub on Twitter, we're on Facebook, we're on LinkedIn, etc. Etc. So please reach out to us. We always love to talk to our fans and our listeners. If you have any specific questions you'd like to ask us about research, evidence, being a clinician, etc. Don't hesitate to ask. And then, of course, if you have any topics that you'd like us to cover on the pod, please let us know as well.
Introducer:
Thank you for listening to the Doctor Journal Club podcast, the show that goes under the hood of evidence-based integrative medicine. We review recent research articles, interview evidence-based medicine thought leaders and discuss the challenges and opportunities of integrating evidence-based and integrative medicine. Be sure to visit www. drjournalclub. com to learn more.