Could Your Gut Microbes Be Influencing Anxiety? | The Truth About Probiotics with Rebecca Edwards

Can the bacteria living in your gut influence how anxious you feel?

Most of us think of probiotics as something to take after a course of antibiotics or when our digestion is out of balance. But emerging research is revealing something far more fascinating... the microbes living inside your gut may be communicating with your brain every single day.

In this episode of The Anxiety Compass, we are joined by Rebecca Edwards, Director of Education at Biome Australia, a naturopath and one of Australia's leading voices in microbiome research, to explore the exciting world of the gut microbiome and 'psychobiotics', specific probiotic strains being researched for their role in supporting mental wellbeing.

Together, we unpack what the microbiome actually is, how the gut and brain communicate through the gut-brain axis, and why looking after your gut could be another important piece of the anxiety puzzle.

Along the way, we also tackle some of the biggest myths and most common questions about probiotics, including how to choose one, whether they really need refrigeration, and if fermented foods are enough.

In this episode, we discuss:

What the gut microbiome actually is (and why Sammy calls them our "microbial overlords")
The fascinating connection between the gut and the brain
What 'psychobiotics' are and why researchers are so excited about them
The emerging evidence around probiotics, anxiety, stress, mood and sleep
How modern life (including stress, antibiotics, processed foods and poor sleep) can impact our gut bacteria
How to choose a probiotic and why strain specificity matters
Fermented foods vs probiotic supplements
and more...

As always, this episode is about curiosity, not quick fixes. Anxiety is rarely from one thing, and probiotics aren't a magic pill, but understanding how our gut microbes communicates with our brain may help us better understand ourselves.

If you've ever wondered whether your gut could be influencing your mental wellbeing (and cravings!), this episode is for you.

Follow Rebecca at https://www.instagram.com/activatedprobiotics/

Transcript

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SPEAKER_03 0:01

It's Abby and Natalie here, and welcome to the anxiety company. Where anxiety isn't the enemy, it's our tour guide. We'll swap stories, share tools, and have a laugh while we find our way back to true north. Come along. Hey Nat, how are you going? I'm good, Sammy. How are you, my love? Oh, I'm fantastic. Welcome back to another episode, everyone. Nat, do you ever stop to think that maybe we're not completely in charge of our own body and our mind? Like there's something else going on there, right? Because inside every single one of us lives a trillion of tiny little microbes. And I like to call them my microbial overlords. Because these guys can actually influence what we're craving, how our immune system responds, and maybe even help us to feel calm or anxious, depending on what's going on down there. So I I believe, Nat, that these guys are the true influencers of the world. Because I actually think they're holding like a meeting every afternoon without inviting me. And somehow they managed to vote on chocolate. I don't know what that's going on down there, but like, do you agree with me?

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Yeah, 100%. So many of our little gut bugs just love sugar. Yes, they do. They do so segueing into that today. We are so, so excited that here on the Young Anxiety Compass, we have um we're finding out just how much influence these tiny microbes really have. Are they simply helping us digest our food or are they also communicating with our brain and shaping our stress response and even influencing anxiety? You know, we talk so much about the gut, don't we, um, Sammy?

SPEAKER_03 1:57

We do. We are gut lovers, we love that conversation. But joining us today is someone who has spent years immersed in this fascinating world. Rebecca Edwards is a director of education at Biome Australia. Uh, she's a naturopath. Uh, she is also one of Australia's leading voices in microbiome research. And today we're going to be talking probiotics, psychobiotics, uh, the gut-brain connection, and what the science is actually telling us about these trillions of tiny little organisms that are living inside of us. I'm so excited to have you here today, Rebecca. Welcome to the anxiety compass. Welcome, Rebecca.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. And um, I just love, Sammy, your description of your microbial overlooking it's only it's most science fiction.

SPEAKER_03 2:44

I know. I feel like that was a really formal entry. We're normally pretty chill, but I wanted to really um introduce you in a in a more formal way because you are pretty amazing at what you do. And I yeah, I'm really excited that you've come onto the podcast today. You've been using my previous one, so we've done this before, but can I call you Beck or is it Rebecca?

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Either, either. I've been called everything. Okay, okay. Oh, well, I'll call you Becky Beck. Yeah. Look, I used I lived it, I lived in the UK for a long time and they don't use Beck as a diminutive of Rebecca. They call so in the UK, they called me Beck's. And then that's what I call my sister Beck. Yeah, and then I lived in the US and they also don't use Beck, but they called me Becca. So I have been Rebecca, Beck, my mum calls me Becky, I've been Beck's, I've been Becca. So honestly, what if it comes from Rebecca? I will probably answer to it. Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_03 3:35

Let's call her come up with rev various names throughout the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

How many different derivatives can we make of your name today? I know, because then I then I have an Indian friend who calls me Reb as well. So you know, it's all over the place. That's new.

SPEAKER_03 3:48

All right, well, we'll see what comes up throughout the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Yes. Um, Beck, you've spent years educating practitioners around the world. We want to know what made bacteria become your thing that you're you're doing in the bacteria lady.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Oh my goodness. That is well, that that feels like such a big question for what is kind of a microbial, you know, microscopic um topic. And I guess I've always loved educating on the human body. And I spent a lot of my career working as a lecturer, an academic, teaching students of naturopathic and nutritional medicine. And I found that what I loved, you know, I used to lecture in kind of all aspects of the degree course in various parts around the world. But what I loved more than anything was kind of the anatomy and physiology and pathology units. And I found that it was really the whole way that we tell stories about the human body and how it works is ultimately what really called to me. And the more I drove myself to learn about the body and how it works, the more I understood that honestly, and this is gonna get all philosophical here, the meaning of life, the meaning of life really comes from the lining of the gut. And then what's happening on the lining of the gut, you are hosting your trillions of microbial overlords. I'm just gonna borrow that semi-I love it. So it's without this amazing collection of these little interlopers who live in us and on us, we wouldn't be able to maintain homeostasis. And I guess ultimately that's always the messaging that I've built all of my educational stories around. What is homeostasis? What is our body trying to do? But more importantly, from a pathology perspective, where and as a practitioner, where is our patient deviating from homeostasis? And how do we support her to come back into homeostasis? And it's amazing how often asking that question brought me back to the gut lining and therefore to the microbes who live there. So it was just a kind of this uh progressive honing inwards and inwards and inwards that led me to what I think is the answer.

SPEAKER_03 6:05

I always think of um, you know how they do the video of you and then they just zoom in and zoom in and zoom in until they get to the tiny little atoms and then they split the atoms and they zoom in, and it's like this just this you don't. I remember the first time I opened the textbook when I was studying nutrition, and I was like, holy moly, like they're at least tiny, it just blows your mind that what's underneath it all, it's just incredible. The human body's amazing. But for someone like, because most of our listeners probably aren't even aware what these little guys are doing. Can you sort of introduce us to these tiny little ecosystems living inside us? So I call them microbial overlords, but there's some of them are our friends, let's be honest, because we can't survive without them. But what are the bacteria actually doing in our gut? Like, what are they doing in there?

SPEAKER_00 6:51

Well, I think you kind of hit the nail on the head there when you said some of them can't survive without us and we can't survive without some of them. Essentially, if we want to put it at its most base form, we are walking clouds of microbes. We are essentially, if if, say, a new alien life force hovered over planet Earth and was trying to get a read on the kind of creatures who inhabit our beautiful blue planet, they would actually read humans as some kind of human microbial hybrid. That we are these walking meat skeletons covered in microbes. And microbes are microscopic forms of life, which are too small for us to see with the naked eye, or actually with any eyes, naked or not. But, you know, we have to we have to look at them under microscopes. But they are each little microbe is a complete form of life, which means that it is capable of performing what we call metabolism, which essentially means they they take fuel in and they produce what we call metabolites, or we could think of them as byproducts or waste products. So they're tiny, tiny, tiny little lives living on us and in us, eating things and producing things. And when we use the word the microbiome, this is a word that, you know, micro meaning obviously microscopic biome referring to a collection of life. So the microbiome is the collection of microbes. But we're so used to talking about the word microbiome in the context of gut health. What I always want to remind people is you actually have microbes all over you.

SPEAKER_03 8:28

You have microbes, yeah. That freaks. I say that to kids and they freak out. And I'm like, no, no, that's a good thing. No, no, it is a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

We've got more microbes than we do cells anyway, don't we? Technically, technically, you are more microbial than you are human because your microbes outnumber your human cells by, you know, several numbers to one. There is not a single part of the human body that has been confirmed to be sterile. And that means you have microbes not just in your gut, but you have microbes all over your skin, through your hair. You have, yes, you have a gut microbiome, but the you have a an oral microbiome. The collection of microbes in the mouth is fascinating. There's the vaginal microbiome that we're now beginning to learn a lot more about. There's a respiratory microbiome, there's an eyeball microbiome, there's an earwax microbiome. The microbiome behind on the skin behind your knees is different from the microbiome on the skin at your neck. You know, you've got these different communities of microbes in every nook and cranny, in every cavity, in every liquid lining every surface. And don't be freaked out about it. You know, embrace it. You just have to embrace it.

SPEAKER_03 9:36

Yeah. I often say to kids in my workshops, uh, when I talk about microbes, I say the smells in your body, humans don't make smells. It's them doing teeny tiny little farts inside your body, and then they go, ooh, they're stinky. That's like that's what bad breath is. That's what you know, the gases that our body makes. You're absolutely right.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Smells, smells come from microbial metabolism.

SPEAKER_03 10:02

Tiny, teeny, our microbial overlords doing teeny tiny little farts. The ones we wanted to talk to because the podcast is all about anxiety. The one we sort of wanted to hone in on more so um are the psychobiotics. But before we touch on the psychobiotics, Nat and I do a lot of talking about the gut brain highway. I call it the gut brain highway, but what do you call it? You call it more like a river, like a flowing thing, don't you?

SPEAKER_00 10:27

Yeah, well, I'm off I spend a lot of my a lot of my time communicating with healthcare professionals. So I don't get to in kind of engage in all of these fun little stories as much as I used to. So I will very boringly refer to it as the gut brain microbiota axis. But I think the gut brain highway is much more fun and definitely gives that visual that this is, you know, this is a significant roadway and it's going in both directions. What do you call it?

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Well, I call it, I've always called it the highway. Absolutely. You know, that we've been calling it the highway practitioner, I call it the gut brain axis. But when I'm talking to the people in front of me, you know, I call it the highway. And it is. It's that's one one thing I we really want you to talk about, um, Beck, is does the brain control the gut or is the gut talking back?

SPEAKER_00 11:16

Well, that that is probably the existential question, isn't it? I see, I I want to introduce a new player in this relationship. You know, we're so often talking about the gut and the brain, but I want to point out it's actually a thropple that we need to be discussing here. It's actually the gut, the brain, and the microbiota. Because the microbiome, I really want to recognize it as being separate from the gut. That, you know, the gut we can think of as the physical structure, and the microbiome is who lives there. So I want to add, I want to add another dimension to this relationship and talk about how it's not just the gut and the brain affecting each other, but it's the gut affecting the microbiome, the microbiome affecting the gut, the brain affecting the microbiome, the microbiome affecting the brain, the brain affecting the gut, the gut affecting the brain. They're all kind of going round in a complex, you know, relationship dynamic conversation.

SPEAKER_03 12:08

And like with any thruple, is one of them more aggressive at times than other and take over? They want more love, or they're just really needy. Yeah. Well, I think that's probably going to be the brain, right?

SPEAKER_00 12:20

Because the brain is the biggest user of resources in the human body. It uses more sugar than any of the other organs, it uses more energy, it excuse me, it um, you know, there's a lot going on for the brain. So the brain is probably the dominant participant in this relationship, except that, you know, like you said before, whereas we couldn't function without our microbes, yeah, the brain would not be able to do everything it needs to do without the regulating input of the microbiome. And we see that in, you know, we see that in human studies now, but we see it also in in really interesting seminal adult studies as well. Sorry, some animal studies, which is a something I don't really like talking about a lot. But this in this particular study, no animals were harmed. But, you know, published some years ago was a study which found that healthy rats, when given fecal content from humans with anxiety and depression, began to exhibit symptoms of anxiety and depression themselves. The only thing that had changed for these healthy rats was that they had been given the microbial content of the human digestive tract. And that was this kind of light bulb moment in science that the composition, the kind of you know, combination of microbes that live in your gut can have a direct influence on your mental health. So that was this kind of huge moment that really illustrated, you know what, gut health and microbiome balance. This is really significant.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

Yeah, it really is. And it goes the other way. I mean, you're literally using um fecal, what is it called, fecal transplant in people who are unwell, uh, with a healthy um sample, and and it's seeing the same thing, isn't it? Like an improvement in health. It's so gross.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

Well, yeah, you see, and that's I think that's interesting, Sammy. Your response to that, it's so gross because we've got this kind of innate response to anything to do with poo that that's disgusting. But it's I work with poo hats.

SPEAKER_03 14:30

Um I'm all good for poo.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

It's also, you know, it is it is the oh gosh, that we're getting, we're getting so deep here. It is the, you know, this the source of life in a way. Yeah, literally. And that, you know, it goes right back to to the story of birth and and really the kind of essential seeding of the microbiome of a newborn baby. For a long time, we really thought it was the vaginal microbiome that was so significant. Now we know it's actually more likely to be the mother's rectal microbiome, which is providing the important foundation for this newborn baby's developing microbiome. And that this is why when babies are born, they're born, you know, sunny side down, if you like, the face facing the perineum. So that essentially their first exposure is to that perineal and rectal microbiome. It's also the reason why during the process of birth, you know, this the stimulation of the baby coming down the birth canal will often also cause release of some fecal material. That's by design, that's meant to happen. It's isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 15:35

I mean, yeah, our bodies are uh are amazing and it knows what to do. We, you know, if we stop getting out of the way and intervening, you know, these natural processes just happen.

SPEAKER_03 15:45

And then I often think like it's gross at the thought of it, but like babies born caesarean, wouldn't it just make sense to rub fecal stuff on the wall?

SPEAKER_00 15:53

Well, believe it or not, believe it or not, this is actually kind of being very gently investigated in research at the moment. That should there should there be a process of actually taking some of the maternal rectal microbiome and applying it in some way to babies? Now, I don't think it's progressed to human clinical trials yet, but I know that the hypothesis is being examined in those research circles. So this is definitely a watch that space conversation.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

Yeah. Because don't they at the moment, um, if they are born by cesarean, they actually have been taking a swab from the vagina and rubbing that on the baby. Have haven't they been doing that?

SPEAKER_00 16:31

Yeah, I mean, and I know that that that has been definitely discussed, and some some birthing mothers have chosen to do that themselves, but there's no no kind of hospital policy or no kind of um, you know, health administration has has put that into place a standard protocol. We don't we honestly don't have the evidence for that being beneficial yet, or or if at all. And again, I think it um it's it's another area of research, but at the moment it's it's yeah, not not definitely not evidence-based into it.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

No, and obviously, as you said, it's it's advanced our our understanding, and it's more coming from that vehicle rather than the vagina.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

But doesn't that doesn't that make everyone kind of freak out a little bit, you know? Poo, you can't get poo on babies.

SPEAKER_03 17:18

Actually, babies are actually supposed to get poo on them. Yes, I like that. I'm I'm all good with the poo, as long as it's you know, yeah, doing beneficial things, as long as it's where it's meant to be. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. So going back to um the psychobiotics, because that's sort of where I just interrupt.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

I just before we move on to the next subject, but can you just explain? Because we do talk about the gut brain axis, we talk about the highway for our listeners. Can you explain exactly what that is? Is it a physical structure in the body that is connecting both?

SPEAKER_00 17:49

That's a really good point because we don't we don't want to give the impression that the microbes that live in your gut are actually traveling to your brain because they're not. So it's more that they are sending messages via that highway. So if you think about it, like do you remember those? Well, probably your listeners won't remember, but have you have you had your grandma tell you about in old school department stores when the cashiers would have the kind of shuttle system above their heads that they would put the money into and it would be whizzed around the building and up to head office, et cetera, and things like that. I think this was really popular in like the 1950s and 60s, and I think some department stores had it a little bit later. But so there was like this um system of connected pipes with an air highway above above their heads, and they would put the day's takings or empty the teal every hour or so and put it into this chute that would then whiz the money around. That's more what our microbial highway is doing, that messages are coming from the gut microbiome and being whizzed up to the brain where they can have an influence. And there's there's a couple of different kinds of, again, hypotheses or theories about how this is working. So let's come back to the contents of the gut microbiome. We have millions of different strains of bacteria that we know about right now. And also I want to point out, you know, just reflect on something that you said before. Every human on this earth has a unique gut microbiome. Like a fingerprint, isn't it? Exactly. It is as unique to you as your fingerprint. So this means that no one else on earth has exactly the same combination of microbes as you do. And your microbiome is always changing as well. It changes dynamically in response to so many things, things that we're still learning about. We know that the most significant influence on your microbiome is your diet, and that you can, you know, you can significantly change the composition of your microbiome with every meal, that everything that comes into your mouth is providing fuel for different microbes. And what we're looking for, because we know that there is so much diversity in microbiome composition around the world globally, we are not looking for everyone to have the same microbiome. Rather, we know that the research shows us that the more diverse your microbiome, the more different types of individual microbes you have living inside you, the more this correlates to good health and especially good mental health. So the more microbes you have living in you, the more different types, the less likely you are to experience things like, you know, mental unwellness, um, emotional irregularity, um, sleeping difficulties, and digestive issues as well. And actually a lot more, a lot of kind of immune diagnoses as well are linked to having a more diverse microbiome. So this means that the more diverse your diet is, the more you are able to feed this colony of diverse microbes. And they're all producing, going back to what you said before, Sammy, they're all producing little farts or realistically, little, probably little poop is probably what I call it. Little poofs. Yeah, little, little, little poofs of of um what we would call, what would call metabolites. So let's say you eat a salad and you've got in that salad, you've got, say, some iceberg lettuce and some romaine lettuce, you've got some red capsicum, some yellow capsicum, you've got maybe some blueberries in there for a bit of colour, you've got some avocado, you've got some red tomatoes and some black tomatoes because you thought they looked cool in the supermarket. You've made a dressing with some olive oil and lemon juice and garlic, and you've sprinkled. I'm making myself hungry. Sorry, I was about to say that I'm really hungry now. I know. You've sprinkled in some salt and some pepper. You are now feeding about a dozen different types of microbes in there.

SPEAKER_02 21:42

Feeding their families.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

Yeah, exactly. They are feed, you're giving them the right food to feed their families. And what's really interesting is that even different foods of the same kind of species, so for example, your red capsicum and your yellow capsicum, they will be feeding different microbes because it is the polyphenols. What gives those capsicum their color, which is actually the favorite food for different types of bacteria. So after you've eaten that salad, you will be growing the families of many different kinds of bacteria. Whereas maybe you're having a day where, you know, everything is wrong with the world and you're very stressed, and you go home and you just eat a big bowl of ice cream for dinner. There are fewer substrates in that ice cream to feed a variety of microbes. So your microbiome will look a little bit different after that big tub of ice cream than it would after your salad. I'm not absolutely not judging anyone for eating a big bowl of ice cream for dinner. What you need to do, that's what you need to do on somebody.

SPEAKER_03 22:43

Yeah, it's the but then I ask Beck, are you choosing that or are your microbes still?

SPEAKER_00 22:48

Oh yes, I think it might be hot. If you think about what might be influencing your decision to eat the ice cream, you might be feeling really stressed, really worn out, like you have decision fatigue. You've got nothing in you to make, to choose to make a lovely, colorful salad. And again, we know that that kind of stress, anxiety, cognitive fatigue can again be influenced by the composition of the microbiome. So this really comes back to it being a two-way street. That yes, your brain is influencing your microbiome, but your microbiome is also influencing your mood, your decision making, your behavior, and yeah, your cravings. So they're they're consuming all of these foods that we're feeding them. They can also um kind of breed in, breed, replicate. This is going to get really creepy as well. Replicate within the mucus lining of the digestive tract. So if you have a thicker layer of mucus covering the lining of your digestive tract, and this sounds gross, but it's actually really important. I've got my gross face on.

SPEAKER_03 24:00

I'm sorry, I'm stuck in gross face. I'll be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 24:03

I've got my science, nerdy, fascinating. I mean, I love that you're fine with poo, but you draw the line at mucus. Hey, I've got teenage boys, everything's gross.

unknown 24:12

Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_00 24:13

So if you have a nice, a nice thick protective layer of mucus in your digestive tract, you're actually providing a nice kind of protective home for your microbiome so they can actually kind of nestle into that sticky mucus and be really, really happy in there, growing their little colonies of little microbial families.

SPEAKER_03 24:31

So what they feel like a little mother, and I'm like nurturing my little families down there.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

I love how now they've switched from being your overlord to your children.

SPEAKER_03 24:40

My kids.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

So they're they're producing what we call metabolites, or what Sammy calls little puffs of futs. And they are substances which are being released by the bacteria after they have fed on the fibers, the polyphenols, the different structures within your food. And these metabolites, um, we know that there are many different types of them, and we don't always know what each individual type of microbe is producing, but we do have a good understanding that there is, you know, there are certain benefits associated with different types of metabolites. The one that we've studied the most is a group of metabolites called short chain fatty acids, and there are several of those which have had a special scientific attention that we understand a little bit more. So there's one called butyrate or butyric acid, which is a short chain fatty acid which is associated with reduced levels of inflammation, um, improved immune function, um, and various other benefits. There's another one called lactate, which similarly is associated with kind of good things. So we know that we want to kind of be feeding the kind of microbes that produce these beneficial short chain fatty acids. So those short chain fatty acids themselves are really likely to be having an influence on your overall wellness, including your mental wellness. Because something that I'm sure you've discussed, you know, many times before is the link between anxiety and other mental health presentations and inflammation.

SPEAKER_03 26:14

Yeah, definitely. We've definitely talked on that. And I find like, and I don't know if you find this in clinic, but most of the time, like Nat, most of the time when people come in and they talk about probiotics, it's usually I've got a, you know, I've been sick and I need to improve my immunity. They often don't realize an antibiotic. So yeah. And so I guess that's where I wanted to sort of educate people on what psychobiotics are. Like you, I've actually got um the activated probiotics, the is it oh, is it lymphy? Yeah, I've got that one for myself. And yeah, I guess it's more what is this psychobiotics? Like, what does it actually mean?

SPEAKER_00 26:53

Yeah, yeah, and it's that that term psychobiotic is I don't know, I have a love-hate relationship with it. Okay, grow my grow my head. Definitely, you know, I I love the kind of it's it's really catchy and it's really easy to say and it's really fun to say, and it sounds a bit like a movie. Psychobiotic. But I also feel like it, I don't know. I mean, is a is a psycho prefix telling you that it's gonna, you know, turn you into a psycho. I don't know. Yeah. So I don't American psycho. Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_03 27:25

Take this to go crazy.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

So I would I the way that I I tend to refer to these these kind of probiotics in a more formal setting would be gut brain access probiotics. And they are, you know, to to kind of give them a broad definition, they are specific strains of probiotic which have been found to um confer benefits to um mental and emotional health. So they, and again, this comes back to that whole idea that we link innately the microbiome with gut health, but we need to be adding in this extra dimension that gut health equals mental health, mental health equals gut health. Probiotics which influence your gut health are also really going to have an influence on your mental health, but some specific strains will have more of a benefit than others. And that really opens then the really important conversation around what do we mean by specific strains. And what I would say would be that the world of probiotics is just as big and just as various as the world of say pharmaceutical medicines or the world of herbal medicines.

SPEAKER_03 28:30

We get lost in it, don't we, Nat? Like we're nutritionists. I don't even know how to pronounce half of them, and I look like a goober when I've got clients in front of me because I'm like, the key, the key just pronounce it confidently.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

It doesn't matter if you get it wrong. No one doesn't know.

SPEAKER_03 28:42

You just confidently pronounce it and just say you go to a workshop and then pronounce it differently, and you're like, oh, I've been saying it wrong all these years. Yeah, but do you know what?

SPEAKER_00 28:50

So I go to a lot of like high, high, high level microbiology conferences all around the world. I listen to the most intelligent, dorky scientists who have literally discovered different microbes and are literally doing the research we will all be referencing for the next hundred years. They all pronounce them differently. So I'm just gonna make hung up on it. Don't get hung up on the pronunciation. Honestly, just go, just go with confident. I'll give them nicknames. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or give them nicknames. Yeah. So it if you can you imagine, you know, one way that I kind of describe the importance of knowing your individual probiotics is, you know, for most people who uh listening out there who I'm sure they've had the experience of walking into a pharmacy and standing at the pharmacy counter and asking the pharmacist for help and saying something like, you know, I've got a headache. Do you have anything that could help me? Can you imagine if the pharmacist said, Oh yeah, you need for a headache, you know what you need, you need medication. Have you got any medication at home? Just go home and take some medication. You know, just open your medicine cabinet. If you've got a bottle, whatever you've got a bottle of medicine, whatever you've got, yeah, just and that probably a higher dose the better, and just take your medicine. That's what you need. But obviously, you would need to know, well, what type of medicine medication, what is it doing in the body? How is it going to relieve the headache? Is there evidence that that medicine will relieve the headache? Is it right for me and my circumstances? And this is how we need to think about probiotics as well. That for so long, people have really thought about them as though they're just one thing. And oh, you know, my naturopath, my nutritionist recommended this particular probiotic for acne or eczema. I've got a probiotic at home. I'm going to use that up first. So, you know, just probiotics, let me go and finish probiotics. But we really want to get the message across that every individual strain of probiotic bacteria is like its own medicine or like its own, you know, individual vitamin or mineral, and it has its own little things that it does. So you need to take the right probiotic for the outcome you need that probiotic to give you. And you need to know that it's been researched in well-conducted human clinical trials. It's been shown to have that outcome, and that we have an understanding of what it's doing. So if we think about the biome lift probiotic, which is the psychobiotic that I work with. Yeah, psycho. That's right. The gut brain axis product that I work with, biome lift, that's a combination of four specific strains, which has now been through three human randomized controlled trials, where that specific combination of those four strains has been given to hundreds of patients, and matched groups of patients have been given a placebo product. So they've both taken this tiny little white capsule once a day. They don't know what they're taking because this is a randomized trial. So, and a placebo-controlled trial. So the participants, all they know is that they're taking this one little capsule once a day. They don't know if they've got the real stuff with the probiotics or the fake stuff, which is just a small white capsule. And then the researchers also don't know, you know, which group A or group B, who's got the probiotic, who's got the placebo, don't know. But they give everyone the same kind of combination of psychological tests. And they give do this combination of tests at what we call baseline before anybody starts taking anything. And then, usually, depending on the structure of the trial, after about three weeks, they'll give them the same tests. Then after another three weeks, they'll give them the same tests. Then sometimes they might kind of test them again in another three weeks, or the trial might end after about six weeks, then everybody finishes taking their probiotic or their placebo, but then the researchers test them again with the same test three weeks later. And that then lets them see. So when they, whenever they're doing these tests, they're coming up with kind of standardized scores for things like feelings of depression, feelings of anger, feelings of hostility, feelings of hopelessness about the future. They're asking them how well they're sleeping. Are they having trouble falling asleep? Are they having trouble staying asleep? Do they feel rested in the mornings? Very thorough. Asking them very thorough about their cognitive process, their mental fatigue, all of these things, their anxiety levels. And then they measure that number and compare it each time. And this then lets us see that taking this specific combination of probiotics that we have in Biome Lift has created a really big difference between the two groups, that those who took the probiotic, they had an improvement in their feelings of anger and hostility and depressed mood and cognitive fatigue, and they slept better. And the what was interesting was that they continued to improve even three weeks after they'd finished taking the probiotic. And that brings us, well, that brings us back to our original question here, which is how are they actually working? Yeah. And they're working by, you know, having this overall long-term anti-inflammatory immunomodulatory impact that they're producing their little puffs of poos or whatever, you know, what we want to call them metabolites. Um, you know, farts, poos, whatever. Short chain, short chain fatty acid beneficial metabolites, which are interacting with the lining of the gut to reduce inflammation, which are doing other things as well. So we know that some of these strains are able to do things like interact with tight junction proteins. Tight junction proteins are little proteins that are found between enterocytes. Enterocytes are the cells that line the gut. So between all of these little cells, yeah, they've got these little kind of connectors that hold them together. And some of these probiotics actually talk to these connecting proteins, and this reduces what we might call leaky gut or intestinal hyperpermeability, which then reduces the ability of inflammatory compounds to flow from the gut into the bloodstream where they trigger more inflammation. We know it's so cool.

SPEAKER_03 34:59

Yeah, and you turn it into like a cartoon series. I would totally.

SPEAKER_00 35:08

Exactly. I'm going to encourage you all to hold hands, work together. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they're doing more, it gets even cooler. So some of them can interact with goblet cells, like goblet cells have the best name of any cell in the human life. I right to Harry Potter. I agree. I know, Harry Potter cells. So these are cells which kind of are stationed around the lining of the gut, which produce um mucin proteins. And these mucin proteins, when they're released onto the gut lining, they help to form that protective mucus. So these probiotics will chat to the goblet cells, encourage them to produce more mucin, which then means the digestive tract can produce more of this protective mucus, which then allows, again, a more diverse and healthy microbiome to, you know, to just happily munch away in that protective mucus blanket, if we want to think about it like that. But then there's more going on. Next chapter. I know, I know. So we've got a whole series now, a little science fiction fantasy cartoon going on. So some of these strains can also be, I don't want to use the word bullies, I want to use the word maybe assertive, but they can actually kind of crowd out and reduce the presence of pathogenic microbes, what we might think of as bad bacteria. So there's been a lot of connecting between the presence of certain bad microbes with enhanced mental health symptoms. And some of these strains are able to suppress the colonization of klebsiella bacteria and E. coli bacteria. And this means that they can really overall improve the health of the microbiome and reduce the presence of microbes which might have been stirring things up for something. But there's more, they're still they've got another. Next chapter. I know they some of these metabolites can also interact with the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve we're talking about. Absolutely. So the vagus nerve is like the physical highway. If we want to go back to our highway analogy, it's you know this very long nerve in the human body, which runs right from the central nervous system, you know, from the brain, right down the thorax, right down the abdomen, and it lies very, very closely adjacent to the digestive tract. Now, some of these microbes, these you know, beautiful probiotics, they can produce metabolites which can stimulate peristelsis. And I'm sure your listeners know peristelsis, it's the rhythmic contraction and relaxation of the digestive tract, which moves your food through and moves your poo out of your body. And the thing is that you know, your digestive tract is actually a really strong tube of muscle. So this contraction can be quite significant. The physical contraction of the digestive tract of the large intestine can actually stimulate the vagus nerve. And when the vagus nerve is stimulated, it actually kind of carries that stimulation back to the hypothalamus, the control center of the brain. Yeah, and that it promotes this feeling of well-being and safety and social comfort. So this is there's so many cool things to talk about. There's so many.

SPEAKER_03 38:28

We could be here forever. We'll have like a three-hour podcast. We totally could. The main question though, like, I don't know, were you gonna say something, Nat? You go.

SPEAKER_01 38:35

Yeah, I was gonna ask, like, this is such a fascinating subject, and I love that we're learning more and more that scientists are out there exploring, you know, the how far we can go with, you know, protecting and you know, our microbiome. What I want to know, because you know, in anxiety, sometimes you put on medications. Do you think there will ever come a time when doing this sort of uh work, working in on restoring the microbiome for mental health, like anxiety, will ever replace medication? Like on the whole? I know there's some times when someone if they're acute, but yeah, do you think it'll ever get to that point?

SPEAKER_00 39:19

So I think it's you know, in order for a healthcare system to um recommend a particular intervention, there needs to be certain levels of evidence on that intervention. There needs to be a body of tier one and tier two level evidence. We're still building that with probiotics. Where we're at in terms of, say, evidence on um biome lift, there are now three published human randomized controlled trials. That's not tier one evidence yet. Tier one evidence is when we have um publication of multiple meta-analyses and systematic reviews. And what a meta-analysis is, is when you've got quite a large number of randomized controlled trials on a particular intervention, and then another group of researchers put all of those trials together, and then they analyze all of the statistics and outcomes from those trials together. And we don't have enough trials yet to make up what's required to create yet, exactly what's required to create tier one evidence. So we're not at a state where it is it would be possible for a healthcare system to recommend an intervention because we don't have the evidence required for that. However, we absolutely have enough evidence for it to be an adjunct recommendation.

SPEAKER_03 40:39

And you know, I find that you know in in our clinic as nutritionists, quite often, like that's the difference between nutritionists and dietitians. We often go with things that are that there are some evidence out there, like it hasn't hit mainstream yet. And I find sometimes you watch the news like three or four years later and they're like, discovered this. I'm like, we've been doing that for years. We've been doing that for years, you know.

SPEAKER_00 40:59

It's worked for years. And we need like we need these visionaries to be actually even creating the stimulus to encourage funding into these initial clinical trials. So it's just because there isn't that body of evidence doesn't mean that something doesn't work, it just means we're still building it.

SPEAKER_01 41:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:18

And the beautiful thing about probiotics is that they are suitable to give alongside other interventions as well. So we can use biome lift in our patients who may be taking medication as well because they're working on totally different pathways, they're going to different places, and the most important thing is that the probiotic is not going to interrupt the, you know, the metabolism, the working of the medication.

SPEAKER_01 41:46

And that actually in a lot of cases that actually even improves the medications.

SPEAKER_00 41:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And that is something kind of a point that I really wanted to make as well, actually, that, and you've probably heard this too. A lot of people will say things like, your microbiome is important for mental health because 90% of your gut, you know, your body's serotonin is made in your gut. This is true, but that serotonin that is in your gut is not the same serotonin as in your brain. It is structurally the same, but it can't reach your brain because that serotonin cannot cross the blood-brain barrier to enter your central nervous system. So gut-derived serotonin will not have an influence on serotonin activity within your brain neuronal system, but that doesn't mean it's not beneficial for mental health. It comes back to that kind of peristelsis and vagus nerve stimulation, that one of the purposes of serotonin in your gut is to trigger muscle contraction and release. And so again, it's helping to maintain peristalsis, which is then helping to stimulate the vagus nerve, which is then helping to promote those feelings of well-being.

SPEAKER_03 43:01

All connected. And I often say, like, people that are listening that have anxiety and they're like, I've got to go out and get this, it's gonna fix me. It's it's it's one part of the puzzle because there's also modern lifestyle with stress, processed foods, like your diet plays a huge. We haven't even mentioned prebiotics, but it's only so much time that we have. No, no. And and um even taking antibiotics can completely annihilate your guts as well. And sleep is an important factor as well. Like there's just so many factors, but I'm just being mindful of the time. Um, I wanted to throw some rapid fire questions out there for you, and um, it's really hard to answer these quickly, but let's try our best. Um, do you want to start?

SPEAKER_01 43:40

Do you want me to start? You start? Yeah. Yeah, you go ahead. And let's go. Do probiotics survive stomach acid?

SPEAKER_00 43:50

Uh yes, most of them if they are acid tolerant species, and especially if they have a micro encapsulation on them. So Yes, most probiotics you will find on the shelf have been trialed and shown to survive stomach acid.

SPEAKER_03 44:06

Ooh. Okay. How long when someone starts taking a probiotic, how long do you think people will start to notice changes?

SPEAKER_00 44:12

Depends what it is they're taking it for. If they're taking it for a part of the body that changes very quickly, like for example, the oral microbiome, they can notice results within a couple of days. If they're taking it for a part of the body which changes more slowly, for example, bone density, they would not notice anything until they have another DEXA scan, which may be anywhere up to a year away. But for things like IBS symptoms, you can see a reduction in things like bloating and abdominal pain within a couple of days. Oh, they go.

SPEAKER_01 44:40

Yeah. Do you have to take them forever, probiotics forever?

SPEAKER_00 44:44

No, because they have this modulatory benefit, like we talked about with the biome lift, that even three weeks after those trial participants had finished taking their probiotic, they were still seeing improvement in their symptoms. So probiotics help by helping to regulate homeostasis, bring the body back into balance where it can look after itself. So no, you don't need to take them forever. Oh, beautiful. Do they need to go in the fridge? No, they don't. That's a myth. I love it. Uh-huh. Can you take them with antibiotics? Yes, you can. It is also a myth that they need to be separated from antibiotics. You can take them in the same mouthful if you like. They are going to different places and they're doing different things. Antibiotics are designed to be absorbed as quickly as possible into your bloodstream. They will fight infection by traveling around your body in your blood. Probiotics never cross into your bloodstream. They stay in the gut. They protect your microbiome and reduce antibiotic side effects by working their way through your digestive tract. So, yes, you can take them together. Do you know how many clients have asked me that?

SPEAKER_03 45:42

Thank you. I'm just gonna capture your voice and replay it. Oh no, right? Fermented foods versus a supplement probiotic.

SPEAKER_00 45:50

Totally different things. Fermented foods are fermented, they contain products of fermentation. So it's not so much about the live microorganisms, it's about the acidic metabolites that they contain. This is why things like yogurt and sauerkraut taste sour because they are full of things like lactic acid and other acidic metabolites. They are full of the products of fermentation. If you want to take actual live microbes in a measured dose, you need to take a probiotic. Ah, good one. Another one, prebiotics or probiotics? Different things again. Prebiotics are structures which act as substrates or fuel for probiotics or other beneficial bacteria. So essentially think of it as the probiotics of the creatures, the prebiotics are their packed lunch. You can take prebiotics to enhance the presence of healthy bacteria in your own commensal microbiome. You take probiotics to make their way through your digestive tract, interacting with your own microbes, interacting with your digestive system and improving, you know, symptoms as per the clinical trials they've been involved in.

SPEAKER_03 47:00

Gosh. This is my brain's just going pew, pew, pew. Oh, my nerdy self. I'm so excited. I want to keep asking questions, but we're running out of time. How can people um get a hold of you, Beck? Or more importantly, um, if they want more information on this or any of the products that you have?

SPEAKER_00 47:16

Yeah, so I work for Activated Probiotics. Biome Australia is our parent company. Most people would know our number one brand, Activated Probiotics. We also have Activated Therapeutics, which actually does have a prebiotic, a symbiotic, a postbiotic, all the biotics, um, as well as a couple of other really cool things which I'm loving working with at the moment. Um, you can find us on Instagram. That's probably a great way to keep up with what we're up to. Come and f follow Activated Probiotics and Activated Therapeutics on Instagram. You'll find really cool links to little pieces of knowledge, um, information about when we're running webinars and, you know, speaking events and things like that. And yeah, we would love to meet some of your listeners out there.

SPEAKER_03 47:55

Yeah, I'm sure they would love that. It if someone only remembers one thing when buying a probiotic, what's that one thing that you would recommend they remember when they're out there?

SPEAKER_00 48:04

Because there's so many on the on the it's just some of them are just BS, let's be you need to take the probiotic that has been proven to solve the problem you want to solve. Yeah. So if you if you want to take a probiotic for your acne, take a probiotic that has been clinically trialled for acne. If you want to take a probiotic for eczema, take a probiotic which has been clinically trialled for eczema. A good probiotic is good for what we know it's going to be good for.

unknown 48:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:32

It's very targeted therapy, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 48:34

It is, it is. Well, this has been really great, Beck. I've I've Rebecca. I've loved having you on today. I'm sorry, my sister's name is Rebecca. I go for it. I call her half a time.

SPEAKER_00 48:47

Yeah, sisters, sisters have special privileges.

SPEAKER_03 48:50

Special privileges. But yeah, no, we've spent a lot of time exploring uh one point on the anxiety compass. So our I don't know if you're familiar with it, but eight every point is a different thing pointing us at what anxiety could be. And those gut microbes could definitely be a reason why you're so anxious. So um, if there's one thing we hope you take away, listeners, it's this that your gut isn't just digesting food, it's constantly communicating with your immune system, your nervous system, and your brain. And anxiety isn't always just about the thoughts in your head. Sometimes it's our biology, quietly influencing. I love using the word influencing because they are our influences, right? Yeah. Um, just how safe or unsafe your body actually feels. So um, it doesn't mean that probiotics are a magic pill. You like it's not gonna be the magic pill that you might be looking for, but it does remind us that understanding anxiety often means looking beyond the mind and becoming curious about the whole body, the whole person, because every time we explore another point on the compass, Nat, we're gonna be moving that little bit closer to our true north. And that's that's where we feel calm and at peace and at homeostasis, which is what you were talking about at the beginning. So, do you have anything else to add, ladies? Oh, I just love it.

SPEAKER_00 50:03

Oh, our microbiome has kind of moved from microbial overlords to kind of little children to you know, just all of these little things that are hanging out inside us. I'd love, I love the visual that I hope your listeners are listening to.

SPEAKER_03 50:16

I really hope you come up with a cartoon show for it totally like we can watch.

SPEAKER_01 50:19

I'm I'm looking for overlords, children, influencers.

SPEAKER_00 50:23

Yes, exactly. Now they're influencers. I mean, we are look, we are in the Instagram era, right? So it makes sense to think of them as influencers. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 50:31

Well, thanks for listening, everyone, and we hope you have a fantastic day, and we'll see you in the next episode. Thanks, Beg.

SPEAKER_02 50:36

Hi, thanks, Beg. Thanks for joining us on the Anxiety Compass. If you love this episode, share it with a friend who needs a little laugh and a lot of calm. We'll see you in the next one. Keep following your true north.

SPEAKER_03 50:57

Disclaimer time. Sammy and Natalie may be clinical nutritionists, but we're not your personal doctors. What you hear is learning laughing. Not recognizing all the things.