Eating high fiber foods – such as lentils, cereal and fruit – may reduce the effects of stress on our gut and even reduce stress itself, new research suggests.
Stress has a holistic effect on us, shaking our mental states, altering our behavior and damaging our bodies, particularly the gut and brain.
In recent years there has been growing interest in the link between gut bacteria and stress-related disorders including anxiety, depression and irritable bowel syndrome.
New research from the University College Cork in Ireland suggests that a high-fiber diet could offer an easy and effective way to treat stress and its effects on the gut alike.
Foods high in fiber, like fruits, legumes and whole grains encourage the gut to produce fatty acids that repair gut leaks and may reduce stress, according to new research
Foods such as grains, legumes and vegetables, contain high levels of fiber and will stimulate the production of a sort of cellular super food in the form of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) in the gut.
The new findings, published in The Journal of Physiology, found that there was decreased levels of stress and anxiety-like behavior when SCFAs were introduced.
Prolonged stress can weaken the wall of the gut, even making it ‘leaky.’
The researchers said this means undigested food particles, bacteria and germs will pass through the leaky gut wall into the blood and cause persistent inflammation .
When it strays into outside of the bowels, all this detritus is harmful.
But treating the condition with the SCFAs can reverse gut ‘leakiness,’ according to the new study.
To discover this, the researchers fed SCFAs to mice, then put simulated stressful situations for the animals and watched them for anxious or depressive-like behavior, cognition, social behavior and how smoothly their digestive systems were functioning.
Anxiety and depression symptoms subsided in the rodents who were fed the SCFA diet, and their guts stopped leaking.
This allowed the researchers to establish a close connection between stress and high fiber diets.
Stress can make the gut leaky, and treating the leaky gut with high-fiber foods can in turn help to reduce stress, though it’s not yet clear why.
What’s more, changing up their diets to reduce stress and fix their gut leaks did not cause any weight changes in the mice, making it an appealing treatment possibility.
So developing dietary treatments which target these bacteria may be important for treating stress-related disorders.
The study involved feeding mice the main SCFAs normally produced by the gut bacteria and then subjecting them to stress.
The exact mechanisms by which SCFAs facilitate their effect remain undetermined.
SCFAs had no effect on an increase in body weight caused by stress therefore understanding why SCFAs only affect certain stress-induced effects will be important.
Study corresponding author Dr John Cryan, of APC Microbiome Ireland at University College Cork, said: ‘There is a growing recognition of the role of gut bacteria and the chemicals they make in the regulation of physiology and behavior.
‘The role of short-chain fatty acids in this process is poorly understood up until now.’
He added: ‘It will be crucial that we look at whether short-chain fatty acids can ameliorate symptoms of stress-related disorders in humans.’