You might want to skip the hand sanitizer after you read this…a new study from New York City’s Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai cited in the Huffington Post reveals that an imbalance in your intestinal flora could be making you mentally ill. Or worse.
In particular the study shows that intestinal bacteria may override genetics when it comes to illnesses like depression, anxiety and even neurological disorders such as multiple sclerosis. Therapy for some of these disorders may be accomplished by getting one’s intestinal flora back in balance. But this…of course…will require more research.
In the mean time what can you do to get your gut in balance? You might think that ingesting “healthy” bacteria (think yogurt) is the way to go. But maybe not so fast. Mark Hyman, MD is big on the “oil change” – replacing polyunsaturated vegetable oils with healthy Omega 3 oils. Also fermented foods, in other words don’t hold the pickle.
Liam Springer also cautions to go easy on the probiotics. His contrarian idea is to add more dairy even…and maybe especially if…you are lactose intolerant Read the link, he explains it better than I can. And carrots.
All in all though, it seems like we need to spend more time listening to our gut.
