The Brain Gut Connection – New Controlled Study in Humans
Bigger brain, smaller gut, but still critical
This post contains science!
Oh, my. I began drafting this last night and immediately diverged into philosophical issues of free will and determinism. It was already long enough before I’d even got started on the sciency and practical. So I decided to save that as a draft for a later post on that topic alone, and just get right to the brief point.
Here’s the deal. I began a dietary intervention almost 6 weeks ago, now, where I consume mostly, exclusively, whole raw milk & kefir I ferment myself from same. The 5 weeks of updates are available only to newsletter subscribers (free) for now. Sign up here and after confirming, you should get a “welcome” email within a hour with links to all the issues.
I guess it was sometime during week 2 that I began to notice bizarre behavior changes, automatic emotional reactions, that sort of thing. Bizarre because these changes seemed to all be “positive” ones from a social context. I just became nicer to people, for lack of a better description (when deserved—there’s a few out there who don’t, especially when they crap on my friends). I stopped automatically spooling up my own comment threads into a frenzy, cut down on some of the invective in posts, and most weirdly of all, found myself initiating conversations with strangers over at the swim club—even for, GASP! banal small talk. You could ask my wife. She laughs at how I will typically just go into a catatonic trance at some party where people start talking boring shit. I can hear noise, but I have no idea what anyone is saying.
I chalked it up to what I consider the whole, integrated nutrition of the quintessential mammalian perfect whole food: milk. Whole, good, complete nutrition, your brain is getting everything it needs and behaves as your neural network got set up to behave in general. Yes, there’s what I call a “range of free will” (that’s what I immediately jumped on in the last draft) but behavior and emotional reactions also have a deterministic “component,” or, starting point. For example, you behave and react differently—automatically—when tired and fatigued vs. when alert and chipper. Or, when you’ve just had a major success in life vs. a disappointment or important loss (such as a friend or family death).
Then Dr. Greg Venning sent me this new study, in humans: Consumption of Fermented Milk Product with Probiotic Modulates Brain Activity.
Abstract
BACKGROUND & AIMS:
Changes in gut microbiota have been reported to alter signaling mechanisms, emotional behavior, and visceral nociceptive reflexes in rodents. However, alteration of the intestinal microbiota with antibiotics or probiotics has not been shown to produce these changes in humans. We investigated whether consumption of a fermented milk product with probiotic (FMPP) for 4 weeks by healthy women altered brain intrinsic connectivity or responses to emotional attention tasks.
METHODS:
Healthy women with no gastrointestinal or psychiatric symptoms were randomly assigned to groups given FMPP (n=12), a non-fermented milk product (n=11, controls), or no intervention (n=13) twice daily for 4 weeks. The FMPP contained Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. Lactis, Streptococcus thermophiles, Lactobacillus bulgaricus, and Lactococcus lactis subsp. Lactis. Participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) before and after the intervention, to measure brain response to an emotional faces attention task and resting brain activity. Multivariate and region of interest analyses were performed.
RESULTS:
FMPP intake was associated with reduced task-related response of a distributed functional network (49% crossblock covariance; P =.004) containing affective, viscerosensory, and somatosensory cortices. Alterations in intrinsic activity of resting brain indicated that ingestion of FMPP was associated with changes in midbrain connectivity, which could explain the observed differences in activity during the task.
CONCLUSIONS:
Four weeks intake of a FMPP by healthy women affected activity of brain regions that control central processing of emotion and sensation.
~~~
Well I’ll be damned. I don’t often post studies and abstracts but this was just too good to ignore, and it’s new. But here was the problem. I couldn’t really tell on the face of the abstract what these effects were, as in good or bad.
Thankfully, Julianne Taylor provided me with part of the answer, via a layman’s article interpreting the research: Probiotics Benefit Brain Activity.
The trial lasted four weeks. After analyzing their data, researchers found that the consumption of the fermented milk product was associated with some significant changes in the brain.
They noticed that the fermented milk intervention led to activity reductions in areas of the brain that deal with sensation. In addition, the fermented milk ingestion was associated with connectivity changes when the brain was at rest. This is significant because, according to the researchers, “The resting state brain networks provide functional ‘templates’ with which the brain can rapidly respond to changes in the environment.”
Furthermore, the resting state connectivity can be predictive of pain modulation, suggesting a broader role for this part of the brain with regard to pain vulnerability. This critical information can provide new avenues for the treatment of pain and other stress responses in the body.
I’ll add that near as I can tell, kefir is 10-20 times more probiotic than yogurt. Also, I have taken probiotics in pill form before and never noticed anything much, if at all. I’m sticking with kefir. Love the taste (and I mix things up by sometimes mixing it with milk in different proportions).
Anyway, there’s still another dot to connect. Those who subscribe to the newsletter already know about the 1972 book I referenced the other day. While it’s predominantly about adverse mental issues having to do with diets too low or two high in carbohydrate, there’s also one case study about compromised gut bacteria doing the same thing. In 1972.
So that’s my next post on this topic and it’ll be pretty extensive, since the book is out of print and looks like, via the newsletter, I’ve created a bit of a run on the copies available from used sellers.
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What if the good mood is because of the casomorphin’s? As far as the probiotics go, the pills mostly suck, the few times i have played with kefir and the patients tolerate it they always do significantly better.
@jj
Well, of course I’m not certain of anything. If I had to bet, I’d say a combination. And kefir even has a bit of alcohol too, depending on how long you ferment and how snugly you place the cap.
I admit that I am not the biggest fan of dairy but I have found that most people can tolerate some unfortunately I am not one of them. Although I haven’t tried unpasturized in a while, I know that I was starting to “cross react” between wheat and milk. I may have been off the grains for long enough to give it another shot. Good luck with the experiment! Wonder what it would be like if you fermented it to “dry”
Kefir more powerful than yogurt….oh yeah, and in more ways than just the variety of live cultures, which variety actually Increases in the non-sterile conditions of your kitchen.
Yes, it’s especially potent if you let it go for a couple of days that is, when more of the lactose has been fermented to produce lactic acid, ethanol and carbon dioxide. Can get up to 2-4% alcohol that way – rather nice on the mood, bears watching maybe in other aspects.
.
Bill Lagakos, in the border areas of eastern Greece with Turkey, they even add sugars to their “xinogalo” to increase the potency (they don’t give it to kids then) so you may want to watch it if adding fruit juices to make sure they are added after you’ve stopped the process/refrigerated. Just my two cents.
There’s pre-made stuff it the grocery store, nowadays from Lifeway in colorful kiddy straw-pouches with funky names :
– and while I’m Sure they are not anywhere near as nutritious as Richard makes, I’ve found the funkiness helps at least introduce kids to the tastes. Then you introduce homemade – bait n’switch, eh?
When you mentioned you were going to write about the gut and brain, I thought of a book I read by a french author called Gut Instinct by Pierre Pallardy, he asserts that the abdomen (the gut) is a second brain. I didn’t try his overall protocol as he deals with abdominal breathing, diet, massage/meditation but also says our brains affect our gut and visa versa. This aspect I always found most interesting. The intestines produce 70/85 percent of the body’s immune cells. The reciprocal chemistry between the two systems – the brain and the digestive track have been studied. I have always been interested in allergies and the effects on the brain for this very reason. When I looked into adding probiotics back into my diet I found my bouts of eczema cleared quickly and from then on I always believed that the gut and brain work in tandem. Wheat definitely affects my brain the irritability is off the charts if I have too much, so I conclude from that it has a deep effect on those two brain systems. Thanks for bringing this all back to our attention.
Dr Natasha McBride-Campbell (MD + neurology and nutrition advanced degrees) knows a lot about the gut-brain connection. I bought her book about GAPS. She really knows her stuff. She treats autistic children with her GAPS diet.
Ok, to make it serious, you can go three ways, not just two, or, both ways. ;)
Ok, now serious.
Drink a glas of kefir in the morning straight. I prefer my 10oz Italian milk glass with a cow embossed on the side. I have a set of 10 or 12, my favorite.
When done, introduce 4-6 oz fresh OJ, use a spoon to stir and introduce all the kefir remnants. Fabulous. Creamy OJ.
Another way is just to mix abut 1/3 kefir with 2/3 OJ. This is Orange Julius territory. You can introduce a raw egg and use a stick blender and a bit of crushed ice for the absolute real thing.
The third way is as I said, use OJ to scoop up the remnants of your finished bottle. I don’t always have OJ (less and less, actually) so I usually use milk. I also often mix milk and kefir 50/50 or 70/30 either way, so this is just a variation on that.
JJ, FYI,you can get coconut milk keifer. Its pretty awesome stuff.
Señor Ricardo, appreciate another though provoking article and REALLY appreciate the layman’s translation.
My daughter has some emotional issues and is addicted to yogurt. Its the highly processed sugary stuff, but maybe I can get her into keifer.
Hi Richard,
That’s an interesting connection. I don’t have any data to support it, but I also think kefir is far more pro-biotic than the pills – maybe because in kefir, all the ‘biotics’ are bathed in prebiotics, lactose, & whatever else is there favored fuel source (?).
best,
Bill
Took a peek at that Gaps diet. I’d heard about it, never looked into it. Wowzers. Complicated. Does appear to be real food though. Hey, whatever works.
Cody….and, you can flavor the kefir. So easy–fun actually to make. Don’t know how old the daughter is, but perhaps she could take up the task. Get some kefir grains online (the raw milk stuff, not desiccated), instructions are all over the Internet. Do take a stick blender to the stuff once you’ve strained it. Makes it nice & smooth. Can be used for fruit smoothies, or flavored with some fruit juice. Even a little honey. Or, mostly straight.
I have yet to read The Gaps diet book (its on my list) but I have been talking about the autoimmunity with the brain for a few years now the first guy I heard talking about it was Datis K. (thyroidbook.com). Basically if one barrier system goes down it pulls the others down with it, Leaky Gut, Leaky Brain, Leaky lung. I really kinda feel that the only way to fix it is a basic PD/AH diet.
According to Ray Cronise, this is all bull-shit. You just need to eat what Joel Furhman eats (kale, mainly) and you will have the body and metabolism of your dreams! No more milk! No more meat! Oh, and quit that exercise stuff, too. It does nothing for you.
“According to Ray Cronise, this is all bull-shit.”
I exchanged a couple of emails with him last night. I basically told him he has a science blind spot on this topic.
I’ve done the cold therapy. Like potatoes, it works. Really does. But it’s all unworkable.
Milk and kefir is not, nor is it dismissible on deconstructionist grounds life IGF, casein, etc. Nature works in mysterious yin yang ways, and that’s why milk isn’t only casein, whey, saturated, monounsaturated, specific vitamins and minerals. It’s the whole package in one, at one time. It’s not deconsructable at our very poor level of knowledge so far.
In fact, if you read very old articles and books from way back, the medical practitioners knew this.
Then we became chemists, pill deconstructionists.
Well, the 1972 book will shed light on that too. How far badly we’ve come. I say that fully realizing that at some point there may be veritable atomic manipulation and this will all be moot. That’s fine. I don’t try to eat real food from a naturalistic fallacy, but because it’s just, so far, far better than the chemical, deconstructionist fallacy.
“I really kinda feel that the only way to fix it is a basic PD/AH diet.”
Yep, basically. There is absolutely NO WAY to deconstruct this stuff. The prudent course is to eat real food. I’ve gone a step beyond that because with milk, there is no disputing the nature of its exclusivity in terms of growth and health. I won’t do it forever. I’m 52. What’s a year eating like I did as an infant?
Remember everyone: you were all an infant at one point, you “ate” only mammalian milk, and you grew and got healthy enough to spout nonsense and bullshit on the Internet.
I’m really glad you didn’t give Ray C. PGP status last month! Maybe PGV, but not P.
I am so disappointed in him. He buys a $50,000 calorimeter, tests it out on his vegan-ass, no muscle wimp body and his daughter (who is probably stronger than he is), and thinks he knows the answers to the universe.
Well, I hope his plan to convert 10,000 people to vegans works well for him…at a hundred bucks a pop, he’s a millionaire.
Yes, I’m bitter. I’ve been waiting 6 months for new blog posts and get the same old shit every time. “I eat brocolli–you should too!”
kefir more powerful than yogurt?
interesting. thanks. i should try it sometime.
Edit, I meant Cody and Bill….
Jack, I’ve had a number of exchanges with Ray going back, couple of phone calls. He seemed decidedly dismissive of my own milk experiment that I emailed yesterday for the first time–and by the way, he emailed me that same pick of him on the stairs in the tower a couple of months ago. So, I’m not all bright eyed anymore about his adherence to science.
Incidentally, I emailed a lengthy reply back to that effect.
No response.
I hate to cast any doubt on the guy but I can’t also hide my dissapointment. After all, he contacted me first (after a post I did) and it was basically, you do your thing (he was interested in the nutritional density of liver) and it challenges me. Good science thinking. Well, you know what? You can’t eat liver every day, you can drink milk.
DCG
Way, way more. It’s not cooked.
@bill.
I think so, near as I can tell from the smattering of what I’ve read. Apparently, it can not only really reconfigure the gut but seal off leakiness and feed bacteria, though a little added fiber might be good now and then. Be prepared for farting if you add fiber. But that just tells you the little buggers are there and they’re eating.
Interesting [again]. I never thought of adding something like a prebiotic fiber (eg, inulin) to really stir things up… but yeah, agreed – not on date night.
best,
Bill
@marie
Here’s a trick. When the bottle is finished there are still all the remnants on the side, bit in the bottom. Add about 6-8 oz OJ or any fruit juice, seal tightly, shake the hell out of it, and let it sit overnight.
Yep, more fermentation. Wait until you release the cap.
Richard, that’s just nasty…..I think I’ll prepare it for the next science show-and-tell at our middle-school :)
Oh noes baby. Baby no.
OJ mixed with kefir makes Orange Julius. Just gotta get the proportions right.
Uh huh. It’s all in the proportions. If there’s some milk left and enough orange juice, that baby will fizz over quite beautifully, maybe even with a pop…and Then they can drink it.
Your imagination is too tame, is what it is….because of all that “peacefulness” from your kefir+milk nutrition, I suspect ;)
Hey, Richard – I have loved your milk experiments, just haven’t felt compelled to post until today.
Here’s what I’ve been up to, maybe you’ll find it useful. I am still playing with the potato hack from time to time, but mostly eating PHD style, heavy on the spuds, and doing great. Weight is much more stable than on LC Paleo.
I have been studying Resistant Starch a lot. Turns out there’s not much in potatoes, even cooked and cooled, but lots in raw potato. Trouble is, who wants to eat raw potato? Then I came across a rather obscure paper that listed the RS in green, raw plantains as almost 60% by weight. Here again, nobody can eat a raw, green plantain.
However, I cracked the problem! I have been buying the biggest, greenest plantains I can find and drying them. They eat just like a saltine cracker and have an RS content of close to 80% by weight.
My trick for drying them: Cut the ends off, cut in half, cut each half in half length-wise, roll the meat out of each quarter, then cut each quarter in half or by thirds–so you have 3 or 4 long flat pieces (tongue shaped). Hope that makes sense.
Now, while still wet, lay on a lightly greased cookie sheet and salt heavily. Cinnamon, chili, and pepper also good to add for variety.
Air dry at room temp or speed the process is a warm, but not over 140 degree oven.
Once dry, you have a pile of white ‘crackers’ that you can eat plain, spread stuff on, or crumble up in recipes. They have an awesome mouth-feel. Crumbly and crunchy.
But the best thing is the RS they provide. Each plantain gives up about 100g of RS–that’s a boatload! I eat 3 or 4 slices a day for about 25-30g RS.
So, if anyone is looking for a low-calorie healthful source of RS, here’s your source.
In case anyone has never heard of RS, here’s a primer:
– Studies suggest that the energy value of RS is approximately 2 kcal/g (8 kJ/g) as opposed to the energy value for completely digestible starch 4.2 kcal/g (15 kJ/g) (Liversey 1994).
– RS escape digestion in the upper intestinal tract and once in the large intestine they are subject to fermentation by the microflora with end-products SCFA (short chain fatty acids), hydrogen, carbon dioxide and methane.
– SCFA are the main energy source of the colonocytes (the colon mucosa). They help lower the pH of the intestine, increase colonic blood flow, help reduce the presence of toxic ammonia, and help prevent the development of abnormal colonic cell populations. SCFA are known as a bio-marker for colonic health.
– It’s worth mentioning also that RS serve as a physical protection for the probiotics. These are cultures of live microorganisms, which are shown to regulate the flora in the intestinal tract. Therefore, resistant starch is prebiotic, based on its probiotic protecting and stimulating properties.
– More at edsgym.com/resistant-starch.html but any search on RS will show more of the same good stuff.
Good luck all!
Hi tatertot
Let me play devil’s advocate here.
So, I was al prepared to be excited about RS, but for one basic reason. First, as we already know, it’s damn hard to eat enough tater to hold weight. Add to that, apparently the RS doen’t deliver 4 cals per gram but 2-3, so more bonus if one is tatering it.
But if there’s not actually much RS, then the potato deal is still good enough on it’s own, right. Why go to the trouble?
Seems to me that you can get plenty of SCFA via buteric acid thrown off by fiber digestion anyway, or coconut, etc. And for prebiotics, you have inulin, oligosacharides you can get in a powder, etc. No harm, of course. I’m just not really seeing the clear benefit to going to the trouble you’re going to.
Unless, of course, it’s easy to get green plantains. Coking method seems straightforward enough if you can get them.
One question after brief comment: I was drinking a lot of homemade kefir for a while. It was a staple in my diet. At the same time, I was also drinking plenty of raw milk and eating raw-milk cheese. I loved it all. My problem arose when I became extremely constipated. Investigating, I learned that casein in milk products is used in wallpaper glue and could have the same effect inside the human body of binding things up.
Q: have you had a similar experience?
Richard, thanks for the recipe/processes, I’ll be trying them.
The potato deal stands on it’s own for weight loss, the RS is a side benefit, but there’s not nearly enough RS in potatoes, except raw, to do much for you.
SCFA content seems to max out with 20-30g/day of RS. RS is a specific type of substrate that gets all the way to the colon unscathed, the other foods and supplements you mentioned don’t–their action is in the small intestine mainly and the little bit that gets to, and ferments in the large intestine, is not resistant starch, but fibers and non-starch polysaccharides that produce all kinds of other things (think FODMAPS) when and if they reach the large intesting–explaining the foul gas and dateless nights. RS does not cause intestinal distress or gas.
Here is a really good full-text paper studying RS in the Chinese diet, while that may not interest you, the discussion on what RS is and does may.
My problem since reading about RS, is that it is almost wholly absent in the paleo diet and the biggest source world-wide is legumes and cereal grains. It clearly has a benefit, so why devise a diet void of it?
The plantain bit is easy. I buy 6 plantains, dry them all at once and they last 2 weeks.
Another source is unmodified potato starch, such as bobsredmill.com/potato-starch.html . It has to be used in raw form, added to a smoothie (kefir?) or something–it can’t be heated or cooked, but in it’s raw state provides about 10g RS per TBS. (78% by weight RS).
The fact that it’s 2kcal instead of 4 is irrelevant, really. A 1/2 pound potato, cooked and cooled to maximize RS only provides 4-6g RS at best. A 1/2 pound raw potato contains close to 30g. I will eat an occasional raw slice as I’m cooking, but it’s hard to want to eat a whole, raw potato daily.
The plantain chips are pretty good–there are no good paleo crackers, so this fills that void. Try them with almond butter, pate, or avacado…excellent!
@Robert.
Nope, zero problem for me. Seems it should not be if you include some fiber and greens in your diet.
@tatertot
Yea, I have long used Bob’s Red Mill unmodified potato starch as my preferred thickening agent, so I always have some around. I’ll start doing 2-3 tbsp of that daily and see if I notice anything.
@tatertot
Well, the good news is that 2 level tablespoons of potato starch in 10oz of a 50/50 kefir and milk mixture was quite pleasant tasting and dissolves nicely without clumps. So, that was easy.
I’ve been getting 10-30g/day since Jan 1st. I can’t say the heavens opened or I’m now superman, but I think it’s important to get a good supply of RS daily.
Kind of like Vit D, I never noticed any difference from when my level was 12 and now when my level is 59, but you know it’s supposed to be good for you.
I just can’t ignore the sheer volume of studies pointing towards gut health from RS.
I always add Bob’s Potato Starch to smoothies when I make them on the rare occasion. Getting ready to try kefir for the first time. I’ve been brewing beer for 25 years, kefir is right up my alley.
Ah, my bro is quite the brewmaster for years now. He has his own homemade station and he kegs his stuff. Does various knock off recipes and you cannot tell the difference.
@tatertot
So here’s my new post workout shake. Gym this morning was #275 x 5 for 2 sets on deadlift, then #400 x 10 for 2 sets on leg press, with the first done super slow for time under load and the second at regular rhythm. Was going to do upper body and back but my CNS was so shot I stopped. I’ll do the other 4 exercises Monday.
10g BCAAs (Purple Wrath)
30g resistant starch as modified potato starch (3 tbsp)
16 oz homemade whole raw jersey milk kefir
Put the 2 powders in the bottom of the cup, add kefir, blend with a stick blender.
@ Robert: milk is known to cause constipation for some. It is especially constipating for many children
Chronic constipation as a symptom of cow milk allergy:
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7815220
hi richard
finding this very interesting! I’ve just started getting into fermented foods. What are your thoughts on fermented vegetables such as sauerkraut? I realise they won’t have the same nutritional value but as a source of gut friendly bacteria?
thanks
@julia,
for what it’s worth, I noticed a lot of the same GI-related changes when I started making my own sauerkraut as I did when I began making kefir. Seems like those bugs are pretty good too.
Yep, I have raw sauerkraut in the fridge now. Big fan of kimchee and other Asian fermented veggies, seaweed. I do a couple fork fills now & then.
good to hear Bill and Richard! something quite satisfying about making your own fermented foods. Also made bone broth. Next step Kefir.
Thanks Richard – love reading your site