Probiotics may help reduce anxiety
More news from the yogurt aisle: early research shows that certain probiotics may have a remarkable effect on calming anxiety. Researchers did a study with mice and found that those which had been given a particular strain of lactobacillus were markedly more calm and laid back compared to those who were not.
I want to emphasize that this is just the results of one small study performed on mice. Mice are not human beings. Also, they were fed a strain of lactobacillus that is, in the words of the researcher, "isn't currently commercially available in your supermarket."
The researchers have found that these effects don't happen when they cut the vagus nerve, which is the main nerve that communicates messages from your brain to your gut (and vice versa). Something about what's traveling on that nerve is affected by the existence of this lactobacillus in your gut, causing a significant reduction in anxiety.
In fact, the researchers found that the results were as pronounced an effect "as if the animals had been given some pharmaceutical agents that are used to treat anxiety and depression." Imagine if anxiety sufferers could just eat a special yogurt, instead of having to take a prescription medication, or suffering from a life of anxiety and panic attacks. If this research pans out (it has already been reproduced in a second laboratory in another country) it could be huge!
The science of probiotics is, in general, contradictory at best. It certainly can't hurt to eat probiotics, but for many people, it probably won't make much of a difference. This particular research study found that the particular strain of lactobacillus mattered a great deal to the final results. Meaning that not all lactobacilli are equal, and the ones you get in commercial yogurt might not be very useful to you at all.
Image courtesy Flickr/Lynda Giddons