Eating more fermented foods can relieve stress

How can I relieve stress when I feel stressed? There are many ways to decompress, including running, yelling, or eating.
.
.
Recently, a new study published in Molecular Psychiatry shows that daily intake of fermented foods and dietary fiber for 4 weeks can significantly relieve mental stress
.

The research team recruited 45 healthy volunteers
who usually have low fiber intake.
The volunteers were divided into 2 groups and adopted 2 different diet regimens
over a 4-week period.
Half of the volunteers added a proportion of
fiber and fermented foods to their diets.
This dietary strategy, known as the psychobiotic diet, includes foods
that have been linked to mental health in previous studies.

At the beginning of the experiment and in the middle of the experiment, the dietitian told them that their daily diet should contain 6-8 servings of fruits and vegetables with high prebiotic fiber, 5-8 servings of grains, and 2-3 servings of fermented foods
per day.
The other half of the control group simply adopted generic dietary advice
based on the Diet Pyramid.

At the end of the 4-week experiment, the experimental group reported a decrease in the stress they felt compared to the control group, and how strictly they followed the dietary recommendations was also directly related to the stress they felt - more mental probiotics were consumed during the experiment, and the pressure drop was more pronounced
.

Although adopting a psychobiotic diet caused only minor changes in the composition of the gut microbiota, the study observed a significant increase in specific metabolites of these gut flora, some of which are associated with mental health, which may explain why volunteers who adopted this type of diet felt less
stressed.
Studies have shown that specific diets can relieve stress and also target specific gut flora to protect mental health
in the long term.

Last year, Matthew Hillimir, a professor of psychology at the College of William and Mary in the United States, found through a study of 710 college students that for people with high neuroticism, regular consumption of fermented foods was associated
with a reduction in social anxiety.

There are a lot of probiotics in fermented foods, one of which is γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA).

Prebiotics in fermented foods also promote the proliferation of GABA-producing bacteria in the gut, and the presence of probiotics further accelerates this process
.

GABA is the main inhibitory neurotransmitter in the nervous system, which reduces neural activity, and sleeping pills act on GABA receptors
in the nervous system.

GABA substances in the intestine activate the vagus nerve
in the body, which regulates rest and digestion.
The vagus nerve acts as a calming effect on the body and mind, which affects physical and mental health
.

The study found that the vagus nerve of mice that consumed fermented milk was activated, and the degree of activation response was regulated by dose, while the activation of the vagus nerve caused inhibition of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal
axis (HPA axis).

In the brains of anxious and neurotic people, the amygdala and HPA axis tend to be
overexcited.
Reducing the level of responsiveness in these places can help these people regain their mental health and return to normal social functioning
.

These studies show that diet can have a huge impact on mental health, and that a healthy diet can also reduce the risk of
many mental illnesses.
However, the mechanism by which diet affects mental health is not clear
.
At present, the generally accepted explanation is the "gut-brain axis" mechanism, which is a system composed of the central nervous system and intestinal nervous system in the human body, which affects and regulates various physiological functions
of the human body.

Based on these two studies, it may be possible to eat more fiber and fermented foods
when stressed.
However, the researchers caution not to believe some probiotics on the market, these health products do not have the due activity, but also may cause harm to the body, you can drink more yogurt, eat more cheese and sauerkraut
.

(Source: Mace Medical)

China Food News(November 09, 2022 Version 03)

(Editor: Wang Jiayi).