Louisiana State University researchers implanted mice with gut microbes that came from mice fed on an unhealthy, high-fat diet, and found that the gut microbes alone seemed to cause neurocognitive impairments and apparent psychological problems even in the absence of obesity.
“The mice given [high-fat diet] microbiota had significant and selective disruptions in exploratory, cognitive, and stereotypical behavior compared with mice with control diet microbiota, in the absence of significant differences in body weight,” stated the researchers, publishing in Biological Psychiatry.
“The animals who received the microbiota shaped by a high-fat diet showed multiple disruptions in behavior, including increased anxiety, impaired memory, and repetitive behaviors,” stated a press release about the study. “Further, they showed many detrimental effects in the body, including increased intestinal permeability and markers of inflammation. Signs of inflammation in the brain were also evident and may have contributed to the behavioral changes.”
“This paper suggests that high-fat diets impair brain health, in part, by disrupting the symbiotic relationship between humans and the microorganisms that occupy our gastrointestinal tracks,” the editor of Biological Psychiatry said in the press release.
The press release stated that “these findings suggest that the gut microbiome has the eventual potential to serve as a therapeutic target for neuropsychiatric disorders.”
High-fat diet alters behavior and produces signs of brain inflammation (Elsevier press release on ScienceDaily, March 26, 2015)
Bruce-Keller, Annadora J., J. Michael Salbaum, Meng Luo, Eugene Blanchard, Christopher M. Taylor, David A. Welsh, and Hans-Rudolf Berthoud. âObese-Type Gut Microbiota Induce Neurobehavioral Changes in the Absence of Obesity.â Biological Psychiatry 77, no. 7 (April 1, 2015): 607â15. doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2014.07.012. (Abstract)
“Collectively, these data reinforce the link between gut dysbiosis and neurologic dysfunction and suggest that dietary and/or pharmacologic manipulation of gut microbiota could attenuate the neurologic complications of obesity.”
Oh, dear, does this imply that “neurologic dysfunction” is not simply a “chemical imbalance in the brain,” as the psycho / pharmaceutical industries have propagandized for the last several decades, and brainwashed most of the world into believing?
There must be new drugs in the pipeline to treat the new “chemical imbalances” in people’s guts. I guess this means the psychopharmacologists will be coming for the obese soon?
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Fat is essential for good brain health. There is no question. It’s a matter of what kind of fat. This article does a poor job of distinguishing between good fat and unhealthy fat.
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In my opinion, the biggest problem is current diet advice is not eating too much fat. The big proble is that people eat way too much carbohydrates and sugar.
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