Associations among diet, the gastrointestinal microbiota, and negative emotional states in adults

This study conducted a cross-sectional examination of dietary intake, subjective emotional state, and faecal microbial taxa abundances in 133 adults (ages 25-45) without physician-diagnosed mood disorders in order to explore the relationships among their diets, gastrointestinal microbiota, and mood. Habitual dietary consumption was indicated using the National Cancer Institute’s Diet History Questionnaire II, diet quality was evaluated with the 2010 Healthy Eating Index (HEI), subjective mood state was assessed using the 42-item Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-42), while fecal DNA was also extracted and a region of the rRNA gene was sequenced and subsequently analysed using QIIME2. The data showed sex-dependent associations among 21 bacteria taxa and DASS-42 scores, including an inverse relationship between anxiety scale scores and Bifidobacterium in females and an inverse relationship between depression scale scores and Lactobacillus in males. Furthermore, the total fruit and dairy components of HEI were negatively associated with Depression and Stress scales, respectively. The findings of this study suggest that gastrointestinal microbes are connected to mood in adults without diagnosed mood disorders, that these relationships differ by sex, and that they are influenced by dietary fibre intake. If future gut-microbiota-brain studies were to incorporate dietary intake into their research, they may be able to confirm roles of specific microbes and dietary components in mental health symptoms. [NPID: mood, happiness, well-being, psychological distress, emotional state, microbiota, microbiome, gut health, lactobacillus, fruit, vegetables, fiber]

Year: 2020

Reference: Taylor, A. M., Thompson, S. V., Edwards, C. G., Musaad, S., Khan, N. A., & Holscher, H. D. (2020). Associations among diet, the gastrointestinal microbiota, and negative emotional states in adults. Nutritional neuroscience, 23(12), 983–992. https://doi.org/10.1080/1028415X.2019.1582578

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