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Impact of consuming a milk drink containing a probiotic on mood and cognition
Benton, Williams & Brown (2007) investigated if drinking a milk beverage containing probiotics or a placebo would affect mood and memory, as it has been discovered that bad mood correlates with frequent constipation. In their randomly-allocated, double-blind, placebo-controlled experiment, aside from three trips to the lab, the subjects (n = 124, mean age = 61.8 years) carried on with their regular lives within their communities. Participants received either a milk drink containing probiotics or a placebo every day for three weeks. Measurements of mood and cognitive function were done at baseline, 10, and 20 days following ingestion. The authors noted that participants who reported experiencing constipation less frequently had higher baseline mental clarity, self-assurance, and joy levels. Even while taking the probiotic did not typically alter mood, this seemed to be an expression of the sample’s positive mood overall. Those in the bottom third of the baseline sad/elated dimension preferentially reported feeling happier instead of depressed after taking the probiotic. The fact that the intervention did not affect reported defecation frequency is likely due to the initially low prevalence of constipation. A surprising and maybe accidental finding was that probiotic use was associated with somewhat worse performance on two memory tests. The authors comment that participants who originally had a low mood found that their mood improved after consuming a probiotic-containing yogurt intervention. However, there was no correlation between this mood enhancement and a higher frequency of defecation. [NPID: Affect, cognition, constipation, defecation, probiotics, yogurt]
Year: 2007
