Researchers at the University of Oxford have discovered that an advanced prebiotic bacteria can reduce levels of anxiety in a clinical trial. Like probiotics, prebiotics are functional foods: they have benefits beyond their purely nutritional value. Prebiotics are also ‘good’ bacteria which provide sustenance for other healthy probiotics in the gut. The study, published in the journal Psychopharmacology, involved 45 women taking either a prebiotic or a placebo for 3 weeks (Schmidt et al., 2014). The results showed that compared with a control group, those taking the prebiotic had a reduced tendency to pay attention to negative information, which is a key component of anxiety and depression. Women who took the prebiotic also had lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which has been connected to anxiety and depression.
Posted on: Thu, 08 Jan 2015 03:10:00 +0000
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