Depression: A new role for probiotics in nutritional psychiatry?
01/2018
By Tim Cutclie
The possibility that probiotics could be a new tool in ghting depression is gaining increasing attention in nutritional psychiatry, says Caroline Wallace ahead of her talk at the IPA World Congress + Probiota 2018 next month. “Probiotics as a novel therapeutic in a clinical sample of depressed patients” is the title of a presentation by Canadian Ph.D student Caroline Wallace.
Although dicult to identify the single most important issue, a key motivator for the development of probiotics as a treatment for depression is that “the treatments that we have right now are not treating the illness, they are treating the symptoms,” suggested Wallace. “One of probiotics’ potential big benets would be getting at the underlying mechanism of the disorder that is causing the symptoms instead of just putting a Band-Aid on, which is kind of what I think of antidepressants doing,” she added. Another challenge facing scientists right now is that, although the area is growing, there is not "not enough research being done in clinical samples. Most of the research that has been done looking at mood symptoms has been done in individuals who present without any mood disorder.” As part of her address, Wallace will present an overview of the research to date. “It's really important that the next steps are focused on looking at this in clinical populations with rigorous randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and also looking at an underlying mechanism." Wallace will explore this in more detail, together with other theories about mechanisms that underpin the impact of probiotics on depression.
Wallace is also looking forward to presenting the results of a pilot study, which she recently conducted, evaluating the ecacy, safety and tolerability of probiotic supplements on symptoms of depression in treatment-naïve patients. Regarding the choice of trial population, Wallace explained: “We wanted to look at a sample that was early on in their depression and more of a mild-to- moderate depression. So it is a clinically relevant, but not a treatment- resistant or chronic or severe depression, because that's not really the population who we feel would benet from probiotics," she said, hinting at another exciting upcoming research project. Eectiveness Topics of research that may inuence the eectiveness of probiotics as a depression treatment include dose, duration of treatment and which species or strains to use. Wallace will be reviewing the data on dosage and length of treatment, which show widely varying results in these parameters. The identication of eective probiotic species and/or strains and the single versus multi-strain debate are also important questions, she suggests. Wallace will be highlighting a couple of strains that have shown promise in their eect on the gut-brain axis in animal trials. Knowledge of this aspect will continue to evolve in the near future, but evidence to-date already suggests that strains are function-sp
By Tim Cutclie
The possibility that probiotics could be a new tool in ghting depression is gaining increasing attention in nutritional psychiatry, says Caroline Wallace ahead of her talk at the IPA World Congress + Probiota 2018 next month. “Probiotics as a novel therapeutic in a clinical sample of depressed patients” is the title of a presentation by Canadian Ph.D student Caroline Wallace.
Although dicult to identify the single most important issue, a key motivator for the development of probiotics as a treatment for depression is that “the treatments that we have right now are not treating the illness, they are treating the symptoms,” suggested Wallace. “One of probiotics’ potential big benets would be getting at the underlying mechanism of the disorder that is causing the symptoms instead of just putting a Band-Aid on, which is kind of what I think of antidepressants doing,” she added. Another challenge facing scientists right now is that, although the area is growing, there is not "not enough research being done in clinical samples. Most of the research that has been done looking at mood symptoms has been done in individuals who present without any mood disorder.” As part of her address, Wallace will present an overview of the research to date. “It's really important that the next steps are focused on looking at this in clinical populations with rigorous randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and also looking at an underlying mechanism." Wallace will explore this in more detail, together with other theories about mechanisms that underpin the impact of probiotics on depression.
Wallace is also looking forward to presenting the results of a pilot study, which she recently conducted, evaluating the ecacy, safety and tolerability of probiotic supplements on symptoms of depression in treatment-naïve patients. Regarding the choice of trial population, Wallace explained: “We wanted to look at a sample that was early on in their depression and more of a mild-to- moderate depression. So it is a clinically relevant, but not a treatment- resistant or chronic or severe depression, because that's not really the population who we feel would benet from probiotics," she said, hinting at another exciting upcoming research project. Eectiveness Topics of research that may inuence the eectiveness of probiotics as a depression treatment include dose, duration of treatment and which species or strains to use. Wallace will be reviewing the data on dosage and length of treatment, which show widely varying results in these parameters. The identication of eective probiotic species and/or strains and the single versus multi-strain debate are also important questions, she suggests. Wallace will be highlighting a couple of strains that have shown promise in their eect on the gut-brain axis in animal trials. Knowledge of this aspect will continue to evolve in the near future, but evidence to-date already suggests that strains are function-sp
