Really good news!

Dr. Emeran Mayer, a professor of medicine and psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles thinks the bacteria in our digestive systems may help mold brain structure as we’re growing up, and possibly influence our moods, behavior and feelings when we’re adults. “It opens up a completely new way of looking at brain function and health and disease,” he says. Mayer has found that the connections between brain regions differ depending on which species of bacteria dominate a person’s gut. That suggests that the specific mix of microbes in our guts might help determine what kinds of brains we have — how our brain circuits develop and how they’re wired.

One experiment involved replacing the gut bacteria of anxious mice with bacteria from fearless mice.”The mice became less anxious, more gregarious,” says Stephen Collins of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. When measuring brain chemistry in mice, Collins found changes in a part of the brain involved in emotion and mood, including increases in a chemical which plays a role in learning and memory.

The science is in its early stages, but there is a possibility that pro-biotics – good bacteria – might in the future be used for conditions such as autism and bipolar disorder. There is a further possibility that they can be used to treat an even more widespread problem – anxiety. (A precised version of a news item put out by NPR on November 19, 2013, copyright NPR)

Epicurus may or may not have been an anxious individual. He doesn’t sound like one, but today millions live with a non-stop, pervasive anxiety that is most unpleasant and which affects their whole lives.

Anything that tamps down the anxiety is welcome. Everyone would prefer something natural to a pharmaceutical drug. Epicurus believed in us having happy lives, with pleasure being the key. Any scientific discovery that makes that objective real to more people has to be great.