A research team from the University of Basel in Switzerland, and the University Psychiatric Clinics Basel (UPK) reports that probiotics can support treatment with antidepressant medication.
It is known that patients with depression have an above-average prevalence of gastrointestinal problems. When the intestinal flora of people with depression is implanted in mice with no intestinal flora, they are less energetic and are indifferent to their environment — symptoms consistent with depression. Researchers surmised that the composition of the bacterial community in the gut plays an important role in depressive symptoms.
Dr. André Schmidt and Professor Undine Lang systematically investigated the effects of probiotics on patients with depression. They used a double-blinded, randomized methodology. All participants were inpatients at the University Psychiatric Clinics Basel (UPK) and were given a probiotic (21 subjects) or a placebo (26 subjects) for 31 days, in addition to antidepressants. The researchers carried out a series of tests on the participants immediately before treatment, at the end of 31 days, and again four weeks later, at the end of treatment. Read more…
