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The following discussion is for educational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose or

treat any disease. Please do not apply any of this information

without first speaking with your doctor. Now, let's head to the show. Hey everyone, welcome back to Dr.

Rousha Radio. This is Dr. Munker Rousho, and let's do more on probiotics. Boy, there is always

so much interesting research here to share. The first study looked at the gut

microbiome in patients with depression and what benefits could be conferred by prebiotics,

probiotics, or symbiotics, the combination of prebiotics and probiotics.

This was a systematic review of clinical trials and observational trials.

43 studies, just under 4,000 participants with depression.

And here's what they found.

Probiotics and symbbiotics, again,

combination of probiotics plus prebiotics, led to improvements in depressive symptoms, whereas prebiotics alone had no effect. This shouldn't be surprising. We've talked about a number of

studies. in fact,

meta-analyses at this point that have found that probiotics can improve depression through

this likely, in part, gut, brain connection. The evidence for prebiotics is not as strong

in a multitude of areas, although there is benefit demonstrated from either a higher

prebiotic diet or from supplementation, but it's really important for us to keep reiterating

that if you go do the direct-to-consumer stool test and they say, oh, you have low diversity,

take prebiotics and need a high prebiotic diet.

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