Probiotics and Memory

Hey, everybody. Dr. Diane, here in this video, we're going to talk about probiotics and prebiotics and their use for helping with brain function and memory. So prebiotics, for those of you that don't know, are basically food for the probiotics. Now, we see in research that probiotics, meaning the normal flora, the healthy part of your bacterial composition, when we simply give a probiotic and say, take it away, probiotic count does not hold. So what I mean by this is there's research that's shown. If we look at the microbiome and we calculate within the microbiome, then we give probiotics and then we pull the probiotics. There's no change pre and post. But by giving the food for the probiotics, meaning the prebiotics, the food for the probiotics, and we do the same study and we go, microbiome, give prebiotics, pull prebiotics, retest. We actually see a change in the microbiome. So while probiotics are helpful and definitely can alleviate people's symptoms, help make them feel better, when we're really talking about more permanent change for the microorganisms of the body, the good microorganisms, we really want to make sure we throw in that food for the probiotics, that prebiotic food. These are things like fiber, these are things like potato starch, inulin, fos. And we do see a direct relationship with health of the microorganisms in the body. The good guys add brain function and memory. And some of this is that from a mechanistic standpoint, these microorganisms help with serotonin production. They help us activate our nutrients. So they help us with being able to use our nutrients. You know, these are some of the important things that the microorganisms of the body do. They help our immune system. The. But another thing they do is they help with our blood brain barrier function, right? So good microorganisms help keep that blood brain barrier strong by the creation of short chain fatty acids. When the blood brain barrier is strong, toxins don't get into the brain as easily. Memory stays more intact, Right? But the important thing to realize is also there's timing of when we want to do probiotics. So some people will react to certain probiotics. Some probiotics are histamine promoting. So if you have a tendency to be highly reactive to supplements because of histamine, because of your histamine load is really high, maybe of histamine intolerance or MCAs, if you're in that particular population, then probiotics, you want to be very careful because some probiotics could make you worse. And so you really want to look for probiotics that are labeled as histamine lowering, because some probiotics will help histamine, other probiotics will hurt histamine. So we really want to take that into account. So another consideration when you're considering probiotics and brain health is sibo, Small Intestinal Bacteria overgrowth. S I B O, the acronym. So this is a process where microorganisms overgrow in the small intestine, and when they do, they produce a lot of gas. These microorganisms tend to be a type of microorganism called a gram negative bacteria. The reason that is important is because this class of bacteria will create something called an lps. This class of bacteria actually has an LPS in its cell wall. And LPS is a toxin to our body. It stands for lipopolysaccharide. So when you have sibo, most of the microorganisms in this overgrowth probably have an LPS in their cell wall. The reason this is important is because when we kill the microorganism, the LPS gets released and that, that LPS can get released, it can get into our bloodstream and, and it can really impact our blood brain barrier. It can really impact our brain, really impact memory. And so giving probiotics to somebody with this condition could actually make it worse, could actually make them feel worse, could make the situation worse. So in that situation, probiotics would not be ideal for brain health. So you really want to look at, like, so many things in health. Like this is where it gets a little bit complicated. And, you know, my work in educating you is helping you understand this as much as possible, that there's a lot of things that can be good, and they're only good when they're used the right way. I feel like weight loss is one of the best examples of this because people get so excited. Like, I remember when there was a nutrient, there's a nutrient, carnitine. I remember that maybe a decade ago or so, there's like, carnitine helps with weight loss. And like, all of these weight loss companies were like, promoting carnitine. Well, carnitine will help with the breakdown of fats, right? So that's how, that's what carnitine is doing. So if you are carnitine deficient, adding some carnitine in will help you break down fats, and in that case may help lose, you know, help with weight loss. But if you're not carnitine deficient, that is not the problem for the weight loss. So it's like all of these fad things will happen sometimes. Or like try this for this and try this for that and try that for that. Well, it really depends. And the same thing is I'm using that as an example, but the same thing is true with this conversation, right when we're talking about probiotics and prebiotics and can they help with memory? Yes, absolutely. But we want to consider these other things of when they could actually do the opposite, such as the wrong probiotics if you have a histamine problem, or probiotics when you have a SIBO condition. Some probiotics, typically the spore based probiotics, are oftentimes good for people with sibo. But it really does depend. So understanding the whole picture and also starting slow with whatever you're trying to see, the unique impact on you is really important. So hope this is helpful. Please do subscribe to this channel in order to continue to get this information. Please don't give me a secret share with your friends and family if you think this would help them. I appreciate you so much. Continue to send me your questions so I can curate good information. Again, I'm Dr. Diane. See you next time. SA.