A short educational talk by Dr. Nicole Cain explaining how bacteria in the Clostridium genus can alter peripheral neurotransmitter metabolism (dopamine, epinephrine, norepinephrine) through metabolites such as "4 crestol" (4-cresol) and HPHPA that inhibit dopamine-β-hydroxylase. The talk links elevated dopamine / low norepinephrine states to symptoms (mood swings, anxiety, hedonism, cognitive impairment) and to neuropsychiatric conditions including autism and schizophrenia, notes urine metabolites (HVA, HPHPA, 4-cresol) as measurable markers, recommends the Organic Acids Test (OAT) for assessment, and concludes by promoting a Gut Psychology course for further learning.
Chapters
Hi, I'm Dr. Nicole and today you're going to learn about the link between a bacteria and your mood. This article is entitled Clostridia the Gut Brain Access and you can read more by clicking on the link to the blog below. Have you ever gotten food poisoning? If so, you might have been infected by one or two different types of a bacteria called Clostridium. They're Clostridium perfingens and Clostridium botulinum. Clostridium are a group of over 80 bacteria that could have potentially harmful effects on your body and your mind. But did you know that these bugs can specifically interfere with your dopamine, epinephrine and norepinephrine metabolism? You might have heard of the most popular or well known type of Clostridia called C. Difficile or C. Diff. C. Diff normally resides in people who are immunocompromised, who take antibiotics or who have been hospitalized. But new studies show that you can get C. Diff from being in contact with someone who has had this bacteria. A mild to moderate infection of this particular bacteria results in symptoms such as watery diarrhea, cramping and abdominal pain. But there are other symptoms from Clostridia that are more worrisome than diarrhea and cramping. Clostridium can be linked to autism, schizophrenia, anxiety, depression, OCD and other neuropsychiatric disorders. So let's talk about the Clostridium and dopamine snafu. Clostridium can cause an excess level of dopamine within your body. It does this by blocking your body's ability to convert dopamine into epinephrine and norepinephrine. This results in high dopamine and and low epinephrine and norepinephrine. What are the symptoms of high dopamine? High dopamine symptoms include hedonism, which is pleasure seeking behaviors or risk seeking behaviors, excess sociability, suspiciousness, paranoia, anxiety attacks, intense excitement, mood swings, emotional eating, constipation and autistic behaviors. What are the symptoms of low epinephrine or low norepinephrine? This includes impaired emotional regulation, poor concentration, focus and memory, brain fog, lethargy, fatigue, anxiety, depression, feeling apathetic or fatigued during the day. So how does Clostridia interfere with dopamine, epinephrine and norepinephrine levels? Let me explain. Clostridia does this in several different ways. Let's discuss these in more detail together. Clostridia converts something called L tyrosine into a toxic metabolite called 4 crestol. This toxic metabolite, 4 crestol, inhibits the conversion of dopamine into norepinephrine. This results in low epinephrine. Clostridia also releases something called hphpa. High concentrations of HPHPA inhibit dopamine beta hydroxylase, which thus inhibits the metabolism of dopamine to epinephrine. This results in the individual not making enough norepinephrine and adrenaline and won't be able to respond to stress. I've seen high HPHPA in my clinical practice, specifically related to anger and aggression mixed with anxiety. So how do we measure dopamine since we know that it can't cross the blood brain barrier? Just like you can't drive your Subaru into your doctor's office, dopamine can't cross the blood brain barrier from the central nervous system into the peripheral nervous system. But you could theoretically bring parts of your Subaru in through the doorway, the hood ornament, the bumper, maybe even the battery and similarly, once dopamine is metabolized and these metabolites are able to cross the blood brain barrier and these metabolites are what we measure when assessing for dopamine levels. Specifically, we look at Homo vanillic acid or hva. Next, let's talk about clostridia, dopamine and autism. We have established that an infection with clostridia can impact dopamine, epinephrine and norepinephrine levels. Let's talk about how this can manifest in psychiatric illness. In particular, research has shown that children who have autism tend to have higher concentrations of clostridia in the urine. The severity of autism also relates to higher concentrations of hva, a dopamine metabolite, in the urine. As well, there are also dopamine metabolites, HPHPA and vorcrustal, that have high levels within urine of both autism and individuals who are diagnosed with schizophrenia. An enzyme called dopamine beta hydroxylase is responsible for changing dopamine into norepinephrine. Children who had autism had lower levels of this enzyme, which is important for psychological condition diagnoses because excess levels of dopamine with low levels of norepinephrine means that the dopamine is going to try to compensate for the lack of norepinephrine by making more dopamine. This compensation could cause permanent brain damage, adrenal gland impacts and sympathetic nervous system damage if it goes on for a long period of time as this results in free radical damage to the brain and body. This compensation can also cause obsessive, compulsive and stereotypical behaviors that we see in autism. We may also see reduced exploratory behaviors and reduced learning in novel environments, which is also common in autism. Next, let's talk about clostridia, dopamine and Schizophrenia. Clostridia may play a role in schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders as these conditions are often associated with high dopamine levels. Chronic excess dopamine in combination with low norepinephrine can cause severe neurodegeneration in the pathways that dopamine flows through, causing abnormal mood and behavioral changes that we often see associated with autism and schizophrenia. The next thing is testing for dopamine levels. The good news is that we can get to the root cause of your symptoms through appropriate and individualized testing. My favorite starting point is using the organic acid test or the OAT test. This will examine your urine and assess for clostridium metabolites. It'll look at dopamine, epinephrine and norepinephrine levels. If you suspect that you or a loved one may be struggling with symptoms related to abnormalities in your neurotransmitters or gut health, you may consider getting an OAT test. So this has been a lot of information. Let's summarize the high yield points together. Clostridia may cause gastrointestinal symptoms and or psychiatric symptoms. This means that you can have a Clostridia infection even if you don't have the gut health symptoms. Clostridia also interferes with dopamine metabolism. Clostridia is associated with depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, ADHD and other mood disorders. Treating a Clostridia infection may be the solution to your mental health concerns. Clostridia infections may be tested easily via an at home urine test. As we conclude, I want to share with you that Clostridia is just one of the things that we need to look at in order to identify the root cause of your mental emotional symptoms. It could be clostridia, it could be another bacteria. It could be an imbalance of bacteria in your gut. Sometimes getting to the root cause gets us the answers that we've been looking for for far too long. I would also love to advise that you take a peek at our gut psychology course. This course gives you all of the information that you've been looking for in terms of what kinds of bacteria could be impacting your mood. What what you need to do to have a healthy gut and to repair the relationship between the gut and the brain, which we call the Gut Brain Access. The Gut Psychology Diet has been turned into a course that you can do anytime from the convenience of your home. I created this from one foot in functional medicine and the other foot in vitality medicine, which comes from the philosophy of naturecure. Gut Psychology is created to help you get to the root cause of your symptoms and it will give you strategies to eat your way into a happy mind in a healthy mood. To learn more about the Gut Psychology Diet, you can just simply click on the link below. Or you could go to my website, Dr. Nicolecane, and then click on the tab that says Courses and then you'll see the Gut Psychology course there. Thank you so much for watching. This has been Dr. Nicole and I look forward to seeing you next time.
