Article written and contributed by Mike O’Sullivan, Watsonia General Practice Dietitian. You may have heard a lot over the past year about gut health playing a major role in general health, particularly chronic illnesses but there is also more research emerging on how our gut plays a role in our mental health and wellbeing. I do not believe that if you improve your gut health in isolation it will directly improve your mental health but I do believe it does play a significant role. The gut has a very dynamic ecosystem of microbes which we call the microbiome, in fact we are made up 90% bacterial cells and 10% human cells – many of which are concentrated in our gut. We know now that we don’t live independently from all these bacteria but live together symbiotically and we need them for good health as well as they need us to survive so as to have an environment to flourish. Although there are numerous ways that the microbiome can influence our health, I will focus on mental health here and as there are a number of ways, I will focus on how they influence neurotransmitters particularly (chemical messengers). Good bacterial such … Continue reading What’s up with your gut