Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2023 Mar 13;15(6):1382.
doi: 10.3390/nu15061382.

A Microbial-Based Approach to Mental Health: The Potential of Probiotics in the Treatment of Depression

Affiliations
Review

A Microbial-Based Approach to Mental Health: The Potential of Probiotics in the Treatment of Depression

Dinyadarshini Johnson et al. Nutrients. .

Abstract

Probiotics are currently the subject of intensive research pursuits and also represent a multi-billion-dollar global industry given their vast potential to improve human health. In addition, mental health represents a key domain of healthcare, which currently has limited, adverse-effect prone treatment options, and probiotics may hold the potential to be a novel, customizable treatment for depression. Clinical depression is a common, potentially debilitating condition that may be amenable to a precision psychiatry-based approach utilizing probiotics. Although our understanding has not yet reached a sufficient level, this could be a therapeutic approach that can be tailored for specific individuals with their own unique set of characteristics and health issues. Scientifically, the use of probiotics as a treatment for depression has a valid basis rooted in the microbiota-gut-brain axis (MGBA) mechanisms, which play a role in the pathophysiology of depression. In theory, probiotics appear to be ideal as adjunct therapeutics for major depressive disorder (MDD) and as stand-alone therapeutics for mild MDD and may potentially revolutionize the treatment of depressive disorders. Although there is a wide range of probiotics and an almost limitless range of therapeutic combinations, this review aims to narrow the focus to the most widely commercialized and studied strains, namely Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium, and to bring together the arguments for their usage in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). Clinicians, scientists, and industrialists are critical stakeholders in exploring this groundbreaking concept.

Keywords: depression; gut microbes; major depressive disorder; precision; probiotics; psychiatry.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
A probiotic framework befitting the precision psychiatry healthcare model in MDD. This framework represents three main components of precision psychiatry: neurobiological bases, genetic bases, and environment and lifestyle elements of MDD that involve microbial intertwining. Modulation of gut microbiota is the rudimentary anti-depressive mechanism of probiotics. Some commonly explored probiotics of Lactobacillus spp. and Bifidobacterium spp., either as a single strain or multi-strain, exert anti-depressive mechanisms by acting on different pathophysiologic mechanisms implicated in depressive disorder. Stress and diet are mainly modifiable targets in the prevention of MDD. The microbial-based applications in the clinical management of MDD include some potential biomarkers obtainable through a patient’s blood analysis, assessment of vital frontolimbic regions in the brain using MRI, and integration of machine learning and development of depression-specific metabiotic as part of futuristic vision within this context.

References

    1. Bested A.C., Logan A.C., Selhub E.M. Intestinal microbiota, probiotics and mental health: From Metchnikoff to modern advances: Part I—Autointoxication revisited. Gut Pathog. 2013;5:5. doi: 10.1186/1757-4749-5-5. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Johnson D., Thurairajasingam S., Letchumanan V., Chan K.-G., Lee L.-H. Exploring the role and potential of probiotics in the field of mental health: Major depressive disorder. Nutrients. 2021;13:1728. doi: 10.3390/nu13051728. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Letchumanan V., Thye A.Y.-K., Tan L.T.-H., Law J.W.-F., Johnson D., Ser H.-L., Bhuvanendran S., Thurairajasingam S., Lee L.-H. Gut feelings in depression: Microbiota dysbiosis in response to antidepressants. Gut. 2021;70:A49–A50.
    1. Johnson D., Letchumanan V., Thurairajasingam S., Lee L.-H. A revolutionizing approach to autism spectrum disorder using the microbiome. Nutrients. 2020;12:1983. doi: 10.3390/nu12071983. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. McEwen B., Fenasse R. Probiotics and depression: The link between the microbiome-gut-brain axis and digestive and mental health. J. Aust. Tradit.-Med. Soc. 2019;25:127–132.

LinkOut - more resources