Gut Health
October 30, 2022
TLDR: Integrating Biopsychosocial Approaches to Mental Health
This article discusses the importance of using an integrated biopsychosocial model to understand mental health, particularly in the context of trauma and gut health. Key points include:
Biological, psychological, and sociological perspectives are often siloed, rather than integrated
Trauma has complex neurobiological, psychological, and social factors that require a holistic view
Gut health is a prime example of an area dominated by biological reductionism
Linking gut health to mental health requires bridging biological, psychological, and social contexts
The immune system and inflammation are emerging as crucial mediators between the gut and brain
Wise Mind Nutrition emphasizes the importance of:
Taking a comprehensive biopsychosocial approach to mental health and nutrition
Recognizing the complex interplay between biological, psychological, and social factors
Exploring the gut-brain-immune axis and its implications for mental wellbeing
Developing trauma-informed, eating disorder-friendly nutrition interventions
The article concludes that breaking down disciplinary silos and embracing integrated models are key to advancing our understanding and treatment of mental health conditions through nutritional approaches.
[Read full article for deeper exploration of case studies and research insights on biopsychosocial mental health]
There are disciplines that study biology, pathways, and mechanisms. And then we have the psychological sciences where researchers investigate the facets of the mind. And then we have sociology, where scholars are interested in the social and environmental context. We don’t have enough disciplines that use an integrated biopsychosocial model.
When you look at something like trauma, you could study the effects of trauma from a purely biological lens. Looking at animal models of early life stress, the neurobiological implications, the biological embedding of adversity, and then the psychological implications of it all and the relational health and the attachments, etc. and then looking at them as being socially patterned within a social context.
The gut is a perfect example of something that is highly favored and slanted toward biological sciences. We're looking at microbes. We're looking at things that aren't easily understood without high-tech equipment. Many people nowadays are struggling with gastrointestinal disorders.
When we think about gut health for example, that becomes a very specific discipline where people only at universities can adequately study it. And when we start linking gut health to mental health, now we bring in psychology.
We've got this emerging conversation around nutritional psychiatry, the gut-brain axis, and now we've got to think about nutritional psychology, how we think about food top down (brain-to-gut) instead of bottom up (gut-to-brain).
The revolution with the gut-brain axis really started when it was discovered how neurotransmitters were often produced in the gut by way of microbes that would produce what we call postbiotics (e.g., short-chain fatty acids).
But then it was sort of discovered that a lot of those don't necessarily cross the blood-brain barrier. Just because the neurotransmitter is in the gut, does that mean that it's active in the brain? No, but signals are sent.
The area that I've become interested in is the immune system (i.e., inflammation). We know that gut-based inflammation has a wide range of potential implications, one of which is low-grade inflammation, something that someone might not even notice (they don't even know they have it) which can cross the blood-brain barrier and cause neuroinflammation.
This is an important link in the diet-mental-health-relationship. There's a growing field called psychoneuroimmunology and I predict that the immune system is going to get a lot more attention. Obviously, it got a lot of attention with COVID-19 but thinking about the immune system as a mediator between the gut and the brain, really seems to be an important future direction for the nutrition for mental health conversation.
Would you like the join the conversation? Consider this an invitation. We have developed groundbreaking nutrition interventions for anxiety and depressive disorders. Our program is trauma-informed and eating disorder friendly and available to try out today.
