UCC researchers make 'world-first discovery' in stress treatment
A Picture Increasing May That Ucc Gut Play Is Said Stress Role How Their Interactions Brain The Researchers Supports In Key At Study File Evidence Regulated
Scientists at University College Cork (UCC) believe there may be a new way to treat people for stress — with the answer perhaps lying in the gut.
A team of researchers from APC Microbiome Ireland, the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) research centre based at UCC focused on understanding the gastrointestinal bacterial community, have said that some viruses within our gut may actually play a key role in keeping the bad bacteria at bay in times of stress in what is described as a “world-first discovery”.
“This important research is a step advancement in developing targeted virome (virus) therapies that reduce the effects of stress with safer therapeutic interventions, and points to the potential of further research on the dynamics of the microbiota-gut-brain axis to promote gut and brain health,” said Professor John Cryan from UCC.
The research comes in the context of World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that one in eight people live with a mental disorder across the globe, with stress-related disorders such as depression and anxiety being both extremely prevalent and a significant societal burden.
In 2019, 970 million people around the world were living with a mental disorder. In 2020, the number of people living with anxiety and depressive disorders rose significantly because of the covid-19 pandemic, according to the WHO.
While most of us will think of viruses in a negative context, such as the likes of covid-19 and the flu, the team at UCC said there is a “rich ecosystem” of other viruses known as bacteriophages that can infect bacteria and play a vital role in our health and well-being.
In recent years, new research has highlighted how important microbes within our guts are in many aspects of our physical and mental health.
“Indeed it has been shown that the composition of bacteria in the gut changes with stress and that targeting these bacteria may dampen down the effects of stress in animals and humans,” the researchers said.
Prof. Cryan and colleagues aimed to analyse how much these gut viruses related to stress and found for the first time that chronic stress led to changes in the composition of viruses. The researchers said this supports increasing evidence that brain-gut interactions may play a key role in how stress is regulated.
Gaining an understanding of this may lead to the development of alternative, new therapies for stress-related disorders.
Furthermore, they found that harvested viruses taken from healthy animals prior to stress, that were then returned to the gut when the animal was stressed had “remarkable outcomes” in preventing stress-associated behavioral or physiological outcomes.
Prof. Cryan added: “These are mice studies and validation in humans is now required to assess the potential of [this] approach.
“However, given that the virome composition varies greatly among individuals, it may open the door for personalised medicine approaches for stress-related disorders in the future.
“One thing is for certain, we must acknowledge that not all viruses are bad and they can play a key role in keeping the bad bacteria in our gut at bay, especially in times of stress.”