Stress is a complicated and controversial topic.

While some forms of stress can be good and even healthy (and mindset about stress plays a huge role here), stress can also be detrimental to your health and become a silent killer when it puts you in a chronic fight-or-flight state.

But one thing is for sure: It’s impossible to avoid stress, and luckily we have evolved in a way that our bodies can handle acute stressors well.

One key player that science is just starting to understand in the context of stress is the gut microbiota, a mix of many different microorganisms that live in your gut.

An exciting new study tested the relationship between gut microbiota diversity and the acute stress reaction.

In a nutshell, gut microbiota diversity shaped stress responses, but in a way the authors did not expect.

Let’s dive in!

The sample consisted of 74 young adults (18-34 years). Half of them were randomly assigned to the stress group, and the other half to the control group.

Stress in the stress group was induced as follows: They had to perform arithmetic tasks while being watched and judged by a person in a white coat. The control group also performed an arithmetic task, but without the pressure and judgment.

Stress was measured at different time points throughout the experiment and in 2 different ways:

Each participant also donated a stool sample to measure microbial diversity.

The authors wanted to know whether acute stress reactivity is related to gut microbial composition.

They expected that people with higher gut microbial diversity (considered good) would be better able to handle stress and respond less strongly to the stressful task, both in their cortisol response and in their subjective assessment of stress.

First of all, the stress group was highly stressed by the task: they showed significantly higher stress levels than the control group after completing it. This was an expected result because it shows that the stress intervention worked.

In the stress group, the relationship between stress response and gut microbiota diversity was significant, indicating that gut microbiota diversity plays a role in how well people handle acute stress. The authors found this relationship for both the cortisol response and the subjective assessment of stress. It was limited to the acute stress phase and did not extend to post-stress recovery.

However, the relationship between gut microbial diversity and the physiological and psychological stress response was the opposite of what the authors had expected: higher gut microbial diversity was associated with a stronger stress response.

First of all, the results show that the gut microbiota could shape your stress response. In other words, taking care of your gut could help you handle stress better. That’s a promising finding!

The unexpected link between higher gut microbial diversity and enhanced stress reactivity could reflect a flexible stress response, as the authors note in their discussion of the findings.

Lead author Thomas Karner said:

This study shows a link between gut health and the human stress response at both physiological (cortisol) and psychological (subjective assessment of stress) levels. It’s yet another exciting advance in our understanding of how the gut influences our well-being and underscores the importance of caring for it.

That’s it for today!

And now?

Until next time!

Best wishes,

Patricia (Dr. Schmidt) from creatorschmidt.com

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