The possibility that probiotics could be a new tool in fighting depression is gaining increasing attention in nutritional psychiatry, says Caroline Wallace ahead of her talk at the IPA World Congress + Probiota 2018 next month.
“Probiotics as a novel therapeutic in a clinical sample of depressed patients” is the title of a presentation by Canadian Ph.D student Caroline Wallace during the forthcoming IPAWC + Probiota in held in Barcelona.
NutraIngredients caught up with Wallace recently to get a sneak preview of the key issues and challenges facing researchers in this area, as well as topics she would be addressing in the talk.
Although difficult to identify the single most important issue, a key motivator for the development of probiotics as a treatment for depression is that “the treatments that we have right now are not treating the illness, they are treating the symptoms”, suggested Wallace.
“One of probiotics’ potential big benefits would be getting at the underlying mechanism of the disorder that is causing the symptoms instead of just putting a Band-Aid on, which is kind of what I think of antidepressants doing,” she added.
Another challenge facing scientists right now is that, although the area is growing, there is not “not enough research being done in clinical samples. Most of the research that has been done looking at mood symptoms has been done in individuals who present without any mood disorder.”
As part of her address, Wallace will present an overview of the research to date.
“It’s really important that the next steps are focused on looking at this in clinical populations with rigorous randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and also looking at an underlying mechanism.”
Wallace will explore this in more detail, together with other theories about mechanisms that underpin the impact of probiotics on depression.
Source: Nutraingredients
