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With the arrival of the autumn and winter holidays, many will reflect on the relationship between food and sleep. Researchers led by Professor Masashi Yanagisawa of Tsukuba University in Japan hope they can focus people on the important middlemen in the equation: bacterial microbes in the gut. Their detailed study in mice revealed the extent to which bacteria can change the environment and contents of the gut, which ultimately affects behaviors such as sleep.
The experiment itself was simple enough. The researchers gave a group of mice a potent cocktail of antibiotics for four weeks, which depleted them of gut microorganisms. Then, they compared the intestinal contents between these mice and control mice who had the same diet. Digestion breaks down food into pieces called metabolites. The research team found significant differences between the metabolites in the microbiota-depleted mice and the control mice. As Professor Yanagisawa explains, “We found more than 200 differences in metabolites between the groups of mice. About 60 normal metabolites were missing in the microbiota-depleted mice, and others differed in quantity, some more and some less than in control mice. “.
The team then decided to determine what these metabolites normally do. Using the enrichment analysis of the metabolome set, they found that the biological pathways most affected by antibiotic treatment were those involved in the production of neurotransmitters, the molecules that brain cells use to communicate with each other. For example, the tryptophan-serotonin pathway was almost completely disrupted; the microbiota-depleted mice had more tryptophan than controls, but nearly zero serotonin. This shows that without important gut microbes, the mice could not make serotonin from the tryptophan they were eating. The team also found that the mice were deficient in vitamin B6 metabolites, which accelerate the production of the neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine.
The team also analyzed how the mice slept by looking at brain activity in the EEGs. They found that compared to the control mice, the microbiota-depleted mice had more REM and non-REM sleep at night – when the mice should be active – and less non-REM sleep during the day – when the mice should be mostly sleeping. The number of REM sleep episodes was higher during both day and night, while the number of non-REM sleep episodes was higher during the day. In other words, the microbiota-depleted mice switched between sleep / wake phases more frequently than controls.
Professor Yanagisawa speculates that the lack of serotonin was responsible for the sleep abnormalities; however, the exact mechanism has yet to be worked out. “We found that depletion of microbes flushed out serotonin in the gut, and we know that serotonin levels in the brain can affect sleep / wake cycles,” he says. “So changing gut microbes by altering the diet has the potential to help those with sleep problems.”
So during the holiday season, when you feel sleepy after eating a tryptophan-stuffed turkey, please don’t forget to thank your gut microbes!
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Materials provided by Tsukuba University. Note: The content can be changed by style and length.
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