A healthy and correct diet can also have a huge impact on mental health, a study confirms that consuming more fermented foods and fiber every day can have a significant effect on lowering perceived stress levels.
In addition to physical activity, meditation and relaxation techniques or lifestyle changes, nutrition also plays a very important role when it comes to coping with stress. In fact, even if the mechanisms have not yet been clarified by science, a healthy and correct diet can also have a huge impact on mental health, even reducing the risk of many mental disorders.
However, an explanation of this link could be that of the relationship between our brain and our microbiome, which is the set of bacteria that live in our gut. In this regard, a recent study would have shown how consuming more fermented foods and fiber every day for just four weeks had a significant effect on lowering perceived stress levels.
Researchers recruited 45 healthy people with relatively low-fiber diets, aged 18 to 59, and mostly women, who were then divided into two groups and randomly assigned to a diet for four weeks. .
About half were assigned a diet with a higher amount of fiber and fermented foods, known as a “psychobiotic” diet, as it included a range of foods linked to better mental health. From the analyzes conducted it emerged that those who followed the psychobiotic diet reported feeling less stressed compared to those who followed the control diet.
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Confirming this, another 2021 study conducted by Stanford School of Medicine would demonstrate how consuming fermented foods improves gut microbiotic diversity, with important effects on other aspects of life as well. Specifically, the study involved 36 adult volunteers, divided into two groups, who changed their diet for ten weeks: the first group included fermented foods in the diet, the second group, on the other hand, included high-content foods in the diet. of fibers.
The analysis showed that those who had increased the consumption of fermented foods showed an important change in the microbial diversity of the intestine and a lowering of inflammatory protein levels. Instead, the group that followed a high-fiber diet showed very small changes in the gut microbiome, but a larger amount of carbohydrates in the stool samples.
In conclusion, diets high in fermented foods would not only change the state of our gut and the health of our immune system, offering a promising solution for reducing inflammation in adults, but would also be able to improve stress levels. .
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