Everything You Need to Know About the Mind-Gut Connection
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Dr Emily Leeming is a microbiome scientist, dietician and chef. Her new book Genius Gut dives into the science of gut health and offers delicious recipes
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Watch our interview below
Your gut and your brain are intricately and powerfully connected. What you feel in your mind, like your mood and emotions, you can often feel in your gut too. We’ve been casually talking about it for far longer than you might think.
You get butterflies in your stomach when you’re nervous about giving a presentation at work.
You feel punched in the gut if your partner breaks up with you out of nowhere.
When you buy a lottery ticket, you get a gut feeling that this time, you’ll win. Even if it’s only a fiver.
Or you might listen to your gut instinct to trust someone you only just met.
The latest revolutionary science is now uncovering just how much this relationship between your gut and your brain goes the other way too – how your gut communicates with your brain, influencing your mood, happiness and emotional stability.
Your gut and your brain are constantly talking to each other. And it’s your gut that’s the chatty one. Ninety per cent of your gut-brain talk is your gut communicating to your brain.
Your gut is more like your brain than you might realise. Like your brain, your gut produces molecules that shape your mood. Like your brain, your gut is a hub of neural activity, housing an extensive network of nerve cells called neurons, known as your enteric nervous system.
And like your brain, your gut is a hormone command centre releasing hormones that influence how your body works, like how full or hungry you feel. Not only that – your gut is also home to your gut microbiome – a newly uncovered vast and complex community of micro-organisms that are fundamental to your health and wellbeing. Your gut microbiome is involved in every aspect of your health, including your brain – influencing your mood and how well you think.
Dr Emily Leeming, PhD MSc RD, is a microbiome scientist, registered dietitian, and chef. Watch our interview with Emily here to hear about the science behind her new book Genius Gut:
Dr Emily Leeming is the author of Genius Gut: The Life-Changing Science of Eating for Your Second Brain
