It’s often said that there is no health without mental health. Yet when we look at the stats, we can see we need mood support more than ever:

• Psychological distress is increasing – around half of adults in the workforce feel stressed and on-edge with insomnia symptoms. Plus, constant stress is felt by more than twice as many Canadians as before the pandemic!
• One-third of patients visiting physicians have depressive symptoms, anxiety and/or alcohol problems
• Gastrointestinal complaints are becoming more common in young adults and are often associated with depressive symptoms

That’s what inspired Genuine Health to create a new probiotic for anyone feeling stressed and anxious, having trouble sleeping, unable to focus on tasks, feeling more physical fatigue or having digestive symptoms associated with stress.

Healthy Gut, Healthy Mood: Inside the Gut-Brain Connection

The gut is home to trillions of microorganisms, all of which play a vital role in promoting and maintaining our everyday wellness. When it comes to managing overall health, the gut comes first.

A healthy microbiome is first and foremost characterized as balanced. When our microbiomes are out of balance, we tend to see negative health impacts. These effects are characterized mainly by increased pro-inflammatory microbes and a relative decrease in the “healthy” anti-inflammatory species. Unfortunately, impacts of a distressed microbiome are not kept contained within the gut.

“When the gut is stressed, often the brain is too.”

The vagus nerve is one of the primary components of our parasympathetic nervous system. It forms a direct line of communication between the gut and brain. A healthy, balanced gut microbiome is associated with improved mood and reduced feelings of anxiety. This is largely due to bi-directional communication along the vagus nerve (7).

Here our microbes work hand-in-hand with key signalling networks to regulate our stress response and control neurotransmitter production, among many other important roles. To put it simply, when the gut is stressed, often the brain is too. Promoting a robust, diverse, and balanced gut ecosystem is key to regulating oxidative stress and promoting a healthy mental outlook.

First, Genuine Health crafted advanced gut health probiotic mood with 15 probiotic strains in a balanced formula that supports both digestion and mood. We included species with great research for mood and stress benefits:

• Lactobacillus gasseri has been clinically shown to improve sleep, anxiety and mood (5)
• Lactobacillus salivarius has been clinically studied to help reduce negative thoughts (6)

Oxidative Stress and Its Impact on Mood

Next up was the question of oxidative stress. Under optimal conditions, our bodies tightly regulate these molecules through a sophisticated antioxidative defence network, ensuring that the levels stay in an optimized range. However, under periods of intense stress, we often see a state of excessive inflammation tied to several negative health outcomes, including increased risk of metabolic disease, joint pain, and even negative impacts on mood (8).

Enter Curcumis melo, a French melon concentrate!

French melons are uniquely rich in various health-promoting compounds, particularly an antioxidant called superoxide dismutase (or SOD for short). SOD is one of our body’s most potent antioxidant defenders. So, supplementing with SOD has been clinically researched to help bolster our body’s antioxidant defence capacity.

A daily serving of 10 mg of SOD-rich Extramel™ French melon concentrate has been clinically proven to reduce fatigue, lower stress, and improve overall quality of life (9) in just 28 days (15). Researchers found that participants who took 10mg of Extramel™ each day scored significantly higher on four psychometric scales, notably the Perceived Stress Scale-14 (PSS-14) and the Short Form Health Survey (SF-36). These are two highly reputable tests for gauging levels of psychological stress and quality of life. This research-proven dose of 10 mg Extramel™ is an ingredient in advanced gut health probiotic mood.

To cap things off, all strains in our advanced gut health probiotic mood are genetically verified, triple cleaned and delivered in our unique delayed-release vegan capsule for maximum potency.

Back to the original question: Can a probiotic improve your mood and stress response? Yes! The combination of Extramel™ combined with a high-quality probiotic creates a highly effective daily supplement for targeting the root of physical and psychological stress—in just one capsule per day.

By Michael Loreto, M.Sc.
Michael received both his Bachelor’s and Master’s of Science at the University of Guelph studying Human Health and Nutrition, with a specific focus on the health benefits of dietary fibre. He now works on product innovations as part of the New Product Development team at Genuine Health.

References:
1. Qin J, et al. A human gut microbial gene catalogue established by metagenomic sequencing. Nature. 2010;464:59–65.
2. Vieira AT., et al.  A Role for Gut Microbiota and the Metabolite-Sensing Receptor GPR43 in a Murine Model of Gout. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2015;67:1646–1656.
3. Yamashita T., et al. Intestinal Immunity and Gut Microbiota as Therapeutic Targets for Preventing Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Diseases. Circ J. 2015;79:1882–1890.
4. Sawada
5. Steenbergen, L., et al. (2015). A randomized controlled trial to test the effect of multispecies probiotics on cognitive reactivity to sad mood. In Brain, Behavior, and Immunity (Vol. 48, pp. 258–264). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbi.2015.04.003
6. Qin, et al., 2010
7. Scher, et al., 2015
8. Vieira, et al., 2015
9. Yamashita, et al., 2015
10. Sawada et al., 2017
11. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25862297/
12. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5859128/
13. Oxidative stress: role of physical exercise and antioxidant nutraceuticals in adulthood and aging (nih.gov)
14. Dietary Supplementation with a Superoxide Dismutase-Melon Concentrate Reduces Stress, Physical and Mental Fatigue in Healthy People: A Randomised, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial (nih.gov)

About the Author: Genuine Health Team

Genuine Health is a Canadian company that makes all natural, non-GMO supplements and is one of the original vendors to partner with HFN back in 1999. Genuine Health has a history of firsts, including: First superfood formula and first to launch a superfood designed for the gut, First with fermented supplements and the first complete fermented protein, and the First natural health supplement company to become a B Corporation worldwide.