Soil and anxiety
You, who follows InteraSolo, knows that soil has been a great ally of medicine. In the last weeks, researchers of the University of Colorado announced a fantastic discovery: a bacteria present in the soil that can help fight anxiety.
Anxiety is a disorder that affects around 33% of the world population, and was considered, by World Health Organization (WHO), the evil of the century. Therefore, researchers leaded by Dr. Christopher Lowry, of the Department of Integrative Physiology of the University of Colorado, are trying to develop a vaccine capable of inhibit one of the main causes of anxiety. And all this thanks to one bacterial species found in soil.
The Mycobacterium vaccae was discovered on the shores of Lake Kyoga in Uganda around the 90s by the immunologists John Stanford and Graham Rook, after verifying that the residents of the area had better responses to certain vaccines.
According to a research published by Brains, Behavior and Immunity journal, the test with the bacteria on guinea pigs were successful. The rats submitted to these tests presented, after the ending of the treatment, higher levels of anti-inflammatory protein, that is associated to humor, fear and anxiety control; as well as, low rates of a protein called HMGB1 that is responsible to induce stress. In short, the guinea pigs increased the production of a “soothing” protein and decreased the production of a “stressful” protein.
It is amazing, isn’t it? However, we are not facing a medicine miracle yet. Anxiety is a really complex disorder, but all help is welcome.
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