Trying to cope with stress? Taking foods rich in prebiotics - such as asparagus, oatmeal and legumes - may promote good gut bacteria and help restore normal sleep patterns after a stressful episode, scientists have found.
Probiotics are well known to benefit digestive health, but prebiotics are less well understood.
Prebiotics are certain types of non-digestible fibres that probiotic bacteria feed on, such as the fibres found in many plant sources like asparagus, oatmeal, and legumes.
Certain bacteria also feed on non-fibres such as the protein lactoferrin, which also acts like a prebiotic and is found in breast milk.
"Acute stress can disrupt the gut microbiome and we wanted to test if a diet rich in prebiotics would increase beneficial bacteria as well as protect gut microbes from stress-induced disruptions," said Agnieszka Mika, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Colorado, Boulder in the US.
"We also wanted to look at the effects of prebiotics on the recovery of normal sleep patterns, since they tend to be disrupted after stressful events," said Mika.
In this experiment, test rats received prebiotic diets for several weeks prior to a stressful test condition and compared with control rats that did not receive the prebiotic-enriched diet.
Rats that ate prebiotics prior to the stressful event did not experience stress-induced disruption in their gut microbiota and also recovered healthier sleep patterns sooner than controls.
"The stressor the rats received was the equivalent of a single intense acute stressful episode for humans, such as a car accident or the death of a loved one," said lead author Robert S Thompson, from UC Boulder.
"So far no adverse effects from prebiotics have been reported and they are found widely in many plants, even present in breast milk, and are already commercially available," said Mika.
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