It’s well understood that taking probiotics on a regular basis can significantly improve digestive health, including reducing bloating and alleviating symptoms associated with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Recent new studies suggest that probiotics can also be helpful in the treatment of anxiety and depression, giving new meaning to the phrase, “having a gut feeling.”

Medical researchers worldwide – from the Netherlands to Los Angeles – have focused their studies on those who have clinical depression and anxiety, monitoring their progress as they took probiotics daily.

A recent study done at Oxford University and published in the journal Psychopharmacology, for example, followed 45 people aged 18 to 45 who took either a prebiotic (carbohydrates that act as food for probiotics) or a placebo every day for three weeks. After the three weeks, they were asked to complete computerized tests to measure how they processed positive and negative words. Those who had taken the prebiotic were more responsive to the positive words. The negative words had little impact on them.