Bacteria (and their metabolites) and depression
189 comments
·January 29, 2025alecst
I can’t go into too much detail here, but I interrupted a severe depression by fasting for two straight weeks. It’s hard to say why it worked — my friends assume that the microbiome is implicated because of the dietary change. Plausible, but hardly a proof. This gives me at least one direction to look in.
digbybk
As an alternate theory, I’ve always thought that deliberate, controlled suffering gives you a mood boost. Or rather, the relief after the suffering has ended. The theory is that it’s not good for us emotionally to be comfortable continuously. Maybe fasting is an example of that?
chefandy
That’s personality-specific. My Dad is like that and doesn’t understand why nobody else in the family gets off on self-imposed austerity. (He’s a great guy by the way — we all have our quirks.) He loves to say it’s a lack of discipline, but it’s not— I quit smoking after a decade-and-a-half of heavy smoking, lost 20% of my body weight on an 800 calorie per day ketogenic diet, worked many very difficult jobs, and did a number of other things that have required sustained discipline, as have others in the family. He doesn’t understand that the difference is that he enjoys self-imposed misery and the feelings of superiority he gets from it, which not only leads to a lack of balance in his life, sometimes strains his closest relationships.
jancsika
> My Dad is like that and doesn’t understand why nobody else in the family gets off on self-imposed austerity.
My gut feeling: men of a certain generation seem to have confused the skill of seeming aloof-- like when meeting a stranger or thrust in a new situation-- for being emotionally unaffected in general. One sign I associate with this would be talking only in the past tense about having felt certain emotions, but you never really witness the person feeling or expressing those emotions (outside of anger/frustration). Alternatively, the person may never really engage in discussions about certain negative feelings, unless it's to offer low-effort problem-solving advice to others.
This is difficult because there are obviously times when a small, seemingly insignificant problem can trigger an outsized emotion. It's natural and helpful to be able to sit with that negative emotion-- to feel it, express it and talk about it as an emotion you are experiencing-- to be able to eventually come to terms and get to know better whatever it is that's driving it. It's scary to do, but most people have some techniques for doing it.
If you have few or no tools to do that, it must generate an immense amount of stress. Hence wacky alternative stress-relieving techniques that are more physical and less emotional in nature. (Plus the projection of "lack of discipline" makes me wonder if he'd feel shame from sitting with a negative emotion.)
digbybk
“Enjoys misery” is an oxymoron I think. He enjoys joy, which he gets from doing difficult things. I’m just taking your dad’s side on this because I suspect I share some of his tendencies :)
ninalanyon
Austerity is not the same a misery. In some ways I live an austere life but I am happy. Misery comes from poverty not self imposed austerity; the first is often imposed by the outside world whereas your father's and my austerity are, as you say, self imposed and under our own control.
null
jajko
Does he not understand the situation even when you lay it so bare in front of him? People tend to get off the course sometimes on their own, but smart mature ones prefer honest correcting feedbacks (to certain extent), if it means ie better more stable relationships with closest ones
p_ing
> I’ve always thought that deliberate, controlled suffering gives you a mood boost.
That's not an alternate "theory".
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/theres-scientific-...
> People who self-harm, writes Arnold, have “learned that, while the pain peaks with self-injury, it then comes down the other side. The physical pain lessens – as does the emotional pain.”
People don't self-harm because it hurts. They self-harm because it _feels good_. Pain is "pleasure", for lack of a better phrase.
jcims
I was a hobby beekeeper for a few years and grew to enjoy getting stung. It still hurts like hell at first but the ride down is lovely.
Spicy foods might be another example.
codr7
There's also the not so constructive tendency to punish the body for what the brain comes up with and the feelings that come with it. It's really the only part of yourself you can harm.
vdjskshi
Most of them self harm because the removal the pain feels good - and it takes with it some emotional pain.
Though there probably are some masochists that truly enjoy the pain, but that's a different condition than the more common I-hate-myself-so-I-hurt-myself.
autumnstwilight
Anecdotally, I've observed I feel better with a certain amount of difficulty in my life and felt particularly bad when there was nothing -wrong- but I still felt depressed. If you don't have any problems you can attribute the bad feelings to, then you naturally start to consider the possibility that the problem is you and you're broken in a way that means you're going to feel bad regardless of how much your life circumstances improve. Which is a particularly despair-inducing thought to have.
Last year I cracked my hip joint and ended up in the hospital for a couple of weeks, doing physio to regain my ability to walk. I certainly don't want to repeat that experience but I was surprised that I felt less depressed during it, because there was clarity in what I immediately needed to do and I was focused on just getting through it, not existential angst.
hinkley
When I learned about the hedonic treadmill I thought back to a number of athletic programmers I’ve known who always seemed to be a lot more put together than the rest of us. I always figured the relationship went the other way. That having your shit together meant more time for activities. It may be the other way around.
codr7
Physical activity is a life saver for me, it allows me to release energy that would otherwise cause trouble down the line.
sporkland
This interview about dopamine and homeostasis in the body would support the idea that resetting that system through suffering would likely be a valid approach:
k__
I read somewhere, if you fast, the body thinks you can't find food, so it gives you more dopamine to motivate you to find more.
tcbawo
Interesting hypothesis. Mental acuity does seem higher while fasting. Is that a dopamine specific effect, or could there be a handful of hormones impacting mental state?
corry
I believe this is a well-understood feature of the dopamine system? The sensitivity of the receptors is like a balance scale, and will correct to one side if the other is flooded.
Give yourself big dopamine rushes and the scale balances by reducing your sensitivity to dopamine and (crudely put) causes feelings of discontentment, and you’ll need more dopamine released to feel like normal. Alternatively, push down on the pain side of the scale by doing some controlled suffering — fasting, cold plunge, intense exercise — and the receptors become more sensitive, and you feel better.
I’m sure this is too simplistic of a model but it makes sense to me in terms of lived experience.
alecst
I'm no stranger to discomfort. I enjoy it. Like, my bed is a piece of plywood with a blanket on it.
The increase in energy and clarity of my thinking, the tingly feeling in my body, and the improved sleep quality -- just to give you a few examples -- are hard to attribute to the mechanism you're talking about. To add to that, I regularly fast for five days at a time and I have not yet experienced the same kind of mental difference. This time I pushed it to two weeks because my energy levels continued to fluctuate upward until the 12th or 13th day.
You do feel a lot of relief that the boredom of fasting is over. But that effect lasts maybe a day or two or three. Certainly not months.
nkozyra
> Like, my bed is a piece of plywood with a blanket on it.
Other than the potential for mold accumulation (you definitely want some air to circulate), this is not actually a bad bed base for sleep quality. Depending on your size, it's likely better for you than some very expensive plush mattresses.
Plywood has give to it that a hardwood wouldn't, so what you're sleeping on isn't entirely rigid anyway.
But drill some holes in it :)
I fast somewhat frequently, and I don't really associate it with pain or discomfort, but I'm also doing it for 24-48 hours.
Extremely long fasts (like your two weeks) should come with a disclaimer, they're not for everyone.
thisislife2
> It’s hard to say why it worked
Behaviour therapy would say that it worked because you took some action to improve your life and counter the depression. (Even cognitive therapy says that small, meaningful actions can have a dramatic impact on one's depression). The motivation and action of fasting, and the positive and noticeable / observable physical effects of fasting changed your focus from your depression, which alleviated your depressive symptoms. Once depression alleviates, you start thinking more clearly (make less cognitive distortions in your thinking) which further leads to a 'normal' mental state of well-being (in an otherwise mentally healthy individual).
lr4444lr
If your depression remained abated after resuming a healthy diet, I'd say the microbiome hypothesis is intriguing. Otherwise I'd there are way too many complicating factors at work during a fast to dwell on that.
Also, you could toy around with different fermented foods while making no other changes.
francisofascii
Yes. A long fast can reduce overgrowth of harmful bacteria that survives on a continuous supply of food. This paper mentions Morganella morganii, which is an example of harmful bacteria that thrives in a environment full of undigested proteins and carbohydrates.
genter
I completely cured my severe anxiety and minor depression by eliminating wheat and sugar from my diet. I come from a family where everyone has digestive issues and some type of illness that is tentatively linked to the microbiome.
thisislife2
For how long, is the question though? Depression and anxiety are like the "common cold" of mental health suffering, and everyone endures it a few times in their life.
bjoli
The lifetime risk of clinical depression is someething like 30% for men and 40% for women in the west.
Recurrence is about 50% for people with one major depressive disorder occurence, and 80% for people with 2.
That makes it more akin to something like cancer in western countries with regards to lifetime prevalence (but not recurrence)
genter
Well, it's been about 10 years. And I'm still a completely different person with absolutely no signs of it.
settsu
Yeah, no. Please further educate yourself before saying this out loud again.
trevor-e
This has me very curious! How did you decide on eliminating wheat and sugar? Or did you cycle through various eliminations until you found a combination that worked? And how did you know when to keep going/stop?
genter
I was doing a big job for some hippies, and they fed me lunch every day. And even though I thought it was bullshit, I was polite and ate their gluten free, sugar free, organic, free range, etc, etc food. My entire life I hated eating, but I quickly realized that I really enjoyed eating with them, and I felt really good afterwards.
And since then I've done a lot of experimenting and reading other peoples thoughts, and reached the conclusion that simple carbohydrates are fucking terrible for you, for multiple reasons. The biggest is that it causes an insulin spike. If you're then physically active, you'll burn off the sugar you just ate, but your insulin levels stay high, so you'll never start burning your body fat. You just get hungry and eat more sugar.
angst_ridden
There is also a known phenomenon of "starvation euphoria." I don't know at what point of caloric deficit that kicks in, but it probably varies dramatically.
magicAngelo
I think there are other plausible answers, and I'm generally skeptical of people who believe there are diet cure-alls, especially for depression. I'm not a psychiatrist, but I do have a bipolar 2 diagnosis. I only found out it wasnt a unipolar depression because I had a hypomanic episode. I can only describe a hypomanic episode as a wave of constant energy, and I've also heard it described as: 'being on meth for a week straight'. It gave me the energy to forego food for multiple days because I didn't feel the pain of hunger pangs. I also didn't sleep for a few days, not because I wanted to, but because I just had too much energy.
I'm not a doctor, but hopefully this is an example of other places to look that aren't diet related.
davedx
Diethanolamine:
General description. Diethanolamine (DEA) is an amino alcohol commonly used in the preparation of soaps and surfactants, agricultural chemicals and in textile processing. It is used as an absorbent for capturing CO2. Its toxic and carcinogenic effect has been studied.
Diethanolamine is widely used in the preparation of diethanolamides and diethanolamine salts of long-chain fatty acids that are formulated into soaps and surfactants used in liquid laundry and dishwashing detergents, cosmetics, shampoos and hair conditioners.
0xEF
I think it's important to clarify that DEA is used in _industrialized_ processes for soap and detergents. As a person who makes their own at home, I can tell you that no home recipe I've ever seen has introduced DEA into the process unless I'm missing something. I can't speak for shampoo, since I've never tried to make it (I purchase shampoo bars from another home soap-maker).
Please feel free to correct me, since I'd love to be sure.
I worry about this a lot. I also make my own bread for the same reasons; I find that industrialization of consumables is introducing a ton of contaminants into our bodies, the effects of which we are not fully cognizant of. Where possible, I avoid participating in that game because of how I view the trade-off; it does not make sense to me to save time by buying the products instead of making them at the risk of shortening my lifespan.
Again, I'm open to different thinking on this. In recent years, I have just felt a powerful draw to get back to basics and understand what I am consuming in a responsible way.
tomw1808
Do you know if the regulations regarding contaminants in both soaps, as well as consumables, is more stringent in the EU (beyond the "Fanta-to-Fanta" comparison)? In other words, would you feel more comfortable eat something basic like bread and other consumables from supermarkets in the European Union vs the US, or not? Can you eventually share a few thoughts on this?
0xEF
I am not well versed in EU regulations regarding foods, aside from a recent experience in Iceland which boils down to the Fanta example. That and the fast food chains that we view as ubiquitous in the US were either sparse or did not exist in Iceland. We did not go in the one we saw, so I do not know if the menu was different or not, like one might experience in Japan.
Any thoughts I could share are my own concerns and opinions based on my experience and observations of the food and health industries in the US. It might be best if someone more expert on comparing the regulations between the two regions chimed in.
I mentioned the bread example because that's what started it for me during the Covid Pandemic isolation. I got bored and decided to learn to make bread, but did not have much to work with, so I found really simple recipes. Bread, as it turns out, only needs water, flour, salt and yeast to come out tasting absolutely delicious to the point where a loaf does not last long enough in my house to go stale. When I compared that to industrialized bread (both off the shelf and from the ersatz "bakeries" found in some of our large grocery chains), I was curious then horrified to see the amount of ingredients in those products that offered no discernible nutritional value and existed only to make the product more shelf-stable or more addictively appetizing. I say this as a person who grew up eating Wonder Bread, which I absolutely no longer consider to be "bread," but more of a sponge-cake.
From there, my wife and I started really looking at the products we were consuming and realized that we did not really know what was in 90% of them. We were just trusting the manufacturers and regulations to keep us safe, because that's what we're supposed to do as good consumers, right? It was alarming, to say the least, and even more alarming is the fact that this is not a new fight in the US, dating all the way back the late 19th/early 20th century. When the driving force behind regulation is profit margins, the rules for evaluating risk to the population start to move around in uncomfortable ways, but because of marketing and branding, we're taught at pretty early ages to trust these companies, sometimes even wearing their symbols as a badge of identity.
I'm never going to be one to say "Food company X is trying to kill us!" because that does not make good business sense. I've said it before on HN, but I'm not convinced that a lot of this regulatory slack and the declining qualities of our food is meant to intentionally harm us, but more born from the short-sighted thinking that allows executives to say something like "well, nobody has died from chemical X in product 1, yet, and chemical X can displace some of the more expensive chemical Z, so, maybe we can increase the amount a bit to bolster our profit margins?" Then they do it, quietly, and nobody dies, so they do it again...and a again. Longitudinal studies are cast aside in favor of only focusing on immediate results.
And so, we have things like canned pulverized Parmesan cheese that contains sawdust as a filler, which might arguably be harmless, but being robbed of product for the same price as the old version should also spark our inner consumer to go "hey, wait a minute..." even if we ignore the possible long term heath effects on the population as a whole. Our term for this now is shrink-flation, but it's definitely a very old tactic. This became another driving force behind my wife and my decision to try and set aside time each week to make certain products. We know what we are getting for our money, we know what to expect, and we know what is going into each one. Do we still buy other soaps or get the occasional shelf-stable pie? Yes, of course. But is our consumption of these items has plummeted to a last resort of convenience or just a rare treat.
Sorry, this turned into a blog post and I'm still skipping a lot of the nuances in my thoughts on this matter so pardon any disjointed structure in my narrative.
In the end, the lesson I learned can be summed up as _pay attention_. Read the labels, do the homework, and decide as best you can with the information you have at the time. We vote with our dollars, so spend them wisely.
atombender
This does not look correct. For example [1]:
DEA (diethanolamine) and DEA compounds are used to
make cosmetics creamy or sudsy. DEA also acts as a
pH adjuster, counteracting the acidity of other
ingredients. DEA is mainly found in moisturizers
and sunscreens, while cocamide and lauramide DEA
are found in soaps, cleansers, and shampoos.
0xEF
Apologies, I'm not clear on what you're pointing out in my comment as incorrect. I specified that DEAs are used in products that come from industrialized processes, that you won't find them in home-made products of the same nature.
I'm using "industrialized" to mean "mass-produced" here, as in stuff that comes from a factory rather than a small work station in a DIYer home. I wonder if this may be causing confusion?
The article you linked is likely speaking of mass-produced products, but does not go so far as to specify that (they should). I separate the two since they really are quite different. If you put one of my bars of soap up against Dove, for example, you'll notice that mine do not lather nearly as much a Dove, nor do they have that "buttery" texture of commercial soaps. DIY soaps typically only need lye, distilled water, and olive oil then whatever you want to add for scent. DEA does not enter the equation in a home-made version.
FollowingTheDao
Yes, you are incorrect. DEA is in many products, and here is a website that show which products do not contain them. Diethanolamine used in some dishwashing soaps as a foaming agent and emulsifier.
https://www.skinsafeproducts.com/search/products?brand_ids=&...
hinkley
I’ve taken to rinsing my glasses and bowls before using them for liquids. I figure the transfer from a plate to a sandwich can’t be bad enough for me to go full OCD on this (and wet sandwiches are weird), but if it’s coffee or soup I’m definitely getting a dose of any residues the dishwasher leaves. The higher efficiency ones have been clocked leaving more detergent residue behind.
flocciput
from https://www.fda.gov/cosmetics/cosmetic-ingredients/diethanol...:
The following are some of the most commonly used ingredients that may contain DEA:
Cocamide DEA
Cocamide MEA
DEA-Cetyl Phosphate
DEA Oleth-3 Phosphate
Lauramide DEA
Linoleamide MEA
Myristamide DEA
Oleamide DEA
Stearamide MEA
TEA-Lauryl Sulfate
TriethanolamineFaxanadu
I can't believe Lauryl Sulfate is in nearly every toothpaste. I don't know if I'm some rare case freak, but that stuff butchers my mouth.
It takes less than three days of accidentally using toothpaste with that stuff to cause me two weeks of miserable mouth hell from all the ulcers that form.
pixl97
I'm not sure how rare it is, but as an anecdote when I was a teen I knew a kid who had a speech impediment and slurred their words really bad/was kind of mush mouthed.
We were on a group trip for about a week and had forgot their toothpaste and had borrowed someone's 'natural toothpaste' stuff. By the end of the week they were far more intelligible in speaking and were stating it felt like they mouth deflated. They had an undiagnosed allergy to toothpaste their entire life and no one had recognized it.
null
consp
> I don't know if I'm some rare case freak, but that stuff butchers my mouth.
Yes, and also get a generalized allergenic test since you are obviously alergic to something and it might be a lot bigger group than you think.
hinkley
I don’t know where my parents picked up this trick, because everyone looks at me like I’m crazy when I mention it:
Relatively dry mouth. Milk of magnesia. Q-tips. Paint the sore spots with MoM. It thickens and forms a film, which cuts down on the tenderness.
I would try one spot if I were you. As bad as you described it, if that helps more than it hurts you might try gargling the stuff.
tomw1808
I came here wondering if I am the only one not knowing what Diethalothingythings are. Thanks.
benterix
I've checked a few shampoos i have at home and fortunately none of them had it (they had SLES which has its own problems but seems benign in comparison).
londons_explore
I don't think you'd see it on the ingredients list. It would be used in the factory for some of the raw ingredients, and wouldn't be on the ingredients list because the intention is that none ends up in the final product.
Just like you don't see "grass" on the ingredients list of yogurt...
hammock
It is on the ingredient list when present. I’ve seen it on many body soaps and shampoos. It could be listed as DEA, or as one of the many other items listed in an earlier comment in this chain
benterix
Ouch that seems very bad.
talkingtab
This is a "you don't know what you don't know" thing. This article lays out a path way for a link between a chemical that is common in our lives and depression. That pathway is a common gut bacteria. The article ends with this:
"So taken together, there would seem to be good reason to continue to unravel the long-hypothesized inflammation/depression connection, and particularly in regards to possible exacerbating factors such as higher levels of M. morganii infection or even higher environmental exposure to diethanolamine. We seem to have a lot to learn here!"
diethanolamine is commonly used in liquid laundry and dish washing detergents, cosmetics, shampoos and hair conditioners. So you really don't know if your hair conditioner, shampoo or dish washing detergent is causing you inflammation & depression. Hmmm.
We, as in the institutions that supposedly protect consumers, work on the assumption that anything can be used and added until it is proven not safe. For example, thalidomide. We did not know it would cause deformed babies, so it was assumed to be safe.
Okay, so will some corporation knowingly use something that is hazardous, just to make more money. Well we have the Sackler Family and Purdue Pharma. Or you can go watch "Erin Brokovitch". And you might want to watch Matix again just for fun.
scoofy
I mean this is why Nassim Taleb got extremely controversial with his via negativa approach during his Antifragile and Skin in the Game period (I am a huge fan of his writing).
>Drink no liquid that isn’t at least a thousand years old (wine, water, coffee). Eat nothing invented or re-engineered by humans.
The argument is straightforward, that human beings are a wildly complex multi-variate system and that throwing wrenches into a complex multi-variate system is generally a horrible idea (this heuristic is inverted and encouraged when the that system is breaking down).
Is there a bit of a naturalistic fallacy here? I think sort of, but not significant one. The idea that we could screw up our bodies is obviously there. The flip side of this coin is that I see something as trivial as depression and/or most other non-fatal ailments as completely independent of the evolutionary process, such that experimenting on ourselves to improve our life (again, quality of life over time should not be directly related to probability of genetic reproduction success, as is made obvious from the gay uncle hypothesis).
The implications of this extend to where you live, so a bunch of genetically German hippies living in California, pretending to be one with nature, really are being dishonest about the health benefits they pretend to have, when the argument pretty much insists that the region of evolutionary development occurs will be crucial to the benefits of that evolution. Taleb himself lives in NYC, not his genetic homeland of Lebanon.
We really just need to be more honest about how little we know about health... especially health outside of the highly reproductive window (13-45).
ajb
I agree with your major points, but depression is far from trivial. People sometimes refer to feeling a bit down as depression, but in medical terminology depression is specifically a disorder which has severe impact on your life, as well as being one of the main causes of suicide. As such it will be a factor in evolution, both as a cause of death and a cause of failure to reproduce.
Arrekin
Keto is the only thing that fixes my depression-like state. I discovered it doing short-term fasts and then learned about Keto. I tested it multiple times. Once I get off Keto I feel much worse within 2 weeks and after around 1 month I am at the total bottom again. Then go back to Keto, 2-3 days of suffering Keto Flu and I'm happy to live again.
dombesz
You probably have gut dysbiosis causing inflamation of your gut and inflamation leads to depression like symptoms. This doesn’t mean you have to eat keto all the time, but rather that you should take probiotics to restore your gut flora. This way, you can continue eating a balanced diet without allowing that specific bacteria to become overpopulated. The best for me was using Lactobacyllus subtilis HU-58 alongside low-fodmap diet. The low fodmap diet is a shorter period of 1 month, then it needs to continue with the RENEW diet for 3-6months to 1 year. This whole period needs to be supplimented with hu58.
machiaweliczny
I had some gut bacteria issues and I think I was helped recently by using oregano oil and/or allicine (extract from garlic). Used both for a week, before had 2x antibiotics for suspected SIBO. I also used VivoMaxx 450 probiotics and sodium butyrate for 3 days so maybe it was it. All of these combined are cheaper than single curation with antibiotics so worth giving a shot in case of issues.
Arrekin
Thank you I'll check that out. Tho, for me, it most likely began as a post-flu complication, so I don't have much hopes.
baxtr
Thanks. Very interesting.
Do you know why HU 58 is so special?
hellectronic
Checkout the book Brain Energy by Christopher Palmer
daoboy
So is there a straightforward solution to keeping this out of our system and we just...don't?
"Where is this diethanolamine coming from? Well, it's not known to be a natural part of either human or bacterial biochemistry. Instead, it is an industrial contaminant, sadly, whose ability to be incorporated (at low levels) into animal and human lipids through the apparently-not-so-picky enzyme cardiolipin synthase has been confirmed for decades now."
bregma
Well, most shampoos have a warning label about external use only so there is at least some effort to keep it out of a person's system.
krageon
It's absorbed through the skin, so that doesn't actually solve the issue of having it in your body.
sethammons
the people down voting the idea of skin absorption as a meaningful vector for getting things into your body remind me of the people a hundred years ago who thought animals cannot feel anything.
I'm wondering if the plastics in modern clothing are similarly exposing our systems to microplastics -- maybe not as bad as cooking in plastic, but a constant light abrasion all day, every day, for your whole life.
Our biologies didn't evolve with these synthetics. Not a big stretch to think our biologies won't handle them well.
bell-cot
The dose makes the poison. And the phrase "absorbed through the skin" admits a very wide range of absorption rates.
null
FollowingTheDao
Welcome to my hell of understanding. All these molecules were "deemed as safe" not because me knew everything about them but because we did not care.
This surfactant, diethanolamine, may also prevent the healthy function of lipids in the mitochondrial membrane, namely Omega 3. When you mess with the mitochondrial membrane you start to have issues with oxidative stress and a whole range of metabolic disorders.
For example: Cardiolipin synthase deficiency is a condition that results in abnormal mitochondrial function and morphology. It can be caused by mutations in the cardiolipin synthase (CLS) gene. Symptoms impaired viability, decreased mitochondrial membrane potential, and defective oxidative phosphorylation.
What you can do: Drink reverse osmosis or deionized water and eat as whole and fresh food as you can. Wash your dishes by hand and rinse them very very well using the most natural detergent you have.
Here is a way to find some DEA free products:
https://www.skinsafeproducts.com/search/products?products_by...
dgacmu
To nitpick slightly, DEA is not a lipid, it's an organic amine. It can be inadvertently incorporated into a lipid instead of a glycerol, creating a ... weird lipid.
hinkley
Isn’t there also something about cancer cells being more likely due to metabolic defects in the cells?
duncancarroll
Related to this, it's been shown that Long Covid sufferers have low levels of circulating serotonin due to viral inflammation downregulating the gut intake of tryptophan (serotonin's precursor) and is also (I believe) correlated with IL-6 similar to the article. [1]
Tryptophan is the only way your body can produce serotonin, and if you're not getting serotonin that is a problem and can cause depression, fatigue, irritability, brain fog, brain zaps, etc.
The cool thing is there's a workaround: The same paper also found that if you supplement with Hydrolyzed protein (basically pre-digested protein, you can get it off Amazon) the tryptophan variant therein uses a different cellular uptake pathway which is not downregulated. This type of tryptophan is not generally found in food, so it's not like you could just eat a bunch of turkey instead.
I tried it and I'll be damned, it worked. This is not medical advice btw, just sharing what worked for me. You have to take it very very slowly because your brain, having been serotonin-starved for years, will have a very, VERY low tolerance, so even though your body rate-limits serotonin production, even the "normal" amount is a big disruption and you can still induce Serotonin Syndrome if you're not careful. I take no more than about a 1/4 serving every other day.
Also, goes without saying but DO NOT combine with SSRIs / MAOIs, or anything else that modulates serotonin.
[1] https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(23)01034-6
cpncrunch
It's never a good idea to make definitive statements like this from a single unreplicated study, especially when it has serious methodological problems.
duncancarroll
I realize you're probably just trying to help, but:
A) I tested this on myself with results which are consistent with theirs and which would be unexpected if their conclusions were off-base, which is why I'm comfortable making these statements.
B) There is no treatment for Long Covid and people have been suffering for years without any recourse. If my comment helps one person searching the Internet then I don't think it's a bad idea.
(Edited to be less snarky)
maxfurman
So if, for the sake of argument, the findings here are correct and causal and should be acted upon, what exactly is one supposed to do about it? We've got the technology to detect gut bacteria but we don't seem to have good targeted ways to affect it.
calibas
> We've got the technology to detect gut bacteria but we don't seem to have good targeted ways to affect it.
Healthy diet, fasting, probiotics, reducing stress, among other methods.
troyvit
An interesting way to affect gut bacteria is to get a fecal transplant. It doesn't look fun, and I don't know how well it works, but I bet that's the direction to go.
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/treatment-tests-and-t...
Vampiero
No wonder dogs like to eat shit off the ground
revx
Cut things that contain diethanolamine from your home/diet/life?
Jun8
This is probably a wild (~stupid) idea but can we develop drugs to elite particular bacteria, e.g. just kill Morganella morganii, akin to Ehrlich's magic bullet? Current approaches, I think, use antibiotics that kill a wide range of bacteria, the good with the bad.
How would such a thing work? Could there be enzymes specific to one species (or, at least, a family)?
jagraff
I don't know about enzymes, but bacteriophages (viruses that target bacteria) are species specific, and have been used successfully as antibacterial treatments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_therapy
zabzonk
Well, as a pathogen (god knows what is going on in our guts, or our skin, come to that) it is rare, as article says. I worked in an NHS microbiology lab in the 70s and never came across one - probably wouldn't have known how to do so. One of our consultants might (he was obsessed with anaerobes) might have, but there are so many that might (or not) be associated with wounds that they are very hard to identify.
FollowingTheDao
They are talking about in in the gut, not on wounds. Morganella morganii has a commensal(maybe) relationship within the intestinal tracts of humans.
It may be more pathogenic than we thought if it causes increases in IL6.
zabzonk
almost all bacteria and viruses (and most other things) have a commensal relationship with us, otherwise we would would have all be gone into grey goo. i wouldn't wory about our gut fauna.
atombender
They're commensal until they're not. About half the world's population have H. pylori living in their stomach, and most people are fine, but in many people it causes gastric ulcers.
1970-01-01
Are there studies linking common antibiotics to depression?
TechDebtDevin
Find a vegan / natural soap store in your city. Off the Botel in Denver is great,
https://offthebottlerefills.com/
Ive switched entirely to Bathing Culture myself, an all natural soap brand.
hinkley
Alternatively, biodegradable soaps deemed safe for camping may be another good choice.
See also Dr Bronner’s, Method, Pré de Provence bar soap.
https://archive.is/QA7qZ