Recent research confirms that gut health and brain health are tightly linked. The vagus nerve, which runs from the brain stem to the colon, and traverses the larynx, esophagus, lungs, trachea, heart and most of the digestive tract, links the brain and gut feedback loop. The medical community is learning more and more about how the brain communicates with the gut, and vice versa.
The matrix of the microbiome, the gut and the brain – the gut brain axis – is a new paradigm for understanding health. When the matrix is functioning well, the body and mind function well. When the matrix is out of balance, physical health issues such as arthritis, diabetes, gut issues such as IBS and IBD, food sensitivities, liver problems, inflammation, musculoskeletal disorders and autoimmune diseases can arise. Mental health suffers, and neurodegenerative disorders can develop.
The Role of the vagus nerve (10th cranial nerve) is the longest of the cranial nerves. In Latin, the word “vagus” means wandering, an appropriate way to describe the path of this nerve. The brain and gut feedback and feed-forward loops are linked by the vagus nerve.
The following video gives some suggestions to reset the vagus nerve.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XSVcWekIXY&t=4s
When the gut bacteria are damaged or out of balance, the health consequences can be severe. What causes the damage? The chief culprit is the Standard American Diet (SAD), which loads the gut with highly processed foods that are high in chemical additives, sugar, and bad fats and low in fiber. What all this comes down to is: “Gut on fire, brain on fire.” The loop is initiated by intestinal inflammation. That leads to the production of inflammatory cytokines that cross the blood-brain barrier and activate brain microglia (the brain’s immune system), causing inflammatory degeneration.
The following link tells us about the brain in our gut.
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/the-brain-gut-connection
Signals from the gut microbiome and from the gut itself tell the brain what’s going on down there; signals from the brain tell the gut what changes to make in response. The gut tells the brain about the production, expression and turnover of neurotransmitters such as serotonin and GABA, and growth factors such as BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor).