MIAMI, FL – MARCH 23: A bottle of antidepressant called Effexor is shown on March 23, 2004 … [+]
Your gut plays a huge role in shaping and even determining your mental well-being. After all, your intestines (and not your brain) produce 90% of the serotonin in your entire body. A recent study found that creating antidepressants that interact exclusively with intestinal cells could be much more effective in treating depression and anxiety and could also result in fewer digestive problems and cognitive side effects.
“Antidepressants such as Prozac and Zoloft that increase serotonin levels are important first-line treatments and help many patients, but can sometimes cause side effects that patients cannot tolerate. Our study suggests that limiting the drugs’ interaction with intestinal cells alone could prevent these problems,” said Mark Ansorge, associate professor of clinical neurobiology at Columbia University’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City, in a press release.
The study’s findings further highlight that taking antidepressants during pregnancy makes newborn babies much more vulnerable to a year of depression. In this mouse study, Ansorge and colleagues noted that developing antidepressants that can increase serotonin levels just in the cells lining the small and large intestines could help prevent gastrointestinal complications in babies and also dramatically improve the mood of depressed patients.
In a press release, study co-lead author Kara Margolis, director of the NYU Pain Research Center and associate professor of molecular pathobiology at the NYU College of Dentistry, said: “Our findings suggest there may be a benefit to targeting antidepressants. selectively on the intestinal epithelium, because systemic treatment may not be necessary to obtain the benefits of the drugs but may contribute to digestive problems in children exposed during pregnancy. Systemic treatment may not be necessary to obtain the benefits of the drugs.”
Antidepressants, known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, have been the first line of treatment for mood disorders and anxiety for the past thirty years. These drugs mainly target the brain to increase serotonin signaling, but ultimately also affect the serotonin signaling mechanisms of the intestines.
The research team used mice and edited their guts to increase serotonin signaling. They’ve adapted the guts to mimic the effects of an SSRI confined to the gut. They found that mice with increased serotonin signaling in the gut showed less depressive behavior than normal mice.
“Based on what we know about the interactions between the brain and the gut, we expected to see some effect. But it was surprising even to us to see that the enhanced serotonin signaling in the intestinal epithelium produced such robust antidepressant and anxiety-relieving effects without noticeable side effects,” Ansorge explains.
“These results suggest that SSRIs produce therapeutic effects by acting directly in the intestines.” ,” added Ansorge.