It’s been a long old winter
I don’t know about you, but I’ve just about had enough of the mud, and now, people just down the road in all directions are suffering with the floods, with more rain to come. My heart goes out to them. No wonder people are feeling down and as though the winter has dragged on this year, with rain since October and a limited number of bright days. You could be forgiven for thinking your low mood and energy is due to the effects of the short days and low vitamin D, and yes, this is definitely having an effect on us all.
Vitamin D is produced by the action of UVB rays on 7-dehydrocholesterol molecules in the skin. The inactive form of the vitamin is then converted, in a 2-phase process by the liver and kidneys into the active form which is used by the body in numerous ways, including regulating blood levels of calcium by allowing absorption from the intestine or leaching from the bones, production and balance of several neurotransmitters, including dopamine, ‘the pleasure hormone’, and serotonin, ‘the happy hormone’, and turning the immune response up or down, thus reducing inflammation. It is vitamin D’s role in neurotransmitter regulation which is surmised to be the reason why in the absence of the body producing enough of it, people develop symptoms of seasonal affected disorder (SAD).
In the UK, between October and March, the sun isn’t high enough in the sky for us to produce enough vitamin D. As a general rule of thumb, if your shadow is the same length or less than your height and you expose a large area of skin, unprotected with sunscreen, for 20 minutes, you will produce enough vitamin D for that day. (There are limits to this rule, related to skin colour and genetics, but this is too much to go into in this blog.) Well, this year, we haven’t really had a chance to measure our shadows because the sun has hardly been out! However, I can tell you that at this time of year, in the UK, your shadow will never be long enough for you to produce enough vitamin D, and I don’t know about you, but I haven’t exposed much of my body to the elements since September (and I’m that crazy Northerner who has the ‘shorts from March to November’ rule!) So, it goes without saying, none of us has produced enough vitamin D this year.
Now, this doesn’t mean necessarily that you are vitamin D deficient. If you eat copious amounts of cod liver oil, eggs, salmon, tuna, herrings and sardines and mushrooms, or use fortified foods, such as breakfast cereals, you may be getting enough. However, it is widely now accepted that most of us are vitamin D deficient, because we are simply not eating well enough to provide enough of this vitamin, particularly throughout the winter months.
The UK recommended daily allowance for supplementation of vitamin D is currently 10micrograms. However, American neurologists and scientist working on vitamin D research in Chicago are all taking 100micrograms per day, and so are their families! Perhaps vitamin D is causing our low mood and perhaps it’s time to supplement!
However, if you recall, at the start of this blog, I alluded to vitamin D deficiency not being the whole problem! And indeed, for many of us it probably isn’t the only issue. This is the part where I mention the microbiome, and you all go, ‘really, the microbiome? AGAIN???!!!’
Well, yes! Investment in microbiome research is expected to rise to almost $650million in the next two years, and when Bill Gates is putting $100million into microbiome research, you know there must be something in it! It IS that important and pretty much involved in everything to do with health, and in terms of mental health, it impacts on messages sent via the Vagus nerve, Seratonin production, hormone balance and gene expression.
The Vagus nerve runs from your gut to the brain – it is ‘the gut-brain connection’. Unusually for a nerve, which usually have more fibres taking signals from the brain to the body, the Vagus nerve transmits somewhere between 80 and 90% of signals from the viscera to the brain, hence the term ‘gut instinct’. If our gut is in good health, signals will be positive and calm, but if our gut health is poor, then signals become anxious, fearful and stressed.
Somewhere in the region of 90% of our serotonin, ‘the feel good hormone’, is produced in the gut. It is produced by cells in the gut wall, but can only be produced by these cells in the presence of certain gut bacteria. So when diet is poor, or we are chronically stressed, or if we have taken medication, which can all disrupt the balance of bacteria in our gut, our microbiome, then we can suffer from lower serotonin levels, again causing anxiety, low mood or depression.
Research has shown that inherited genes may be responsible for 50% of our happiness. It has also been shown that your microbiome can affect gene expression – ie whether or not a certain gene will ‘work’ or not - so it is possible that the health of your microbiome will affect whether these happiness genes function or not, and obviously if they don’t, then this could well contribute to feelings of low mood or negativity.
We also know that certain hormones levels are affected by the health of the gut flora. In fact, the microbiome has been described as an endocrine organ, because of the effect it has on circulating hormone levels. This is particularly important with relation to menopause and conditions such as polycystic ovary syndrome and endometriosis, where dysbiosis, where the microbiome is out of balance, affects the levels of circulating estrogen which in turn puts the proper functioning of the sex organs out of whack. As well as being a contributing factor in certain cancers, endometriosis and PCOS, levels of estrogen and progesterone affect mood, particularly PMS and during menopause, when women are often prescribed antidepressants to treat their symptoms.
So an unhealthy microbiome can affect mood in several different ways – by reducing serotonin production, by sending anxious or unhappy signals to the brain via the Vagus nerve, by altering hormone balance and by potentially switching off your happy genes. Surely then it is worth looking after your gut health to ensure you are doing all you can to feel positive and full of vim and vigour! A good quality probiotic is a good start, but simply taking a supplement will not necessarily work if underlying the issue is a poor diet, low in fibre and other nutrients. Here are a few things you can do:
Start counting nutrients – eat colourful foods, green leafy veg and more fibre at each meal to feed the good gut bacteria.
Reduce stress levels by cutting out caffeine which switches on your fight or flight mechanism and switches off the digestive system, so damaging the health of the gut.
Reduce sugar which feeds microbes which are detrimental to your gut health.
Take a good quality probiotic and vitamin D supplement.
High intensity exercise to improve microbiome balance and increase serotonin production.
Do more of the things you love to improve dopamine production.
Go for a mindful walk – Make it a familiar walk, but try to notice something you haven’t seen before or count how many different bird calls you can here or focus on the colours you can see. Feel the wind on your cheeks – really feel it. Really look at the view. Feel the gravel or pavement under your feet.
Catch up with a friend.