Prebiotic supplements once a day offers positive impact on anxiety

Patients who received a daily dose of prebiotics improved mental wellbeing by reducing anxiety levels and had better gut health than the control group, according to a recent study published in the journal Scientific Reports.

For the study, researchers from Surrey investigated whether the daily consumption of a prebiotic food supplement could improve overall wellbeing in a group of 18- to 25-year-olds. Researchers studied a group of 64 healthy female participants with no current or previous clinical diagnoses of anxiety. Participants received either a daily dose of the prebiotic galacto-oligosaccharides (GOS) or a placebo for 28 days.

According to the study, those involved in the trial completed surveys about their health experiences, including mood, anxiety, and sleep quality and provided a stool sample for gut microbiome sequencing analysis.

"This new research marks a significant step forward,” said Kathrin Cohen Kadosh, PhD, lead author of the study, reader in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Surrey, and Head of the Social Brain and Development Lab, in a statement,” in that we were able to show that we can use a simple and safe food supplement such as prebiotics to improve both the abundance of beneficial gut bacteria in the gut and to improve mental health and wellbeing in young women.”