Otaka Machiko, Kikuchi-Hayakawa Hiroko, Ogura Jun, Ishikawa Hiroshi, Yomogida Yukihito, Ota Miho, Hidese Shinsuke, Ishida Ikki, Aida Masanori, Matsuda Kazunori, Kawai Mitsuhisa, Yoshida Sumiko, Kunugi Hiroshi
National Centre of Neurology and Psychiatry, Department of Mental Disorder Research, National Institute of Neuroscience, 4-1-1 Ogawa-Higashi, Kodaira-shi, Tokyo 187-8502, Japan.
Yakult Central Institute, 5-11 Izumi, Kunitachi-shi, Tokyo 186-8650, Japan.
Microorganisms. 2021 May 10;9(5):1026. doi: 10.3390/microorganisms9051026.
We previously reported lower counts of lactobacilli and Bifidobacterium in the gut microbiota of patients with major depressive disorder (MDD), compared with healthy controls. This prompted us to investigate the possible efficacy of a probiotic strain, strain Shirota (LcS; basonym, strain Shirota; daily intake of 8.0 × 10 colony-forming units), in alleviating depressive symptoms. A single-arm trial was conducted on 18 eligible patients with MDD or bipolar disorder (BD) (14 females and 4 males; 15 MDD and 3 BD), assessing changes in psychiatric symptoms, the gut microbiota, and biological markers for intestinal permeability and inflammation, over a 12-week intervention period. Depression severity, evaluated by the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, was significantly alleviated after LcS treatment. The intervention-associated reduction of depressive symptoms was associated with the gut microbiota, and more pronounced when Bifidobacterium and the Atopobium clusters of the Actinobacteria phylum were maintained at higher counts. No significant changes were observed in the intestinal permeability or inflammation markers. Although it was difficult to estimate the extent of the effect of LcS treatment alone, the results indicated that it was beneficial to alleviate depressive symptoms, partly through its association with abundance of Actinobacteria in the gut microbiota.
我们之前报道过，与健康对照相比，重度抑郁症（MDD）患者肠道微生物群中的乳酸杆菌和双歧杆菌数量较少。这促使我们研究一种益生菌菌株——养乐多菌株（LcS；曾用名，养乐多菌株；每日摄入量为8.0×10个菌落形成单位）缓解抑郁症状的可能疗效。对18名符合条件的MDD或双相情感障碍（BD）患者（14名女性和4名男性；15名MDD患者和3名BD患者）进行了一项单臂试验，评估在12周的干预期内精神症状、肠道微生物群以及肠道通透性和炎症的生物标志物的变化。通过汉密尔顿抑郁量表评估的抑郁严重程度在LcS治疗后显著减轻。与干预相关的抑郁症状减轻与肠道微生物群有关，当双歧杆菌和放线菌门的阿托波菌属菌群数量保持较高时，这种减轻更为明显。肠道通透性或炎症标志物未观察到显著变化。尽管很难估计单独使用LcS治疗的效果程度，但结果表明，它有利于缓解抑郁症状，部分原因是它与肠道微生物群中放线菌的丰度有关。
