Our Findings

Here you can read more about what we summarized from the interviews with professionals in the microbiome field and the trends and patterns we observed from the survey. Click the buttons below to reach the data of your interest.

Interviews

Survey Data

Interviewees

After performing literature research, we reached out for experts to perform an interview and thereby deepening our current knowledge.

Specialist in Psychiatry and Psychotherapeutic Medicine

Priv. Doz. DDr. Sabrina Mörkl

She is an adult psychiatrist, consultant psychiatrist, and works for the Medical University of Graz as a researcher as well as a professor. In the last 10 years, she has focused her work on studying the gut-brain axis in major psychiatric disorders, such as depression and anorexia nervosa; and also, the nutritional aspects influencing the gut microbiome.

Click here to view the full transcript.

PhD, Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Dr. Andrew Shoubridge

Andrew Shoubridge is an early career postdoctoral researcher in the fields of microbiology and neurobiology. Andrew received their PhD in the field of neuroscientific medical research in 2021 on the topic of neuronal morphology, function, and regulation in paediatric dementia.

Click here to view the full transcript.

Dr. Sabrina Mörkl

“Microbial flora is acting as this epigenetic switch, so it has the power to switch on and off genes and can act as a biological stressor. It can shield us from getting psychological disorders. This is one direction the field is heading in the future.”

Survey Data Analysis

We performed a survey to reach out for potential data and examine if we can find matches to the current scientific literature status. Here is what we found out after analytics evaluation of our survey results:

Each question’s answers has been analyzed based on a point system to be able to build a comparable profile for each survey participant. The point system was assigned based on the value of each answer. For example, the answers to the smoking habits question, the more severe the habit, the more negative points that person receives due to the negative impact of smoking on the microbiome. The lifestyle and diet points will be combined to be a representation of that person’s microbiome (because we cannot perform literal testing in our case) based on literature. This point value will be compared with their ‘mental health’ point value to see if there are any patterns according to gender, geographical location, or age.

Microbiome vs Gender

According to the survey, each answer corresponded with a certain number of points, and these points were added to get the participants ‘microbiome score’. The larger the number, the healthier their microbiome is. From the participants of our survey, women showed a healthier microbiome rather than men.

Mental Health vs Gender

According to the survey, each answer corresponded with a certain number of points, and these points were added to get the participants ‘mental health score’. The smaller the number, the worse their mental health is. From the participants of our survey, men showed healthier mental health as compared to women.

Microbiome vs Country

According to the survey, each answer corresponded with a certain number of points, and these points were added to get the participants 'microbiome score' in relation to the country that they live in. The larger the number, the healthier their microbiome is. Survey participants from Austria generally showed a healthier microbiome rather than that of survey participants from the USA (with a few exceptions).

Mental Health vs Country

According to the survey, each answer corresponded with a certain number of points and these points were added to get the participants 'mental health score' in relation to the country that they live in. The smaller the number, the worse their mental health is. Survey participants from Austria showed healthier mental state as compared to survey participants form the USA.

Mental health influences meal intake

Survey participants were asked to respond with how they felt about this phrase: “My mental health influences my meal intake.” 85% of participants agreed with this statement.

Improving diet, relieves stress

Survey participants were asked to respond with how they felt about this phrase: “When I improve my diet, I feel less stressed.” 68% of participants agreed with this statement.

Supplements

According to survey participants who consume several supplements, they believe that supplements positively influence their mental health. Interestingly enough, 29% of those who never/rarely consume supplements also agreed to the statement. The most prevalent takeaway is that most people felt neutral to this statement, and didn't believe that supplements has a positive influence to their mental health, regardless of how many supplements they ingest.

Fermented Foods

The bulk of the survey participants felt neutral regarding this statement, regardless of how much fermented food they consume. Of those who consume fermented foods very often, 0% disagreed and 25% agreed to this statement. Fermented foods, such as sauerkraut, kefir, and kimchi, have shown to be very beneficial to the microbiome due to their probiotic content. Enhancing the microbiome could help prevent psychiatric disorders.

Physical Exercise

According to the survey, participants that exercise daily and multi-weekly have seen positive impacts in their mental health. Physical exercise has shown to have a positive influence on the microbiome and on mental health.