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A clinical trial suggests that the psychobiotic Bifidobacterium longum 1714 may temporarily improve sleep quality and boost vitality in adults experiencing mild to moderate depression.
Forget Melatonin: Why Psychobiotics Are the Next Big Thing for Better Sleep
Author: Avery Miles
A new study suggests that psychobiotics—probiotic bacteria that can improve mental health—can also improve the quality of our sleep. The study, published recently in Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, functioned as an 8-week placebo-controlled trial, and found that a specific probiotic strain could help improve sleep for people with mild depression.
The Study
In a double-blind trial involving 168 adults between 18 and 70 years old, researchers from the Irish biotechnology company Novonesis looked at the effects of a particular psychobiotic strain—known as Bifidobacterium longum 1714—on participants with mild to moderate depressive symptoms to see if the strain could relieve low mood. Before the eight-week trial began, they excluded participants currently taking antidepressants, sleep medications, or undergoing cognitive behavioral therapy.
Bifidobacterium longum 1714 had previously shown promise in earlier trials for improving sleep quality and softening the biological response to stress. Divided randomly into two equal groups, one group of participants took two capsules of the bacteria strain daily while the other group received identical placebo capsules containing inactive ingredients like corn starch.
The Results
With the goal of observing changes in overall depression, researchers used a technique called the “Beck Depression Inventory” – a standard survey design that asked participants to rate symptoms like sadness and loss of interest. By week four of the study, participants exhibited improved sleep quality and vitality.
By the end of the eight weeks, both groups reported feeling substantially better than they did at the start of the study but the difference in overall depression scores between the probiotic and placebo groups was not statistically significant at any point in the trial. This means that the active bacteria did not provide any sort of special advantage regarding mood enhancement.
What stood out though was a secondary effect: much better sleep.
By week four, the probiotic group fell asleep faster than the control group. The bacteria strain also helped those who identified as “poor sleepers.” The probiotic group also reported higher quality-of-life categories like mental health, social role functioning, and vitality – a person’s physical and mental energy levels, which often plummet during depressive episodes. Those higher vitality scores correlated closely with lower overall depression scores across the study, the researchers noted.
Lifestyle and Demographics Also Play a Role
Before we start filling up on probiotics, it is worth noting that a limitation of clinical trials for mild depression is that participants often improve simply because they expect the treatment to work or because they are receiving regular attention from health professionals. It is possible that the bacteria provide a quick benefit at first but then it’s eventually matched by the natural course of healing and the placebo effect.
There are also lifestyle variables to take into account like dietary and exercise habits that the researchers did not consistently measure throughout the study. Changes in someone’s daily routine, like exercising more frequently could influence their mood and sleep.
And although the participant pool was predominantly female, the researchers did not track menstrual cycles or hormone therapy; hormonal fluctuations can heavily influence mood and energy levels. A way to address this in future trials is to control for these variables by focusing on specific demographic groups or tracking biological markers more closely.
Credits: TCA, LLC.