“When experiencing a stressful event, the area of the brain that controls emotions, the amygdala, sends a distress signal to the hypothalamus, the brain’s command center,” explained Lucie Lingrand, a brain-gut axis specialist and product manager at Lallemand Health Solutions. “The hypothalamus then sends out an alert through the nervous system, which responds by releasing a flood of stress hormones, including adrenaline and cortisol.”
As the fight-or-flight response kicks in, digestion slows and gut sensitivity is increased. “Many studies in animal models of stress, as well as acute or chronic stress in human models, have shown that the intestinal barrier is impaired and that the composition of the gut microbiota is changed,”