with the advent of autumn winter holiday, many people begin to think of the relationship between food and sleep, recently, an article published in the international journal of Scientific Reports on the study, scientists from the tsukuba university and other institutions through the study found that intestinal flora may be very critical for the body's normal sleep, they carried on a detailed study on the mice to illustrate exactly to what extent can change the intestinal bacteria and contents of environment, which ultimately affect the body's behavior such as sleep.

In this study, the researchers gave a group of mice eat the mixture of antibiotics for 4 weeks, the mixture of antibiotics can eliminate their gut microbes, then the researchers compared the mice with the same diet intake control mice body the difference of the intestinal contents, digestion food can be decomposed into small pieces of metabolites, the researchers discovered that the gut microbes are eliminated in mice and control mice body metabolic product there are obvious differences, they found in the mice with a difference of more than 200 kinds of metabolites, compared with the control mice, in the microbial community was running out of mice,About 60 normal metabolites were missing, while other metabolites differed in number.

Then researchers began to study the effect of these metabolites in normal circumstances, through analyzing the metabolites for enrichment enrichment, the researchers found that the biggest biological pathways affected by antibiotic therapy will mainly involved in manufacturing of neurotransmitter molecules, and neurotransmitter molecules is brain cells to communicate with other cells need key molecules.For example, the tryptophan-serotonin pathway was almost completely shut down, and the mice whose microbiota was removed had more tryptophan than the control mice, but almost no serotonin in their bodies.This suggests that mice may not be able to make serotonin from their tryptophan without important gut microbes, and the researchers found that the mice were deficient in vitamin B6 metabolites, which speed up the production of the neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine.

Then researchers also by looking at the activity of the brain in mice to analysis how the sleep condition, the results show that compared with the control mice, mice are eliminated microbial flora in the evening (active) in mice have more rapid eye movement and the rem sleep, while during the day (most of the mice in the sleep state) have less non-rem sleep.The mice had more REM sleep each day and at night, and more non-REM sleep during the day. In other words, the mice with the microbiome culled switched back and forth during the sleep/wake phase more frequently than the control mice.

Yanagisawa researchers speculate that the lack of serotonin is associated with abnormal body sleep, however, the molecular mechanisms behind the scientists later in-depth studies are needed to reveal, they found that the intestinal flora has been dropped or be eliminated in the gut serotonin, and we all know, the levels of serotonin in the brain can affect the body's sleep/wake cycles, by changing the diet or to change in the gut microbial flora is expected to help improve people with sleep problems.Researchers will continue to explore the link between gut microbes and sleep.