A couple of weeks ago, I was prescribed antibiotics to treat an infection. Besides noticing a shift in my digestion, I also felt my sleep worsen. For a few nights, I had insomnia, which was unusual for me. I wondered: Could a routine course of amoxicillin impact my sleep?
Antibiotics tend to kill off some bacteria in the gut, not just the germs causing infection, so my restless nights could have been linked to the relationship between my gut microbiota and my brain. And it’s not just me interested in this connection. Scientists are increasingly looking at how our gut microbiome (with roughly 100 trillion little bugs found in our digestive tracts) is connected to good sleep.
Each of us are carrying entire civilizations in our guts, tiny empires of bacteria, fungi and other microbes. They help us digest food, regulate the immune system and generate vitamins like B12, among many other things. Most people pay little attention to the swill of microscopic bugs inside us. In fact, most scientists have overlooked the microbiome until relatively recently, when better research came along, shining a light on the creatures we carry.
“The gut microbiota has co-evolved with humans and mammals,” says Paromita Kaulmann-Sen, a neuroscientist who studies the gut-brain axis at the APC Microbiome Ireland SFI Research Centre. “It has formed this symbiotic relationship that is mutually beneficial for both the host and the microbiome.”
