Are you anxious or stressed? A study from the University of Missouri has revealed that probiotics not only promote digestive health but also helps in reducing stress and anxiety.

The experiment involved zebrafish fed with probiotic supplements and yogurt. Researchers found that the species had better response to stressors caused by overcrowding. The probiotic used in the study was Lactobacillus plantarum.

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Usually, fish that are exposed to stress tend to stay at the bottom of their tanks in contrast to those that received probiotics. Veterinary Pathobiology Professor Elizabeth Bryda said that common environmental stressors which affect a school of fish are isolation stress and changes in temperature.

"Each day we introduced a different stressor - tests that are validated by other researchers and cause higher anxiety among zebrafish," she said.

The results of the study may be relevant in the improvement or discovery of new ways to treat anxiety disorders. The researchers found that some neurological symptoms "are also often closely associated with various conditions affecting the digestive tract." Hence, focusing on gut's health could be a new approach to providing treatment for disorders of the central nervous system, "these results underscore the influence, microbes have on physiological function."

Assistant director of MU Animal Modeling Core Daniel Davis explained that "by measuring the genes associated stress and anxiety, our tests were able to predict how this common probiotic is able to benefit behavioral response in these fish." He added that gut bacteria change the gene expression connected with stress and anxiety.

This is not the first time researchers have studied the positive impacts of good gut bacteria in boosting mental health. A previous study showed the effect of probiotics in improving mood and thus addressed depression and anxiety.

The use of yogurt as an anxiety and stress buster "has shown that simple probiotics that we normally use to keep our digestive tract in sync, could be beneficial to reducing our stress levels as well," research assistant Aaron Ericsson said. He added that zebrafish are now commonly utilized in studies about neurobehavior.