Stress ‘may affect women’s guts in same way as junk food’

A stressful lifestyle may be just as unhealthy for a woman's digestive health as a poor diet, according to new research.

The Brigham Young University made this discovery after assessing a group of mice who were exposed to a high-fat diet, followed by a period of mild stress. Microbial DNA from faecal samples was then tested to determine how the gut microbiota was affected.

It was observed that female mice under stress experienced a shift in their gut microbiota composition akin to being on a high-fat diet, demonstrating that stress had a measurable impact on their digestive and metabolic health.

Laura Bridgewater, professor of microbiology and molecular biology at Brigham Young University, said: "Stress can be harmful in a lot of ways, but this research is novel in that it ties stress to female-specific changes in the gut microbiota. We sometimes think of stress as a purely psychological phenomenon, but it causes distinct physical changes."

It was also noted that women tend to have higher rates of depression and anxiety, which could be explained by differences in the way the gut microbiota responds to stress in males compared to females.

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