Suggestive symptoms of intestinal dysbiosis and its relation to the prevalence of depressive symptoms in elderly intestinal dysbiosis and depression

Abstract

Recent studies show that changes in the composition of this microbiota have been shown to be present in mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, the common symptoms to these diseases being: poor digestion, constipation and cramps, thus showing the existence of two-way communication that occurs between the gut-brain axis, mediated by the enteric nervous system (ENS), which may be responsible for the influence of the gut at the brain level. [8][9][10] Some experimental studies have emerged in an attempt to elucidate the bowel-brain relationship, however there is a lack of population studies correlating the relationship between intestinal dysbiosis and the prevalence of depression in the elderly, this being a pioneering study. Thus, the objective of the present study was to identify the presence of suggestive symptoms of intestinal dysbiosis by correlating them with the prevalence of depressive symptoms in elderly people attending a living institution in the city of Fortaleza/CE. MethodsThis is a cross-sectional, observational, descriptive and analytical study with a quantitative approach. Sample and data collectionThe sample of this research was defined as simple random, the data were collected from January to April 2022 with non-institutionalized elderly people participating in a coexistence group, in a social institution in the city of Fortaleza-Ceará.The data collection was carried out in four stages: The first through the use of a sociodemographic questionnaire, the second with the application of the Metabolic Tracking Questionnaire (MTQ) which aims to identify suggestive symptoms of intestinal dysbiosis. 11 The third stage aimed to identify depressive symptoms in the elderly population using the General Health Questionnaire and in the fourth stage the anthropometric assessment was carried out. 12