How To Cure Derealization Naturally? Heal Your Gut!

Hey there, my name is Ben and I tried more than 15 different approaches to heal my depersonalization/derealization (DPDR) until I finally got out.

How to cure depersonalization naturally? One of the approaches that helped me in my DPDR recovery was decreasing the toxicity in my body. A healthy gut, gut barrier and blood-brain-barrier are critical when it comes to keeping toxicity out of your body and brain and thus keeping you healthy.

I’ve read through tons of scientific publications discussing the connection of the gut, brain and mental illness, whilst constantly remembering my own DPDR experience. In this post I want to share everything I’ve learned concerning a healthy gut and what might help you with your depersonalization.

How can a healthy gut help with depersonalization?

An unhealthy gut can result in mental illness. This is the statement of a continuously growing amount of scientific publications. For example, doctor Shan Liang published an amazing paper [1] in September 2018, in which she references a tremendous amount of publications discussing the link between gut microbiota and psychological well-being. Let me give you an overview of a handful of these publications up front, so the question ‘if the gut has a connection with mental illnesses’ is off the table and we can talk about why it has something to do with mental illness.

Mental illness	References stating there’s a link between the gut microbiota (bacteria, viruses, fungi…) and the mental illness	References stating how gut microbiota improvement can possibly cure the illness
Anxiety disorders, such as panic attacks, post-traumatic stress disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder	The gut microbiota also plays a crucial part in the etiology of anxiety disorders, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and panic attacks [2, 3, 4, 5]	Regulating the microbiota brings about therapeutic effects for these disorders [2, 3,4, 5]
Bipolar disorder	Bipolar disorder is significantly related to microbiota abnormalities [6]	Microbiota regulation probably alleviates the disorder [7, 8]
Schizophrenia	Schizophrenia is related with the dysfunction of microbiota–gut–brain axis [9, 10, 11]	Improving the ‘gutbrain’ and immune functions by targeting the microbiota could possibly produce beneficial effects [8, 12, 13]
Neurodevelopmental disorder, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ADHA	Additionally, patients subjected to neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), possess abnormal gut microbiota [14, 15, 16]	Correcting the microbiota abnormalities in a timely manner probably improves the development of the brain and behaviour and has remedial effects [17, 18, 19, 20, 21]
Neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease	Neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease, may also originate from the gut [22, 23] aberrations first appear in the gut microbiota and gut [24, 25] , with ENS degeneration occurring first and gradually spreading to the CNS,	Improving gut-brain function by adjusting the microbiota has remedial effects [22, 23]
Behavior disorders	The gut microbiota is also involved in the pathophysiology of behavior disorders, including drug addiction and substance abuse, [26, 27, 28, 29]	Behavior modifications combined with microbiota regulation may have beneficial effects [26, 27, 28, 29]

Yes, I know depersonalization isn’t listed above, I’m sorry. Compared to the other mental illnesses, depersonalization is still an unknown. Nevertheless, two things leave me to believe that depersonalization is also affected by the gut. First, considering all these other mental illnesses are linked to an unhealthy gut why wouldn’t DPDR be an exception? Second my own experiences and believe that depersonalization is the result of accumulated anxiety, and anxiety disorder is listed above, thus depersonalization is already listed indirectly.

But back to the gut…

What is an unhealthy gut?

In short, an unhealthy gut is the result of abnormalities in your gut microbiota [1].

What are microbiota?

Microbiota are microorganisms, thus small living beings in your gut, such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, etc. To give you an idea of their importance just listen to these numbers [1]

The total weight of these microbiota exceeds 1kg (2,2lb)
The gut microbiota consists of 300-3000 different species
The total number of these microbiota exceeds 10^14 (about 10x more than human cells)
The collective genes of the microbiota exceed the number of human genes 200-fold

These numbers speak for themselves; microbiota can’t be overlooked when trying to understand why we feel a certain way. The world-famous journal “Nature” even started using the terminology “we” instead of “I” when speaking about the human being [1].

Why can abnormalities in gut microbiota affect your brain?

To understand the correlation between microbiota and the brain it’s necessary to understand the function of the:

Gut-Barrier (GB) and
Blood-Brain-Barrier (BBB)

The GB regulates the flow of signal molecules (e.g. neurotransmitters) and nutrients into the body. It also prevents food residue, microorganisms and harmful substances from entering. The GB is composed of two main layers: 1. Epithelial Cells 2. Mucus Cells (a viscous substance) [1]

The BBB regulates which substances enter your brain and/or spinal fluid from your blood. Its main components are cells and tight junctions (TJs). A TJ consists of proteins and can be thought of as glue between cells, responsible for blocking the passage of molecules.

In short, the GB regulates what gets from the gut into the body and the BBB regulates what gets from the body into the brain. Thus, it’s obvious that these barriers are crucial for human health [1]. Now take a guess what regulates the functions and development of these barriers? Exactly, the gut microbiota!

How do gut microbiota communicate with your brain? The Gut-Brain-Axis!

Let me describe how the gut microbiota end up fucking with your brain. When scientists talk about the gut-brain-axis, they are talking about a communication pathway between the gut and the brain.

Up to date I have found three types of pathways being discussed in scientific publications, let me describe one of them to you.

So, we’re in your gut, here the microbiota regulates the functions of TJs located between the individual mucus [1] and epithelial cells [30], thus they increase the permeability of your gut barrier. In consequence, (according to the “leacky gut theory”) bacteria from your gut pass through the GB into your blood, are transported to your brain [31], pass through the impaired BBB and induce neuroinflammation in the brain [1].

The link between neuroinflammation and mental illness?

Neuroinflammation is inflammation of your nervous system.

Now as you can imagine understanding the direct link between inflammation and mental illness isn’t easy, which is why scientist rely on experiments to collect data on the correlation between neuroinflammation and mental illnesses.

For example, experiments have been conducted in which mice have been genetically engineered to have an increased amount of a certain protein which is linked to inflammation. It was observed that these mice expressed anxiogenic behaviour, thus inflammation, so it seems, can be linked to high anxiety levels [33].

Depersonalization is linked to anxiety by loads of sufferers and discussed in scientific publications as a DPDR cause, which makes these findings very interesting for us. Let me give you some more references of scientific publications linking a variety of mental illnesses to inflammation: [1, 32, 33, 34]

How to decrease microbiota abnormalities and thus neuroinflammation and mental illness?

Now that we established the scientific link between microbiota and mental illness lets dive into some scientifically suggested cures for microbiota abnormalities.

Remedy	Effect	Reference
Probiotics / Psychobiotics e.g. Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium	Modification of gut microbiota, lower anxiety, antidepressant	[1, 35]
Prebiotics fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS), galacto-oligosaccharides (GOS), Omega	Lowers inflammation and anxiety, increases probiotic growth	[1, 33, 36, 38]
Beneficial Diet: Fermented foods, beans, whole grains Harmful Diet: Meat, High-fat foods, Sugar, Food additives, Antibiotics	Improves gut barrier and microbiota diversity Food is the most influential factor for the gut microbiota,	[1]
Healthy lifestyle Meditation, sport, enough sleep, joy, less caffeine, drugs and alcohol Decrease acute stress (meeting a deadline, taking an exam, minor car accident) Decrease chronic stress (loss of a loved one, traumatic childhood experiences, impactful accident)	Microbiota disturbances are minimized, and inflammation is decreased	[1, 33]

How to help your gut with Probiotics and Prebiotics

In short, probiotics contain beneficial bacteria, and prebiotics provide “food” for the beneficial bacteria [healthline.com]. Both probiotics and prebiotics have been discussed in a large body of research for their overall health benefits. Here are just a few papers suggesting their positive effects on microbiota, inflammation and psychiatric disorders: [1, 33, 35, 36, 39]

Probiotics

Probiotics are small living microorganisms, which can increase our health, when taken in the correct amount [40]. Probiotics battle and displace harmful species [41]. Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium belong to the most commonly used species in probiotic supplementation. Lactobacillus has been mentioned to kill harmful microbes [42], and Bifidobacterium has been highlighted by [43] for its positive effects on the mucous intestinal barrier, which is part of the gut barrier as we discussed earlier. Furthermore, it has been pointed out that Bifidobacterium decreases the number of harmful bacteria [44].

Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium seem to be the Christiano Ronaldos and Leonel Messis in the world of Probiotic, thus I would strongly recommend getting a probiotic which includes these two bacteria.

Disclaimer for those who live behind the moon… 😉: Ronaldo and Messi are presently the two greatest football/soccer players in the world.

Sadly, I did not have this information on probiotics when I had DPDR. If I did I could have given you a first-hand review on its effects, which is why I, and surly everyone who is stuck with DPDR, would greatly appreciate it if the people still stuck in DPDR who give probiotics a try would share their experiences (here in the comments, a reddit thread or in a Facebook group).

You can search for probiotics on amazon, but make sure to get some including Lactobacillus and/or Bifidobacterium, considering the positive scientific research that has been published on these two genus’s.

Now if you search for Lactobacillus or Bifidobacterium as an “ingredient” in the supplement you most likely won’t find it, since generally their members are listed. Here’s an overview:

Genus	Members
Lactobacillus	L. Plantarum, L. Acidophilus, L. Rhamnosus, L. Fermentum, L. Reuteri, L. Helveticus, L. Brevis
Bifidobacterium	B. Lactis, B. Bifidum, B. Longum

I found one probiotic supplement with loads of positive reviews, including five Lacotbacillus & Bifidobacteria members: L. Plantarum, L. Acidophilus, L. Brevis, B. Lactis, and B. Longum. Its’s called Ultra 30 biotics, you can check out on amazon.

As mentioned above please share your experience concerning the effects of probiotics on your DPDR, positive, negative or none, our community will be very thankful.

Prebiotics

Why are prebiotics worth a try? Because prebiotics (specifically inulin) have been shown to enhance the growth of lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium [38, 40] in consequence:

Mucosal lesion scores are decreased and
Mucosal inflammation is diminished

In other words, the gut barriers health is improved, and thus is yours.

During further research I suddenly stumbled upon something exiting. I discovered papers that discussed prebiotics having direct positive effects on your brain [36, 37] . Evidence-based approaches which help the health of your gut barrier, blood-brain-barrier and supposedly have beneficial effects on neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders are listed in this publication [36]. These approaches include:

prebiotics containing fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS) and galacto-oligosaccharides (GOS)
probiotics containing Bifidobacteria and Lactobacillus and

After finding this information I searched for a prebiotic containing FOS and GOS, which took more time then expected, since the prebiotics which had the most reviews and were top-sellers on amazon didn’t include the scientifically backed ingredients FOS and GOS, which felt a bit strange to me. So you might want to do some research of your own before buying a supplement on amazon.

Again, please share your experiences with prebiotics or probiotics and their effects on depersonalization in the comments, in reddit threads or Facebook groups I’m sure others who are battling DPDR will be thankful, I know I would have been!

References

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