How the Hidden Conversation Within Our Bodies Impacts Our Mood

Why package the basic message, that gut microbes are important to our health and well-being, in out-of-date ideas about diet? The author routinely confuses issues by blaming the harms of high-sugar eating on dietary fats. He repeatedly goes after animal fats, and promotes olive oil, without considering their fatty acid compositions, which have considerable overlap. For a book published in 2016 this is unforgivable, although perhaps not surprising given that he cites Ancel Keys, whose opinions on diet and health now are discredited. The useful information here, fortunately found early in the book, is overwhelmed by voluminous and vague writing, and misinformation. The Obesity Code by Jason Fung is much more helpful on the subject of dietary fats, and if you want to understand why Ancel Keys is yesterday's charlatan read Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes.

Every household should read this book because it is not just fascinating to read about this much-neglected mind-gut interaction, but it is also important for everyone's lifestyle to understand why our bodies respond in a certain way to often unconscious triggers in our lives.
I read many scientific books for a broad audience but this one is particularly relevant, comprehensive, educative, fascinating, and thanks to many personal anecdotes and clinical stories also graphic and capturing. The eloquence and vivid imagery make the book comprehensible to everyone and Dr Mayer's writing style addresses the reader almost as if he was one's friend telling you personal stories.
Anyone with digestive issues will appreciate this book highly, and will probably want to make a medical appointment with Dr Mayer. It changes the way you look at your mind and your body and teaches you what is important for your body and health. The book is very suitable for the lay person but provides lots of novel insights even for professionals in the field.

The Mind-Gut Connection is a much-awaited book. As a practitioner of Brain Education and Eastern teachings on health and wellness, I find Dr. Emeran Mayer's book enlightening, inspiring and most of all, validating of the mind-body-energy connection. Dr. Mayer's research on early childhood memories, in particular, and their effect on the gut-brain dialogue is something I see frequently with people whom I counsel. Inevitably, their gut condition, (often they suffer from digestive problems), has much to do with their emotional and mental problems. People don't readily see the connection between their thoughts and emotions with their physical condition. Dr. Mayer's Mind-Gut Connection book, provides an important resource to help people understand their current condition and give them hope for making changes in their lives. Thank you, Dr. Emeran Mayer for your breakthrough contribution to people's physical, emotional, and mental well-being.

I listened to this book on audible. The commentator there mispronounced words and was pretty monotonal. I wish this book had a’ “look inside”. Hopefully it is well referenced and has graphs and illustrations.
I have worked in parts of this field for almost 40 yrs. Dr. Mayer does an excellent job of connecting the dots and showing how this works as an integrated system. Hats off and very necessary.
It is long. On a personal level I would have like to hear more about the studies that put the puzzle pieces together. With complex concepts it is often helpful to repeat material in different ways close together.
What he tried to do was connect his experience, patient problems and current experimentation and theory and throw in personal narritive and preventative health. It is a very tall order. I believe he did succeed, but at a cost of losing the reader. I believe if he had left out some personal narrrative and conjecture, it would flow better. There is no mention of the amygdala which is primary in fear and emotional response. Overall an excellent contribution to the field. 4 stars due to the above points.

There are countless numbers of books available today that use "science" to explain why you should be eating a certain way, taking certain supplements (usually what the author is selling), or exercising a certain way. Bottom line is: nutrition is very hard to talk about and it's very hard to find books/authors/speakers who are actually knowledgeable about the subject. Even if an author is knowledgeable about the subject, most of the time it's really hard to actually understand the concepts they try to convey in their writing.

This book stands out not only because Dr. Emeran Mayer is a brilliant scientist, but because he also uses common language to explain very complex scientific concepts. And the best part is: he's not trying to sell you anything.

In my search for literature about the microbiome and its connection to the brain, I've come across several books. Two of them stand out to me for bad reasons: Brain Maker by David Perlmutter and Gut and Psychology Syndrome by Natasha Campbell-McBride. These books, in my opinion, don't necessarily use scientific findings of the gut-brain connection correctly. They both "show" through their anecdotes of clinical experiments that changing someone's diet can completely reverse autism, MS, depression/anxiety, and countless others. They also tell you to buy very expensive products or give yourself fecal enemas to cure any of your ailments. Through my own extensive scientific literature search, I knew the microbiome played a large role in our stress response, brain development, and overall well-being, but I knew these authors (and probably countless others) were overplaying the role that it has in disease states.

I started to feel a little discouraged, like none of the prominent voices in this field were actually trying to publish books just for the sake of informing people about how their food choices affect their overall health. Then, I came across this book. I didn't know who Dr. Mayer was, but a friend recommended this book to me. In this book, Dr. Mayer describes basically all the scientific evidence to date that outlines what we know about the gut microbiome and how it's connected to the brain. He does so in a way that makes it easy for people outside of science to understand what he is saying, which is a powerful gift that many prominent researchers lack. Additionally, unlike many other authors, he is actually involved in the field both as a scientific researcher and physician. This adds to his credibility. He also gives very concrete, simple, scientifically sound changes one can make to their diet that will help them thrive. By no means does he overplay the role the microbiome plays in disease, rather, he is able to accurately convey the beauty of our body and how all of our systems (including the microbial communities thriving in our bodies) are interconnected. Which is something I believe is lacking in our current medical model.

I read this book immediately after I got it. Within next two days, as „one intake”. Unbelievably engaging and so powerfully convincing that I cannot recall any other literature in this topic to be more clear than this one.
I can imagine that it can serve two ways, both for doctors to zoom in the issues on the scientific level (including many research references) and both for patients, who walk like a rolling stone, from clinic to clinic, trying to avoid getting mad on the way to get back their health. I wish this book became the basic literature for the high school learners, so they can avoid hundreds of unnecessary problems, they are going to face, inevitably.
I read at least 5-6 books per month every year, but Mind-Gut Connection is TOP 5 of the last decade, for sure. I always knew my gut advised me the best decisions ever, in my whole life. Finally, I understand the guts were right.

My initial take, glancing at the title of Emeran Mayer’s new book; The Mind-Gut Connection, was that the book maybe about the relatively old concept of psychosomatic relationship in human biological network. But as I read the book, I realized that Dr. Mayer’s book goes over and beyond the simple mind-body connection by scientifically and at the same time, eloquently and in a pleasant and engaging language, detailing the almost audible communication between our body’s cellular and microbial coexistence. Dr. Mayer’s long standing reaserch reflected in this book has paved the path to yet amazing new discoveries about the human psychophysiological corporative communication. I highly recommend reading this book.

Steve Javaherian, Ph.D.

This book is incredible. Everyone should be aware of this connection, whether or not they experience gut discomfort. The information that this book provides re. evolution, diet, mood, etc is unparalleled, and information that is not easily accessible on the internet.

I have experienced GERD/IBS symptoms my whole life, and have tried many techniques to manage the symptoms (diet, mindfulness, breathing techniques, medications, alternative medicine). Reading this book was extremely comforting, and even provided some accounts that mirror my own. I am so thankful for Dr. Mayer and his team's research.

The Mind-Gut Connection employs a unique, holistic approach to medicine. Dr. Mayer not only skillfully presents his research on the the importance of the microbiome and its relation to diet, stress, mental health and our overall well-being, but he does so eloquently, in a manner that can be easily digested (no pun intended) and understood by even those without any previous research experience or medical background. I highly recommend this book!

Great book. Very important and useful information for all of us. Even though it contains a great amount of scientific data, it is easy to read and feels familiar. Thank you, Dr. Mayer, for this valuable contribution to understanding our brains and bodies and how to maintain good health in a natural manner.

"The little brain in your gut."

Having already read literature about this subject, I was eager to read Dr. Mayer's explanation of the relationship between our mind and our intestinal tract.

Dr. Mayer explains: "Your gut has capabilities that surpass all your other organs and even rival your brain. It has it's own nervous system, know in scientific literature as the enteric nervous system, or ENS, and often referred to in the media as the "second brain".

I also learned that the gut is the largest storage facility for serotonin in our body. Serotonin plays a crucial role in such vital functions as sleep, appetite, pain sensitivity, mood and overall well-being.

Other interesting topics covered in the book are:

Early stress and the hypersensitive gut
How stress effects can be transmitted from one generation to the next
Stress in the womb
Can your gut microbes change your brain?
The role of the microbiota in depression
The role of stress
Positive emotions
Understanding intuitive decision making
The lure of comfort foods
Maximize your gut microbial diversity
I like the advice that Michael Pollan gives in his book Food Rules "buy only things in the market that look like food. If they don't, they most likely will contain food additives that could harm your brain, including artificial sweeteners, emulsifiers, fructose corn syrup, and vital gluten."

I found the book to be interesting overall. I did find that there were perhaps too many different subjects lumped together in this one text and some of the chapters were a little dry and repetitive. The author stressed that more research is still being conducted on this subject.

On a personal note, I did not agree with the author's belief that the theory of evolution produced such fascinating and complex nervous systems in our bodies. Something this exceptional could only have come from an intelligent mind.

Great book! Dr. Mayer really uncovers the powerful connection between the mind and gut. His work is groundbreaking and comprehensive. I think this book is an important read for anyone who wants to understand the intimate connection between our brain and our gut and for anyone who wants to be healthy! I highly recommend The Mind-Gut Connection.

Honestly found this to be a very vague book coming from a doctor who "has studied brain body interactions for the last 40 years". It was full of run on sentences that I had to re-read multiple times. He often presented studies of mice and rats and would write about the effects without mentioning if they were positive of negative clearly! I kind of felt like he just took a lot of other books people have read and wrote a book that was simply an overview of information. He made a lot of little separate points but didn't wrap it up into a clear point that he was trying to make. I guess Doctors and scientist aren't often professional writers, but I kept thinking that his editors should have told him to organise this book in a more clear way.

Having read books related to the connection with gut and your overall health, I was quite interested in what Dr. Emeran Mayer have to say in his book, The Mind-Gut Connection. I'm not surprised by the connection between the mind and the gut, but my questions mainly focused on the how and what then. I'm impressed with Dr. Mayer's credentials, but I'm more so by how eloquently this book is written. It can be easily understood by someone not familiar at all with medical terminology or "health talks." There are medical terminologies, but Dr. Mayer also provide explanations. The information in The Mind-Gut Connection are based on research and experience. The conversational tone of the book throughout makes it easy to absorb, and the subject matter enlightening. This isn't just a book about your overall healthy, but it includes how the connection affects the emotional aspect as well. One thing I will say is that there's so much information in this book, alone, that doesn't only target nutritional intake, it can be overwhelming when read in one sitting, as I've done. Since many of the sections really requires afterthought, its profundity in comparison to the ease of reading almost makes it contradictory, at least to me. However, I think it was just the time-frame of my reading that overwhelmed me, and not the book itself. The Mind-Gut Connection can be sure to help many, and I would recommend it.

This first appeared on Just Commonly blog.

NOTE: I received an ARC of this book from the publisher, HarperWave through TLC Book Tours for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own. For my review policy, please see my Disclosure page.

Liked the most: I heard Dr. Mayer speak at about the same time this book was released. He's a great writer, too! This book is great for lay readers, and he clearly sheds light on a topic that up to this point has mostly been hyped by nutritional supplement vendors. Read this book, and see through the hype to what's really going on in our gut, and what we should be doing about it. This book also has an excellent index.
Liked the least: Nothing about it not to like!

If you are interested in optimizing your healrh, this book is worth read
Ing. Learn how important the gut-brain connection really is to our emotional, psychological and physical well-being. Well-written.