Gardening Lifts Your Mood- an hour with your hands in the earth settles the mind
A soil bacterium acts like an antidepressant in lab studies. The link between Mycobacterium vaccae and serotonin, and why gardening settles the mind.
Photo: Robin Wersich
The link between Mycobacterium vaccae and serotonin, and why an hour with your hands in the earth settles the mind.
There is a bug in ordinary soil that, in the laboratory, behaves like an antidepressant. It is called Mycobacterium vaccae, and the way scientists found it is the kind of accident that makes a career. Lung cancer patients were given the killed bacterium as an experimental immune treatment. It did not extend their lives, but it did something nobody was looking for. Their mood lifted. A researcher named Christopher Lowry noticed, and went looking for why.
What the bug does to a brain
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