The Intestinal Microbiota Links Tea Polyphenols with the Regulation of Mood and Sleep to Improve Immunity

ABSTRACT

Negative emotions and sleep disorders are common health-related concerns faced by many people who live under some sort of pressure in modern society. In the long run, these issues can decline the immunity of a person, which in turn is closely related to the inflammatory signaling pathway that affects the brain. Clinical evidence suggests that the intestinal flora can regulate the host’s sleep and emotional status through the brain intestinal axis. As a dietary factor, tea polyphenols (TP) play a role in regulating mood and sleep. On the one hand, the intestinal flora can promote the metabolism and absorption of TP in the body to thereby improve their bioavailability. On the other hand, TP can modify the abundance of intestinal flora, improve the composition of beneficial flora and inhibit the growth of harmful bacteria. Considering that the epidemiological causes of anxiety, depression and sleep disorders involve the interaction of environmental stress and genetic predisposition in various physiological systems, treatment options that combine the intestinal microbiota and TP may prove superior to the classical pharmacological treatments because intestinal microbiota promotes the production of a variety of bioactive metabolites from dietary polyphenols that can simultaneously regulate the moods and sleep to improve the immunity. In this review, we discussed the relationship among TP, intestinal flora, emotion and sleep, as well as their interactions that promote the effective regulation of emotion and sleep, to ultimately improve the body’s immunity.

KEYWORDS:

• Tea polyphenols
• intestinal microbiota
• mood
• sleep
• immunity

Acknowledgments

This work was sponsored by Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (LY19C200006), and the Ningbo Natural Science Foundation (2019A610433).

Conflicts of Interest

The authors have declared no conflict of interest.