In our anthropocentric arrogance, humans typically draw a sharp line between Self and Other. But the more we learn, the fuzzier the boundaries get. Each self contains a great deal of other, from the viral genetic invaders in our very DNA to the vast population of microbes inhabiting our digestive tracts.

And now we are discovering that our own mental states may be directly impacted by the nature of the population of all those intestinal flora.

From the University of North Carolina School of Medicine via Newswise:

Researchers at the UNC School of Medicine found that people with anorexia nervosa have very different microbial communities residing inside their guts compared to healthy individuals and that this bacterial imbalance is associated with some of the psychological symptoms related to the eating disorder.

The findings, published today in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, provide more evidence that the abundance and diversity of…