A flood in Walkerton, Canada contaminated the water and sickened an entire town.

This was an early example of the gut-brain axis in action.

The microbes involved caused hundreds of people to get IBS.

Those with IBS also had a higher rate of depression.

“There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.” —William Shakespeare

“There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.” —William Shakespeare

In May 2000, the Canadian town of Walkerton was flooded after a heavy rain. The town’s water supply became contaminated with E. coli and Campylobacter jejuni. It was caused by overflow from a cow and chicken farm known to have problems containing their pathogens. Over two thousand of the five thousand townsfolk became seriously ill. Seven died. The town basically shut down. And then it was noticed that hundreds of these people, after recovering from their original infections, came down with IBS. They also became depressed.

Although E. coli was present in the water, C. jejuni arguably played a bigger role in the disaster. C. jejuni is sensitive to stomach acids, which quickly killed many of the microbes. But people who regularly took antacids had lower levels of acidity, allowing more of the C. jejuni to pass through. Those using proton-pump inhibitors were twice as likely to get sick from C. jejuni.

Although diminished, many of these pathogens still made it to the intestines. These bacteria were recently inside a cow or a chicken, so they were pretty much at home in the........

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