Diet and Depression: More Links To Food and Brain Health
Hello again everyone:
As science progresses, more and more studies are revealing the underlying mechanisms that either create or destroy our health. Too often, diet (as well as exercise and fitness) is ignored when someone seeks care for mental health issues. Here is a link to some important information for parents with adolescents who are experiencing mood disorders:
To set the stage for their recommendations, they provided the following information:
The prevalence of depression among US adolescents has increased by 30% over the last decade underscoring the importance of identifying contributing factors and developing new prevention strategies.
One understudied risk factor for depression is diet. In adults, unhealthy diet (e.g., consumption of highly processed foods, fast food and salty snacks) has been linked with current prevalence and greater incidence of depression over time in multiple large epidemiological studies.
Moreover, several intervention studies using randomized clinical trial design found that consumption of a healthier diet led to greater reduction in depressive symptoms in adults. In one intervention trial, low sodium intake specifically was associated with better mental health.
Bottom Line:
Stop eating processed ‘food’, do not have it in your house, and at least…severely limit it in our children. There is no place for such so-called food in a healthy diet, and especially in our children that are going through crucial stages of neurological development. Their entire future mental health is dependent upon these critical developmental years being optimal, especially when it comes to nutrition (and fitness). Friends and family do not let friends and family eat junk food…it just leads to junk health and junky brains!! This applies to all of us and not just adolescents!! (Duh!)
“The results suggest that consumption of foods high in sodium and low in potassium contributes to the development of depressive symptoms in early adolescence, and that diet is a modifiable risk factor for adolescent depression . Interventions focusing on diet may improve mental health in urban adolescents.”
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