Skip The Prozac, Eat Your Veggies

What's the impact of food on people with major depression? A recent study researched that very question.

Half of the participants were given nutritional counseling; the other half was given one-on-one social support. Someone to talk to if you will. After 12 weeks those who ate a healthy diet reported happier moods than those who received social support.   

The results of another study just presented in Los Angeles at the Academy of Neurology’s annual meeting here in Los Angeles conducted by researchers at Rush University Medical Center, found that adults were less prone to depression if they included a lot of whole, plant-based foods in their diet and avoided fewer processed and animal-based foods.  

The new term to know is “nutritional psychiatry”  - the study of how what we eat impacts our mental health. 

Ken Dychtwald’s Bodymind took a similar approach back in 1986 at a time when few thought about the effects of what we did with our bodies affected our brains and moods. Today there is the Food and Mood Center at Deakin University, a collaborative research center that studies how diet influences mental health founded by Dr. Jacka. The Wall Street Journal also reports that the American Psychiatric Association has begun including presentations on nutritional psychiatry at their annual conference. 

As Millennials and Gen Z’s passion for food continues to grow, it would be game changing if besides the taste, knowing where our foods come from, protecting the environment we could also add the understanding of how foods effect our minds to the list.