Nutritional Blockbusters that Fight Depression


B Vitamins
Believe it or not, a sweet potato or a spinach salad might help you beat the blues. Both are rich in folate and vitamin B6 or pyridoxine. Deficiencies in these two B vitamins, experts believe, can actually bring on the symptoms of depression. Vitamin B6 works by keeping your brain’s neurotransmitters in balance. These chemicals control whether you feel depressed, anxious, or on a steady keel.

Experts are not sure why folate fights the blues, but they do know low folate levels in your body can deepen depression, and high folate levels can help defeat it. You can find folate in most fruits and vegetables, especially spinach, asparagus and avocados.

Eat chicken, liver, and other meats to feed your brain vitamin B6. Plant sources of the vitamin include navy beans, sweet potatoes, spinach, and bananas.

Depression can also signal a deficiency in thiamin, also known as vitamin B1. Stick with whole-wheat breads, meats, black beans, and watermelon to punch up your thiamin levels. These foods might help you feel more clearheaded and energetic.

Iron
Beating the blues might be as easy as eating iron-rich foods if you have iron-deficiency anemia. Over two billion people suffer from this condition and even more live with less-serious iron deficiency. A sour mood is a major symptom of a lack of iron. Other symptoms include pale skin, sluggishness, and trouble concentrating.

Iron-deficiency anemia often attacks pre-menopausal women, people who regularly take nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID’s) and others at risk for chronic blood loss. It’s a good idea to visit your doctor if you suspect you’re anemic.

To get more iron in your diet, try meat for starters. The darker the cut, the more iron it has. If you’re a vegetarian, stick with legumes, fortified cereals, quinoa, kale and other green leafy vegetables. And it’s a good idea to top these foods with a rich source of vitamin C, like lemon juice. The vitamin C will help your body absorb the iron.

Selenium
You probably heard selenium fights cancer, but you might not know the mineral banishes bad moods, too. People who do not eat enough selenium-rich foods tend to be grumpier than people with a high dietary intake, according to recent research. Eat some high-test selenium foods – like seafood, poultry, mushrooms, sea vegetables, and wheat – and feel the effects for yourself.

Carbohydrates
IF stress gest you down, a diet rich in carbohydrates might be just what the doctor ordered. Eating mostly carbohydrates during the day may make stressful situations more bearable for some people. In a European study, scientists fed people either a diet high in carbs and low in protein, or vice versa. Then the doctors put the subjects through a difficult mathematical task. The carbohydrate-rich diet worked to lower stress and depression in some of the subjects.

The carbohydrate diet appears to work by raising the level of tryptophan in your brain. Tryptophan is the amino acid your body needs to make serotonin, the “happy” neurotransmitter.

It’s important to remember not all carbohydrates are equal. Nutritionally speaking, carbohydrates from fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and cereals are best. They’ll save you from stress and boost your levels of vitamins, minerals, and fiber.

Omega-3 Fatty Acids
Fat makes up about 60 percent of the human brain. You can keep your brain running smoothly with the right kinds of fats or you can gum up the works with too much of the wrong kind. It all depends on what you eat.

Sound fishy? As a matter of fact, it is. The essential fats found in seafood, called omega-3 fatty acids, play a major role in brain function. They may even boost your mood. You need them but cannot make them on your own. “Essential” fatty acids only appear through your diet. That means next time you’re feeling blue, dip into the deep blue sea for your dinner. New medical evidence suggests the omega-3 fatty acids found in fish – called docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) – can help drive away depression.

A Harvard psychiatrist found that fish oil capsules helped people with bipolar disorder, or manic depression, who go through periods of extreme highs and lows. The Harvard psychiatrist suggests the omega-3 fatty acid in fish oil may slow down neurons in your brain, much like the drug Lithium, which is used to treat manic depression.

Another research group from England noticed depressed people had less omega-3 fatty acids in their red blood cells than healthy people. The more sever the depression, the less omega-3.

There is even evidence that EPA can help treat people with schizophrenia, a serious mental illness that can cause delusions, hallucinations and disorganized behavior.

Some experts believe fish fights depression because neurotransmitters, the brain’s Pony Express riders that carry messages from cell to cell, have an easier time wriggling through fat membranes made of fluid omega-3 than any other kind of fat. This means your brain’s important messages get delivered.

Fish also has an effect on serotonin levels, one of your brain’s good-news messengers. If you don’t have enough serotonin, you’re more likely to be depressed, violent, and suicidal. If you have low levels of DHA, you also have low levels of serotonin. More DHA means more serotonin.

Most antidepressants, including Prozac, raise brain levels of serotonin. You might be doing the same thing just by eating fish.

Whether you’re depressed or not, work more omega-3 into your diet and perhaps cut down on omega-6, another type of essential fatty acid found in vegetable oils, meat and eggs. Right now, the typical American eats at least ten times more omega-6 than omega-3.

Not that omega-6 is bad, but too much leads to excess signaling in your brain. Fortunately, omega-3 can help stop the crazy antics of omega-6 and bring things back to normal.

So, to fix your balance of omega-6 and omega-3, the obvious first step is to eat more fish. Fatty fish, like salmon, herring, mackerel, and tuna, offer the best omega-3, but all seafood contains at least some. Aim for at least two fatty fish meals a week.

If you really dislike fish, get some omega-3 from flaxseed; walnuts; and collard, turnip, and mustard greens. Other good sources include dark green, leafy vegetables like spinach, arugula, kale, Swiss chard, and certain types of lettuce. Remember though, the omega-3 in these foods is in the form of alpha-linolenic acid, which the brain can convert to DHA only in small amounts. To get the good stuff your brain prefers – the pre-formed DHA and EPA – you still need to eat fish.

You can take fish oil supplements, which are available in health food stores, pharmacies and supermarkets. Just one caution -if you’re taking blood thinners, check with your doctor before taking supplements since omega-3 also has blood-thinning effects.