April 6, 2010
Dietary intervention and mental illness
Recent results of an epidemiologic study demonstrated an association between habitual diet quality and the high-prevalence mental disorders, particularly anxiety and depressive disorders in women.
Researchers in Australia studied 1,046 women ages 20–93 years randomly selected from the population. After adjustments for age, socioeconomic status, education, and health behaviors, it was shown that a “traditional” dietary pattern characterized by vegetables, fruit, meat, fish, and whole grains was associated with lower odds for major depression or dysthymia as well as for anxiety disorders. In contrast, a dietary pattern comprising processed and “unhealthy” foods (western) was associated with a higher likelihood of psychological symptoms and disorders.
Depression is influenced by genetic, hormonal, immunological, biochemical, and neurodegenerative factors. Diet modulates each of these factors and, as a result, has a plausible impact on the development and course of psychiatric illness.
Adherence to a Mediterranean diet, high in vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole grains, fish, olive oil, and low-fat dairy products, correlates with lower levels of inflammatory markers that have been implicated as a contributing factor in depression as well as other chronic medical illness (specifically some types of cancers and cardiovascular disease).
Robin Stone, M.D.
Insight Psychiatry
13123 Rosedale Hill Ave.
Huntersville, NC 28078
704-948-3810
For Further Reading:
Kotowitz, and Berk. Association of traditional and western diets with anxiety and depressive disorders in women. American Journal of Psychiatry, March 2010
Molteni R, Barnard RJ, Ying Z, Roberts CK, Gomez-Pinilla F: A high-fat, refined sugar diet reduces hippocampal brain-de¬rived neurotrophic growth factor, neuroplasticity and learning. Neuroscience 2002; 112
