It seems that everyone at some point struggles with depression. Maybe it’s triggered by a tragic event, maybe it comes with a major life change, or maybe it rears it’s ugly head in the life of someone who feels so guilty about it because she really likes her life but some days she just doesn’t feel happy. In “Breakfast At Tiffany’s”, Audrey Hepburn’s character, Holly Golightly, called it “the mean reds” and for her the only cure was a coffee and a donut while browsing through Tiffany’s. While that makes a nice movie, nutritionally, it’s not a good way to prevent future bouts with depression.
First of all, why should we consider our food as a possible source of depression? Pharmaceutical companies have effectively marketed the role that serotonin plays in depression. We’ve all seen the Zoloft commercial with the bouncing circle people… But what drug companies haven’t focused on is how our bodies produce serotonin naturally - 85% of our serotonin is created in our gut. And that means it comes from our food. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, said," Let your food be your medicine, and your medicine be your food".
Sugar, B Vitamins and Caffeine… these seem to be key elements to evaluate in dealing with depression from a nutritional standpoint. B Vitamins help prevent depression and sugar and caffeine deplete the body of B vitamins.
Why are B Vitamins so important? There are other vitamins that are important for avoiding depression, for example Vitamin C, but it seems that most people get enough vitamin C and lack base levels of B vitamins, most likely from the high caffeine and sugar intake of most Americans. I admit, I have a hard time limiting myself to one caffeinated beverage a day, but with what I found while researching this blog, I’m going to make an effort to do just that.
In a NASA study of drug-induced spiders, researchers found that when spiders were giving marijuana, they worked on their webs for a while and then fell asleep. They expected to see caffeinated spiders frantically churning out webs of colossal proportions, but when the java juiced arachnids were set loose to spin, they were unfocused and random – there was a complete absence of pattern most commonly associated with a spider web. This may be the “most vivid illustration of caffeine’s disorienting effect on caffeine-sensitive people, many of whom may be misdiagnosed as mentally ill,”according to CaffeineWeb.com.
Let me also point you to a good website that sums up some great facts about depression. AntiDepressantFacts.Com contains a good list of needed nutrients and natural food sources where you can find them. The site offers reasons NOT to be on anti-depressants, how to get off of them, why pharmaceutical companies market them the way they do, what the FDA is doing, how are children are affected… and so much more.
For anyone wanting to investigate further, also see DrugAwareness.org, a non-profit coalition of physicians, researches, journalists and concerned citizens dedicated to educating people about the negative side-effects of prescription drugs and to exposing the unethical marketing techniques of pharmaceutical companies.
