Are Depression and Nutrition Really Linked?You Are What You EatWhy do YOU eat? Because you’re hungry? Sometimes we think of food as the enemy – something we need only because we get hungry. Or we eat because our taste buds tell us to. Or because we’re bored or nervous or everyone else is eating, or . . . . But think about this: What you eat becomes your blood and your muscles, your eyes and your brain. Aside from water and air, that’s all we put into our bodies to keep them going. All the tissues, all the cells, in your body are replaced every year, the skin every 5 days. Even your bones are in a continual state of breakdown and renewal. So each year, you are quite literally a new you. And the food you eat is where you get the raw materials to bring about this total replacement. And beyond that, science is finding that specific foods can control if a gene is turned on or if it is turned off. Which foods you eat can be a life changing decision – how healthy will your time on this earth be? You & Your DNAYour DNA, the blueprint for you, is copied every time each of your 100 trillion cells is reproduced. The new DNA is made up of molecules arranged in the same order, so they still carry the same messages they did last month.But suppose you don’t have enough of the right raw materials to accurately reproduce that DNA. That would lead to changes in the blueprint that continues to re-create you. Even tiny little changes in the code can have major effects on the way you function. It could even be that certain diseases, cancer comes to mind, result when some of your DNA is damaged in this way. How Does This Relate To Depression?The most active organ in the body is the brain. It's continually controlling everything else that goes on inside you. According to Deepak Chopra, each of your 100 trillion or so cells does 6 trillion things per second, and each of those cells knows what the others are doing. Astounding! This kind of activity requires nourishment!And because the brain is so active, it's also perhaps your most easily impacted organ when essential raw materials or fuel are missing. Make no mistake, your emotions are a product of your brain. They often have a physical basis that is not under your control, other than through the food you provide. What Nutrients Does Your Brain Need?The major neurotransmitters, serotonin and dopamine, are made from components of protein. If you don’t get enough of, or the right kind of, protein you may not be able to make enough of these neurotransmitters. You also need to be able to digest the protein so that the component parts, the amino acids, are available to the brain. The best known antidepressants, the SSRI’s, work by making more serotonin available but you may be able to accomplish the same thing by changing your diet. And if you can, your body won’t be subjected to the many potential side effects that these patent medicines can cause.
The brain is made up of about 60% fat (lipid). But not just any fat. It has to be the right kind of fat – which is very difficult to get in the standard American diet. Research has shown that omega-3 fatty acids, as found in fish oil, help many people with depression. Certain vitamins have long been known to relieve depression in some people: vitamins C, B1, B2, B3, B6, B12 and folic acid. These also function as cofactors for various enzymes that keep the brain functioning normally. How Can Anyone Know All This And Use It???Well, we don’t. People have eaten real, whole food since they were created and the food contained all of these elements in the proportions and in the form that people needed. It wasn’t until the 20th century that we started tinkering with the food supply – taking whole foods apart, using only some parts to make a “processed food,” adding back some elements, like a few vitamins, because they found people were becoming deficient in them. People were becoming malnourished, and because diet and depression are very closely linked, the brain is often the first organ affected. Indeed, depression and other aspects of mental function have become major problems for our society.The answer for most people is to rely on whole food, food that has not been processed much if at all, and to do all we can to ensure that food is grown in optimal conditions.
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