It's crazy. When you think about all the different kinds of foods, we eat, we just swallow and hope it all works out for the best. Well, it turns out there are better ways to think about keeping our bodies humming healthfully along. Welcome to nutrition facts on your host. Dr. Michael Greger today. We look at ways to mitigate a serious mental health disorder depression.
There's accumulating evidence that brain. Derived neurotrophic Factor may be playing a role in human depression.
The bdnf controls the growth of new nerve cells. So low levels, May explain the atrophy of specific brain areas. You see among depressed patients that maybe one of the reasons exercise is so good for our brains, start an hour day exercise, regimen within three months. You can get a quadrupling a bdnf reliefs from your brain. This makes sense. If any time we were desperate to catch prey or desperate, not to become prey ourselves. We needed to be
Really sharp, and so when we're fasting or exercising or a negative calorie balance, our brain starts churning out, bdnf to make sure we're firing on all cylinders. So, of course, big pharma's eager to create drugs to mimic this effect, but is there any way to boost bdnf naturally?
Yes, I just said it fasting and
exercise. Okay. Okay, but is there anything we can add to our diet to boost bdnf? Well, higher intakes of dietary flavonoids appear to
Be protectively associated with symptoms of depression. The Harvard nurses study followed tens of thousands of women for years and found that those who are eating the most appear to reduce the risk of coming down with depression, flavonoids, occur naturally in plants. So there's a substantial Mountain. Mm, variety of healthy foods, but but wait, how do we know the benefits are from the flavonoids and not just from eating healthier in general. You don't know until you put it to the test. See some fruits, and vegetables.
More than others, apples have more than apricots, plums, more than peaches red cabbage, more than white kale more than cucumbers. So if you randomize people into one of three groups, more High flavonoid, fruits and vegetables, more low, flavonoid, fruits and vegetables or no extra fruits and vegetables at all after 18 weeks. Only the High flavonoid group, got a significant boost in bdnf levels, which correspond to an improvement in cognitive performance, the bdnf Boost met.
Help explain. Why each additional daily serving of fruits and vegetables is associated with a 3%. Decrease in the risk of depression, a teaspoon. A day of the spice Turmeric May boost bdnf levels more than a 50% within a month consistent with the other randomized control trials that have so far been done nuts. May help to in the predamond study where people were randomized, be sent weekly batches of nuts or extra virgin olive oil. The nut group lowered their risk of having low b d and f
Levels by 78% and brain-derived neurotrophic. Factor is not just implicated in depression but schizophrenia as well have those with schizophrenia undergo a 12-week exercise program. They get a significant boost in bdnf levels leading the researchers to suggest that exercise induced modulation of bdnf. May play an important role in developing non-pharmacological treatment for chronic schizophrenia patients. Okay, but what actually,
And to their schizophrenia symptoms, let's find out 30 individuals, with schizophrenia randomized to ramp up to 40 minutes of aerobic exercise, three times a week or not. And there did appear to be an improvement in psychiatric symptoms. Such as hallucinations as well as increasing their quality of life. In fact, you can actually visualize what happened in their brains loss of brain volume in a certain region, appears to be a feature of schizophrenia, but 30 minutes of exercise three times a week.
Get up to a 20% increase in size of that region within three months. Calorie restriction may also increase bdnf levels and schizophrenic, but they didn't just have them any less but eat healthier, less saturated, fat and sugar, and more fruits and veggies. It's like the Soviet fasting trials for schizophrenia. Is there reported these truly unbelievable results. Supposedly restoring people to function fasting described as an unparalleled achievement in the treatment of schizophrenia.
Grunting, okay, but part of the problem is that the diagnostic system, the Soviets used is completely different making any results hard to interpret, but they do have a subgroup that does seem to correspond to the Western definition. And they still report between 40 and 60 percent Improvement rates from fasting. But that's not all they did. After being fasted for up to a month. They were put on a meat and egg free diet. So when they report these, you know, remarkable effects, even years later, that's for those who
Talk with the diet, those who broke the diet evidently relapsed, and the clothes that I was followed the better, the effect. They note that not all patients were able to remain vegetarian, but they tried to keep meat to a minimum and look, we know from randomized control trials that just removing meet next can improve mental states with even just two weeks. And so, it's hard to know what role. The fasting itself played in the reported improvements. A single high fat meal can
Upbeat in F levels within hours. And you can prove it's the fat Itself by seeing the same thing. Injecting fat straight into their veins, perhaps that it helps explain why increase consumption of saturated fats and high fat diet. May contribute to brain, dysfunction neurodegenerative diseases, long term, memory loss cognitive impairment. Maybe that helps explain why these standard American diet has been linked to higher risk of depression dietary factors modulating, the levels of brain. Derived neurotrophic Factor.
If depression can be induced with Pro inflammatory, drugs, Myton anti-inflammatory diet be effective in preventing and treating mood disorders. Depression affects more than a hundred and fifty million people worldwide, making it a leading cause of losing healthy years of life. As a result of disability.
In fact by 2020 depression, maybe the second leading
cause of healthy years of life. Lost second only to heart disease. Why is the person so calm?
Amin. Well, it is said nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. But why would we evolved to get depressed, depression poses, a baffling evolutionary puzzle, if it has such negative effects, but yet it remains so common and heritable, meaning a big chunk of risk is passed through our genes. So there must be some kind of adaptive benefit. Otherwise, presumably would have been naturally selected against Maybe.
Oppression is an evolutionary strategy for defense against infection infection, has been the leading cause of mortality throughout human history. The average life expectancy was
25 and it was not uncommon for half our kids
to die with such Stark. Capabilities infection has been a critical important driving force in natural selection. When we become infected, there's a surge of inflammation is our body mounts, a counter-attack. And then what happens, we
Feel lousy. We feel sick. We
go weak tired, slow and sleepy. We don't want to see anyone. We want. Don't want to do anything. All I want to do is
sleep. It's like we're depressed and that's great for fighting infection. Not only does it help us conserve energy so we can put up a good fight but reduces social
contact. We're not running around infecting
everyone. It's the same reason we evolved to think you poop doesn't smell good or decaying flesh that keeps us safe from infection.
In fact, we see
this phenomenon with other social animals, like
honey, bees and mole rats. Who feel impelled to crawl off and die alone when they get sick, which reduces the risk for the rest of the community. The relationship between mental health and inflammation was first, noted in 1887 for which the only
psychiatrist ever win, the ward,
got a Nobel Prize, but what evidence have we accumulated in the century since that inflammation causes depression?
Well, people who are depressed. Have raised inflammatory markers, such as C-reactive protein, inflammatory illnesses are associated with greater rates of major depression. Indeed. That's what's found a variety of inflammatory conditions, including more kind of benign, inflammatory conditions like asthma and allergies. And you know, that's important. Suggesting the mood symptoms are not simply feeling bad about having a terrible disease,
but may be directly,
tied to the inflammation.
And most powerfully you can actually induce depression by inducing inflammation. Like when we give interferon for certain cancers or chronic infections up to 50%, go on to suffer, major depression, even just giving a vaccine caused enough inflammation to trigger depressive symptoms. Taken together. These studies are strongly suggestive of inflammation being a causative factor of mood symptoms. So can an
Anti-inflammatory, diet, help prevent depression. We didn't know until about 43,000 women, without depression were fault along with their diets for about, a dozen years to see who became depressed. And it was those who ate
a more inflammatory diet pattern, characterized by more soda, refined grains and meat suggesting their chronic inflammation, May underlie the
association between diet and depression. Normally, we think of Omega-3s as anti-inflammatory, but they found fish.
Debbie pro-inflammatory associated with increased C-reactive protein levels consistent with recent findings that omega-3 don't seem to help with either depression or inflammation. The
most anti-inflammatory diet is plant-based,
which can cut C-reactive protein levels by 30% within two weeks, perhaps, because of the anti-inflammatory
properties of antioxidants. I've talked about this before but never
really explained. Why?
Why
antioxidants are
anti-inflammatory. See, oxidative damage caused by free. Radicals, may cause an autoimmune response in the
body by changing the chemical structure of otherwise. Ubiquitous molecules to
generate new structures that the body attacks as foreign. For
example, when LDL cholesterol gets oxidized or body creates antibodies against it and attacks it
and so
clinical depression can be accompanied by increased oxidative
stress and the
No mune inflammatory response. It creates free radicals lead to autoimmune inflammation.
Where else does inflammation come from in our diet endotoxins
and it's worth reviewing. How the endotoxins in animal products can cause a burst of inflammation within hours of consumption. What does it do to our mood? If you inject
endotoxin into people within a few hours inflammation? Shoots up and so does feelings of depression, as well as feelings of social disconnection between
People although previous research has demonstrated that inflammatory activity contributes to depressive symptoms. No
work in humans has examine the effect of experimental. Induce inflammation on
anhedonia the lack of reaction to pleasurable. Stimuli. That's an important symptom of depression. No work has been done. That is until now
within hours of endotoxin, hitting their
bloodstream, these experimental subjects, not only started to feel depressed.
Rest, but they had
significant reductions in activity in the reward center their brain.
They were less excited about winning money playing video games. For example, in this study, but by eliminating animal products and eating antioxidant Rich diets, we may be able to prevent or treat depression, the most comprehensive controlled trial of diet and mood finds that a plant-based nutrition program in a workplace setting across 10. Corporate sites, significantly improves.
Prussian anxiety and productivity 2014 systematic review and meta-analysis of dietary patterns and depression concluded that a healthy diet. Pattern was significantly associated with reduced odds of depression, but I have a 21 studies, you can find the medical literature. They were only able to find one randomized, controlled trial, considered the study design that provides the highest level of evidence. And it was the study I profiled in improving mood.
Through diet which removing meat fish, poultry and eggs improved, several mood scores in just two weeks. We've known that those eating plant-based and have healthier mood States, less tension, anxiety, depression, anger, or hostility and fatigue, but you couldn't tell if it was causing fact until you put it to the test, which I finally did. But what could account for such rapid results? Well, eating vegetarian does give you a better antioxidant status.
Which may help with depression. Also, as I previously addressed, how consumption, even a single carbohydrate Rich, meal can improve depression, tension, anger confusion sadness, fatigue alert and calmness scores among patients with PMS Port about long-term overweight men and women were randomized into a low-carb, high-fat diet, or high carb low fat diet for a year by the end of the year who had less.
Russian anxiety, anger and hostility feelings of dejection tension, fatigue better, Vigor, less confusion, mood, disturbances. These sustained improvements in mood and low fat group compared with a low-carb group are consistent with results from epidemiological. Studies showing the diets high in carbohydrates. Low in fat, and protein are associated with lower levels of anxiety, and depression, have beneficial effects on psychological well-being.
The overall amount of fat in their diet, didn't change in this study though, but the type of fat did there, arachidonic acid intake, fell to zero.
Rocket on the gas. It is an inflammatory omega-6s fatty acid that can adversely impact mental health. Via a Cascade of neuro inflammation and may inflame our brain, high blood levels in the bloodstream have been associated with a greater likelihood of suicide risk, for example, and major depressive episodes. How can we stay away from the stuff whole Americans are exposed to Rack it. On again acid primarily through chicken and eggs.
But when you remove chicken and eggs, and other meat, we can eliminate preformed arachidonic acid from our diet. So, while high-quality treatment studies investigating the impact of diet on depression are scarce, there is that successful two-week trial, but even better. How about 22 weeks, overweight or diabetic employees of a major Insurance Corporation received either weekly group instruction on a whole food plant-based diet or no diet is
Some for five and a half months. There was no portion size. Restriction. No calorie counting low carb, counting, no change in exercise. No meals were provided but the company cafeteria didn't start offering daily options. Such as local, soup. Minestrone bean burritos, no meat, eggs. Dairy, Euler junk yet. They reported greater diet satisfaction compared with the control group, participants who had no diet restrictions. How'd they do though more participants in the plan?
I've based intervention group reported improved digestion, increased energy better sleep than usual at week 22 compared with the control group. They also reported a significant increase in physical functioning General, Health vitality, and mental health. Where the plant based group beat out controls on nearly every measure.
There was also significant improvements in work productivity thought to be due in large part to their improvements in health. So, what this study demonstrated was that a cholesterol free diet is acceptable. Not only in research settings, but a typical corporate environment. Improving quality of life and productivity at little cost. All we need now is a large randomized trial for confirmation, but we didn't have such a thing until now.
Ten corporate sites across the country from San Diego to Macon. Georgia same kind of setup as before can a plant based nutrition program in a multicenter corporate setting improve depression anxiety and productivity. Yes, significant improvements in depression, anxiety, fatigue, emotional well-being, and daily functioning lifestyle interventions have been increasingly apparent role in physical, and mental health. And among the most effective of these is the use of
Plant-based diets.
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