Food Myth: Specific Nutrients Can Cure Depression

Food truth: Your lousy diet for the past few years likely contributed to your current state of depression. If this is true, then the solution is obvious: change your diet. Good luck. Everyone wants to eat healthier; just look at all of the scientifically goofy fad diets that appear all of the time. Do they work? Usually no, but at least you feel as though you are doing something.

The problem is that depression has many causes, some are genetic (was your mom depressed?); some are situational due to life stress (did you just lose your job or your spouse?); sometimes it is just due to the change of seasons. For many of us, it is due to decades of eating an unhealthy diet. Before you try a drastically different diet, please talk to your doctor.

Lousy food choices lead to conditions in your brain that underlie depression. Due to the nature of my research, I am often asked, “What can I eat to cure my depression?” That’s the wrong question. The brain does not work that way. Your question should be: What should I stop eating to avoid remaining depressed?

Changing your diet is very hard. We all want a simple fast solution, hopefully in the form of a little white pill, that allows us to continue eating fat, salt, and sugar in all of its wonderful forms. Sadly, such a pill is not available. I can assure that many drug companies are searching for a drug.

You do not need to buy another book about the effects of food on the brain (mine included), and you do not need to start another fad diet with high carbs or low carbs or whatever. You have probably already well aware of the best advice currently available. Eat a diet rich in fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grains combined with reduced caloric intake. This diet should, over time, compensate for the numerous negative effects that your lousy diet has had on your mental health. Dieticians, physicians, psychiatrists, and other health care providers beg their patients to change their diet; patients rarely do.

Can a poor diet lead to mental health disorders? Yes. How? Two obvious ways. Eating too little and not getting the balance of essential nutrients or eating too much fat, salt, and sugar combined with too many calories for too many years. For most of us, the problem is body fat. Excessive body fat can make you depressed and also makes it less likely that you will respond to anti-depressant therapy. Today, an overwhelming amount of scientific evidence obtained across a wide spectrum of medical disciplines strongly argues that obesity accelerates impairments in overall cognitive function, underlies depression and, ultimately, is at least partially responsible for the numerous processes that kill us.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if a particular vitamin supplement of a particular food source could improve your mental health? Yes. Unfortunately, that approach has been revealed to be simplistic, scientifically unsupportable, and ultimately ineffective for the majority of us. It is worth noting that a small percentage of the general population is vulnerable to the lack of specific nutrients in their poor diet. This category of nutrients often includes vitamins and minerals. Adding those nutrients back to their diet is often beneficial. However, numerous studies have now conclusively shown that for the overwhelming majority of us, supplements with vitamins and nutrients are a waste of money. More vitamin D or B or whatever will not make the majority of us less depressed.

Does your diet negatively affect your mood? Yes, of course. Your diet can make you depressed. However, a healthier diet can only compensate for your current lousy diet. Fruits and vegetables and whole grains are not going to improve your mental health to the point that you are euphoric; they can only begin to reverse the damage that your past lousy diet has already caused.

No dietary nutrient has ever been proven scientifically to enhance brain function. The advice you hear about so often is designed to convince you to stop your poor diet to avoid becoming unhealthier and cognitively impaired. Therefore, choose your diet wisely, your happiness depends upon it.

© Gary L. Wenk, Ph.D.