“Depression symptoms dropped significantly in a group of young adults who ate a Mediterranean-style diet for three weeks. It’s the latest study to show that food can influence mental health.”
Allison Aubrey and Rhitu Chatterjee, reporting for America’s National Public Radio (NPR):
“There’s fresh evidence that eating a healthy diet, one that includes plenty of fruits and vegetables and limits highly processed foods, can help reduce symptoms of depression.
A randomized controlled trial published in the journal PLOS ONE finds that symptoms of depression dropped significantly among a group of young adults after they followed a Mediterranean-style pattern of eating for three weeks. Participants saw their depression “score” fall from the “moderate” range down to the “normal” range, and they reported lower levels of anxiety and stress too.
Alternatively, the depression scores among the control group of participants — who didn’t change their diets — didn’t budge. These participants continued to eat a diet higher in refined carbohydrates, processed foods and sugary foods and beverages. Their depression scores remained in the “moderate severity” range.
‘We were quite surprised by the findings,’ researcher Heather Francis, a lecturer in clinical neuropsychology at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, told NPR via email. ‘I think the next step is to demonstrate the physiological mechanism underlying how diet can improve depression symptoms,’ Francis said …”
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