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Bags of candy are displayed on a store shelf in Miami in April. A small UCSF study found that participants who cut almost all ultra-processed foods from their diets experienced a significant drop in depression symptoms.<\/p>\n
Joe Raedle\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
A small UCSF study found striking drops in depression symptoms among people who dramatically changed their diet to cut out almost all ultra-processed foods.<\/p>\n
The results do not suggest a panacea for depression\u00a0\u2014 no one is going to tell people who are depressed to stop eating potato chips if they want to feel better. But they do highlight the close tie between diet and mood, and imply that what people eat could be a target for treatment of depression, which is a widespread and in some cases intractable problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt opens the door to a new field of inquiry for depression research,\u201d said Dr. Andrew Krystal, a UCSF psychiatrist and senior author of the study. \u201cWe attack things with expensive, high-tech solutions, like medications, which is a good thing. But diet has been neglected.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Depression affects nearly one in five adults in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Though treatments exist that can help many people manage the disorder, some cases are more difficult. And the condition is so widespread that many people go without care simply because there aren\u2019t enough providers to see them.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why finding new therapies for depression and other mood disorders is so important, say experts in mental health.<\/p>\n
Scientists have long been aware of the tie between diet, the gut and mood orders like depression. Studies have found correlations between the Mediterranean diet, for example, and lower rates of depression and anxiety.<\/p>\n
Indeed, the vagus nerve, a major neural connector between the brain and the body, has masses of connections to the gut. \u201cSo truly what\u2019s happening in the gut has direct effects on neural pathways,\u201d said Dalia Perelman, a research dietitian at Stanford.<\/p>\n
And most people are aware to some degree of how their diet can affect the way they feel: Who hasn\u2019t been \u201changry\u201d before? Or felt the crash after a heavy meal? Delicious foods can even have an uplifting effect.<\/p>\n
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Untangling the role that diet plays in mental health is challenging, though, because food interacts with all parts of the body. And the effect goes both ways\u00a0\u2014 what people eat affects how they feel, and how they feel affects what they eat.<\/p>\n
Ultra-processed foods could be causing harm to mental health through a variety of mechanisms\u00a0\u2014 perhaps their high fat and sugar content causes certain hormones to be released that can affect mood. Or they may contain additives that are causing consequences in the brain.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe brain is so sensitive to the impact of diet,\u201d said Maryam Makowski, a medical nutrition scientist at Stanford. \u201cThere are a couple of studies that showed if you eat processed food that is high in sugar and fat today, you will feel worse two days later. But you can also feel changes in days or even hours.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr. Nyasha Chagwedera, first author of the UCSF study, said ultra-processed foods may be causing damage to the gut that is then having more widespread effects.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis gut damage can create low-grade, chronic inflammation throughout the body that either directly causes depression or makes people more vulnerable to it,\u201d said Chagwedera. \u201cIn other words, junky processing may harm your gut in ways that ripple up to your brain.\u201d<\/p>\n
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