Nutritional Aspects of Depression

I am new to this board and had a glance at some of the posts here.

I am a retired Nutritional Psychologist which means that I combine nutritional therapy with psychotherapy.

It is my belief that depression is basically a physical disease, affecting synthesis of neurotransmitters in the brain, especially serotonin. If that is correct then it would be difficult to accept that psychotherapy can address the underlying biochemical disorder, just as psychotherapy cannot treat diabetes.
The connection to nutrition can be explained by the fact that the forerunners of neurotransmitters are found in the food we eat.

For instance, tryptophan is an amino acid (protein building block) found in most high protein food sources that is converted to serotonin in the presence of vitamin B6 and magnesium.

There are many other biochemical mechanisms, that affect the synthesis of beneficial neurochemical. Again, if we are deficient in vitamin B3 (niacin), then the body will use up all the available tryptophan in the body for conversion to niacin at the rate of 60 to 1. This would leave very little tryptophan for conversion to serotonin.

Thus we are introducing a new concept in the treatment of depression, and for that matter any other mental illness. Most psychologically oriented counsellors believe that many of our negative thoughts are the cause of depression, whereas I tend to see these as the SYMPTOMS of depression and not causes.

Scientific studies have shown that there is one very common factor in depression found to be insulin resistance (hypoglycemia).

This means that there is an obstruction in the availability of glucose to the brain as its only source of energy. With unstable blood sugar levels the body is producing stress hormones - such as adrenaline and cortisol - that cause the wildly fluctuating mood swings, anxiety attacks, insomnia, depression. The adoption of the hypoglycemic diet is an essential part of overall treatment. This diet stops the uncontrolled production of stress hormones when blood sugar levels normalize.

When we have uncontrolled emotions generated by internally produced stress hormones, we are likely to externalize these feelings to whatever happens to be in our environment that can act as a stimulus. This is, as I see it, how phobias are created. In the absence of any logical explanation to these internally driven hormones we tend to blame our past, or any significant event that may be associated with these feelings.

Nevertheless, psychotherapy has a role in that once the underlying metabolic disorder is being treated (my preference is without drugs through nutritional therapy[y), a person need to learn social skills to handle psychological stress situation in the here-and-now. Psychological stress will trigger the release of stress hormone, that interfere with the synthesis of serotonin and other beneficial neurotransmitters. A most common source of stress is a low self-esteem, which appear to be common among people with a ‘mental’ illness.

If you are interested in this approach please read:

“The Nutritional Aspects of Depression” at:

http://www.hypoglycemia.asn.au/articles ... ssion.html