Young adults who eat poorly and feel blue might be able to perk themselves up by switching to a healthier diet, a small study suggests. In a randomized trial, men and women aged 17-35 in Australia who switched to a healthier diet had fewer depression symptoms after three weeks. And those who kept up the healthy eating for three months continued to feel better than at the start, researchers report in the journal PLoS ONE.
"This has 100% reach (since everybody needs to eat), is more cost effective than medications, and is an aspect of treatment that individuals can control themselves," said lead study author Heather Francis of Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.
"This raises the possibility that making changes to diet can act as a therapy to improve depression symptoms," she told Reuters Health by email. Francis and colleagues studied 76 people who scored high on two depression and anxiety scales - indicating moderate or high depression symptoms - and who also scored high on a questionnaire about dietary fat and sugar consumption.
Participants were randomly assigned to a diet-change group or a habitual-diet group for three weeks. The diet-change group received instructions from a registered dietician through a 13-minute video, which they could re-watch as needed.
The program also recommended daily consumption of three tablespoons of nuts and seeds, two tablespoons of olive oil, and one teaspoon each of turmeric and cinnamon. After three weeks, average depression scores had dropped into the normal range in the diet-change group, while remaining elevated or severe in the habitual-diet group - and the improvements were maintained three months later, the research team reports.
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