Dietary Sugar and Mental Illness: A Surprising Link

I’ve always known sugar does terrible things to my mind as well as body. I feel a sickly high after eating too much sugar, lose energy and get a depressed sort of brain fog. I thought it was just me!

I have wondered about the long term affects on mood and suspected sugar consumption could have an affect on depression. Recently a noted psychiatric researcher Malcolm Peet, conducted an analysis of the relationship between diet and mental illness. His primary findings agree with my suspicion. He found a strong link between high sugar consumption and the risk of both depression and schizophrenia.

Dietary Sugar and Mental Illness: A Surprising Link

First, sugar actually suppresses activity of a key growth hormone in the brain called BDNF. This hormone promotes the health and maintenance of neurons in the brain, and it plays a vital role in memory function by triggering the growth of new connections between neurons. BDNF levels are critically low in both depression and schizophrenia, which explains why both syndromes often lead to shrinkage of key brain regions over time (yes, chronic depression actually leads to brain damage). There’s also evidence from animal models that low BDNF can trigger depression…

As I’ve become increasingly convinced by these research data, I’ve begun gently encouraging my depressed patients to simply try cutting out sugars for a couple of weeks to see if they notice any effect… A few have had the courage and determination to given it a go: they’re reported remarkable improvements in mood, energy, and mental clarity.

The Unexplained Physical Pain of Depression

Physical pain and depression go hand in hand for many people - typically women more than men. Sometimes the mystery pain, called somatoform pain disorder, is just written off as the person being a hypochondriac - but to the person experiencing the pain, it is very real.

A new research study investigated the fairly common problem of unexplained pain in people with depression.

Unexplained Pain Among Depressed Patients

“According to Frieser then, it is possible that patients who report to their doctors with multiple pain symptoms that cannot be explained in clinical terms are very probably suffering from a depressive disorder requiring treatment. In cases of major depression, the affected patients often exhibit dejection, despair, swings in appetite and body weight, insomnia or an increased need for sleep, tiredness, lack of energy, and psychomotor disturbances. These patients not infrequently also consider committing suicide.

The results of the GP survey in Mainz underline the importance of the correct classification and evaluation of pain symptoms for health care services; the general practitioners concluded that pain was somatoform in 73 percent of cases, and could be fully explained in medical terms in only 27 percent of cases.”

Cymbalta is one anti-depressant that is advertised to treat the “pain” of depression. I have not read enough reviews to know how well it works on the physical pain but it may be worth asking your Dr. about if you are suffering.

Stop the Madness - 7 Quick Sanity Tips

Recently Therese Borchard over at the PsychCentral blog asked readers for their sanity tricks - techniques that help them fight the forces of the dark side. I’ll share mine and then quote and link to the best ones readers submitted.

My Sanity Tip #7 - In with the good/out with the bad breathing. When severe anxiety hits, something that helps me is good/bad breathing. As I inhale deeply I say inside my rattled mind “In with the good: calm, peace, prosperity.” On the long, slow, cleansing exhale I say “Out with the bad: fear, worry, stress and sadness.” Change the words to fit your situation, be sure to do deep breathing and do as long as necessary until you find yourself calming down.

6 Quick Sanity Tricks

1. Learn the alphabet.

Do you know why the vowel “I” comes well before the vowel “U”? Because a person must take care of herself before trying to help someone else or the world. It’s the same logic that flight attendants use when they swear to you that your plane isn’t going to crash, but in the event that it does, you’d be smart to fasten your own oxygen mask before helping the kiddies. Do it in reverse, and you’ll all run out of air.

Read the rest of the 6 Tricks here.