90% of your depression can be improved by food! How to supplement nutrition?

Do you often get in a bad mood because of a small thing? Restless and easy to get angry with the people around you? Or being alone at home late at night, insomnia due to stress, overeating, etc... Your emotions make your life very unpleasant.

A Japanese psychiatrist Fujikawa Tokumi, based on his 36 years of clinical experience, more than 5,000 cases, wrote a book "Your depression, 90% can be improved by food", today I will share some of the key content of the book with you.

First of all, it should be clear that the views in the book are based on Dr. Fujikawa's clinical experience, and have not risen to the level of treatment guidelines for diseases, and there may be a certain degree of "survivor bias", nor is it universally applicable, and cannot replace professional medical advice. So I try my best to combine my cognition, sort out and summarize the knowledge points, and help everyone establish a new knowledge of bad emotions through reasonable nutrition intervention.

You're just full, but you're not eating well enough

Most people face qualitative dystrophy

As Dr. Fujikawa said, medical care has always been heavy on drugs and light on nutrition, and many sub-health conditions are also caused by insufficient nutrition.

So lack of nutrition is not enough to eat? Not necessarily!

There are two types of nutritional deficiencies: "quantitative nutritional disorders" and "qualitative nutritional disorders". The former is common in women and the elderly with smaller meals, and later on some people with poor gastrointestinal function; while the latter is actually a situation faced by most normal people, eating enough and being full enough, but a real nutritional disorder.

The diet of people with qualitative dystrophy has a characteristic: excessive sugar + insufficient protein + insufficient fatty acids + insufficient vitamins + insufficient minerals.

The "barrel effect" of proteins

The protein you eat may not be of good quality enough

Friends who are experiencing uneasy emotions should first check whether the protein they eat is enough, because protein is the main raw material for neurotransmitters, such as serotonin that can calm people, dopamine that makes people feel happy, etc., and the number of neurotransmitters directly affects people's psychological state. At least 50 to 70 g of protein supplementation is required per day. This is the amount requirement.

In terms of quality, it is necessary to understand which foods are better source of protein, otherwise the same feeling of fullness will be achieved, and the quality of nutrients will decrease.

So how should we assess whether a food's protein is good?

We all know that protein is composed of a variety of different amino acids, if the protein is regarded as a "wooden barrel", then the amino acid is a piece of "wooden board", the barrel (protein) is good or not, is determined by the shortest board (amino acids).

Analogy to nutrition, that is, "amino acid score", if the amino acid composition and proportion of a food is closer to the human body, then its protein is easier to be absorbed by the human body, and the better the quality.

We have compiled common foods with an amino acid score of 100: eggs, pork, lamb, chicken, beef, milk, clams, sardines.

Eat more eggs in particular. From a nutritional point of view, eggs are a near-perfect food. Eggs are rich in lecithin, and one of its constituent components, choline, is the raw material for the synthesis of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Like serotonin and norepinephrine, insufficient amounts of acetylcholine in the body can induce depression. At least 2 eggs a day, if you do not eat meat, you can eat 5, not only to ensure the intake of high-quality protein, but also to provide raw materials for acetylcholine synthesis, which is of great benefit to physical and mental health.

Although plant-derived protein is also good, animal-derived protein is more recommended in comparison.

At the time of physical examination, there is an indicator called "blood urea nitrogen (BUN)", the normal range is 8 to 20mg /dL, if this value is high, it may mean that renal dysfunction, low means insufficient protein intake (may also be severe liver dysfunction). Dr. Fujikawa recommends maintaining a target value of 15 to 20 mg/dL to help patients consume more high-quality protein.

Depression and panic in women

Mostly due to inadequate intake of iron

During the physical examination, it is generally determined whether it is anemia based on the "hemoglobin value", but to know whether it is caused by iron deficiency, pay attention to the "ferritin value", which reflects the amount of iron stored in the human body. If we compare hemoglobin to cash in your pocket, then ferritin is your deposit in the bank.

Dr. Fujikawa found that many of the depressed or panic disorder patients who came to his clinic had low ferritin values, especially young women without menopause, and not paying attention to iron supplementation on a daily basis could lead to chronic iron deficiency, resulting in frequent feelings of exhaustion, lethargy, lethargy, restlessness, etc.

If the ferritin value is lower than 10, it is best to take 2 to 3 months to restore the ferritin value, when this value reaches 30 to 50, the patient can feel the improvement of physical and mental condition after 1 month.

So how to effectively supplement iron?

Remember to eat at least 200g of meat per day: meat, liver, fish have a higher iron content, and it is heme iron, the absorption rate is higher, especially beef, which is a food that can supplement protein and iron at the same time, and grass-fed beef is recommended in beef, which contains more omega-3 high-quality fatty acids.

The well-known iron supplement vegetable - spinach, although the content is high, but for non-heme iron, the absorption rate is low, and the phytic acid and other substances in vegetables will further hinder the absorption of non-heme iron.

It should also be reminded that if you eat fish to supplement, often eat not enough, because the fish has fish bones, and generally we eat a fish, think to eat a lot, in fact, eliminate the fish meat fish bones, etc., and did not eat much meat, a 200g of fish in fact meat may only be about 100g.

If you can't reach the recommended amount by eating alone

Choose protein powder and iron to supplement

Women will need more iron and protein due to menstruation, pregnancy, breastfeeding, etc., and the actual situation is that women eat very little, and the lack of iron and protein is very serious.

If you have a small appetite, and then due to poor mood leading to low appetite, the intake will be greatly reduced, and then do not pay attention to supplementation, you will enter a vicious circle.

Therefore, if there is no way to achieve the recommended amount by relying on a normal diet, you can choose protein powder and iron to help.

1) Protein powder: If you eat less than 200g of meat + 3 eggs per day, you can choose protein powder as a supplement, 10 ~ 20g each time, 2 times a day. Whey Protein Isolate Powder is preferred. Consistently taking protein powders can also be effective in reducing the amount of medication used for mental illness.

2) Iron: Preferentially choose amino acid chelated iron nutritional supplements, no "rust taste", and higher absorption rate.

These foods are best not eaten

They will make you feel worse

1) Refined carb water, free sugar

The most common refined carb is refined white rice and noodles, rice in the finishing process, the vitamins and minerals in the germ are discarded together with rice bran and bran, and the refined white rice noodles without these nutrients are just "scraps".

Free sugar is mainly white sugar, rock sugar, brown sugar, honey, maltose syrup, glucose syrup, corn syrup, fructose syrup, fruit juice, etc., especially note that honey and fruit juice also belong to free sugar.

Eating these two foods can affect our blood sugar, cause excessive insulin secretion, and easily lead to neurotransmitter deficiencies (serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine). According to the "monoamine hypothesis" in the study of the mechanism of depression, neurotransmitter deficiency is the cause of depression, and some antidepressants on the market are based on this hypothesis.

2) Trans fatty acids

Trans fatty acids are "bad fats" that are harmful to the body and have no benefits, and excessive intake will increase the incidence of myocardial infarction and other diseases. Trans fatty acids are commonly found in a variety of commercially available processed foods, are low cost but have a strong aroma.

Baked fried foods, such as wafer biscuits, sandwich cakes, egg yolk pie, cocoa butter and chocolate products, ice cream, french fries, egg tarts, etc., may have trans fatty acids. In particular, pay attention to foods in the ingredient list that contain the words "margarine", "shortening", "hydrogenated vegetable oil", "vegetable cream", "vegetable fat powder" and so on.

Although the Mainland's "General Principles for Nutrition Labeling of Prepackaged Foods" stipulates that when the trans fatty acid content ≤ 0.3g/100g, it can be labeled as "0" trans fatty acids. So you see that a certain food claims to contain trans fatty acids is not necessarily true, it may be just below 0.3g/100g.

Dr. Fujikawa's nutritional supplement combination

Prompts a surge in ATP and eases mood

The first thing to understand is what is ATP?

ATP is adenosine triphosphate, which can reserve and supply energy to the organism and is also an intermediary for energy transmission. ATP for the human body is like electricity to the machine, without electricity, the machine can not operate, without ATP, the human body can not survive.

How to make ATP more?

First, change the dietary patterns. Compared with glucose, fatty acids produce ATP more efficiently, so the diet based on carb water is changed to "high protein + relatively high quality fat + low carbon water", so that more ATP can be obtained. To ensure the smooth progress of this process, it is necessary to have sufficient vitamins and other coenzymes and cofactors, and it is recommended to supplement the following combination of vitamins:

铁:70~100mg/d

B complex vitamins: According to the content, it is best to contain 50 mg each of VB1, VB2, VB6, etc., and the daily intake of various VBs reaches 200 mg

Vitamin C: 6000 to 9000 mg per day

Vitamin E: 400 to 800 IU/day

Note: Do not take vitamin E with iron, eat VE in the morning and iron in the evening. Men who are not deficient in iron can not supplement iron.

Dr. Fujikawa's advice to everyone, all chronic diseases are qualitative nutritional disorders, treatment methods can actually follow the big idea, that is, "high protein + low-carbon water + moderate amount of fat + large dose of vitamins + moderate amount of minerals", the above recommended amount is for reference only, the best intake varies from person to person, and can be continuously corrected through their own practice.

Finally, I wish everyone an early release of bad emotions and find your inner peace...

Disclaimer: WuXi AppTec's content team focuses on the global biomedical health research process. This article is for informational purposes only and the views expressed herein do not represent the position of WuXi AppTec, nor do they represent WuXi AppTec's support for or opposition to the views expressed herein. This article is also not recommended for treatment options. For guidance on treatment options, please visit a regular hospital.