Could a high-fat diet lead to depression?
By Contributor
A new study reveals that consuming a high-fat diet may cause anxiety and depressive symptoms and measurable changes in the brain.
A high-fat diet and depression
A study in mice reveals that increased body weight and high blood sugar, as a result of consuming a high-fat diet, may cause anxiety and depressive symptoms and measurable changes in the brain.
Blunting the effects of anti-depressants
Also, the beneficial effects of an antidepressant were blunted in mice fed a high-fat diet.
Reversing anxiety
"When treating depression, in general there is no predictor of treatment resistance," said Dr. Bruno Guiard, senior author of the British Journal of Pharmacology study. "So if we consider metabolic disorders as a putative treatment resistance predictor, this should encourage psychiatrists to put in place a personalised treatment with antidepressant drugs that do not further destabilise metabolism."
On the other hand, taking mice off a high-fat diet completely reversed the animals' metabolic impairments and lessened their anxious symptoms.
"This finding reinforces the idea that the normalisation of metabolic parameters may give a better chance of achieving remission, particularly in depressed patients with type 2 diabetes," said Dr. Guiard.
More investigations are required
The results set the tone for future investigations on potential mechanisms that may link metabolic and psychiatric disorders.