Tag Archives: health food

Tips From The Professor: An Apple A Day Keeps The Blues Away

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Last week I shared with you a study suggesting that junk food makes you sad.

So you might be asking: “Does that mean that healthy foods can make you glad?”

According to one recent study (Br J Health Psychol, Jan 24, 2013, doi:

10.1111/bjhp.12021) the answer may be yes.

A team from the University of Otago in New Zealand enrolled 281 young adults (average age = 20) in a study that looked at the effect of diet on their mood. Each day for 21 consecutive days they recorded their mood and what foods they ate using an online questionnaire.

In particular, they reported the number of servings of fresh fruit and vegetables and of several unhealthy foods such as biscuits or cookies, potato chips or French fries and cakes or muffins.

The investigators correlated the foods eaten with the moods reported by the participants on the same day, and again on the day after those foods were eaten. The results were pretty impressive.

On the days when people ate more fruits and vegetables they reported feeling calmer, happier and more energetic than they did on other days (p = .002 – anything less than .05 is considered a statistically significant difference). And the good effects of fruit and vegetable consumption carried over to the next day as well (p < .001).

While I paraphrased the “apple a day” quote to introduce this topic, one apple won’t quite do it.

According to this study it takes about 7-8 servings of fruits and vegetables to positively affect mood.

Of course, any good scientist will tell you that correlations do not prove cause and effect. It could be that when people are “down in the dumps” they just naturally reach for junk foods rather than fruits and vegetables.

However, since there is no downside to consuming fruits and vegetables, I feel fully comfortable recommending more fruits and vegetables in our diets.

If their health benefits aren’t enough to motivate you, maybe the possibility of improving your mood will!

There are some things we just can’t control. We can’t do anything about the cold, dark days of winter. And to paraphrase those country songs, we can’t keep our girl and dog from running off. Life happens to all of us.

But, if we want to keep our mood where it should be, we can always reach for those fresh fruits and vegetables.

To Your Health!

Dr. Stephen G Chaney

P.S. Now Available For Immediate Shipping: The “180 Lifestyle Program” – a comprehensive lifestyle change program that you can use to support all of the 180 Turnaround customers that you will be working with as your 180 parties start getting results. Visit http://www.socialmarketingconnection.com to grab this valuable new tools to support your 180 business. While you are there, you can also check out the many benefits that you will receive when you sign up for my VIP program.

Dr. Stephen G Chaney

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

 

Tips From The Professor: Can Foods Make You Blue?

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The standard American diet (S.A.D.) is high in processed foods, fat (especially saturated and trans fats), refined grains, simple sugars, salt and calories. As I’ve said before, almost anything would be better.

You probably already know that the S.A.D. leads to obesity and a whole host of diseases – including heart disease, cancer and diabetes – just to name a few.

But did you know that the S.A.D. could make you sad?

That statement is based on a study by Akbaralay et al (British Journal of Psychiatry, 195: 408-413, 2009) in which they looked at the dietary patterns and mental health outcomes of 3486 participants in the Whitehall II Prospective Study.

In case you didn’t know it, Whitehall is the central district in London where most of the British government offices are located.

So the 3486 participants in this study were bureaucrats. They were middle aged (average age 55.6 years old) office staff (74% men, 26% women) who spent most of their day sitting and really didn’t like their jobs very much.

(I made up the part about not liking their jobs, but you get the picture.)

At the beginning of the study the participants were given a 127 item food frequency quiz to fill out.

Interestingly enough, the food preferences of the participants in this study clustered neatly into two groups.

The diets of the processed foods groups predominantly consisted of sweetened desserts, chocolates, fried foods, processed meats, refined grains and high fat dairy products.

In contrast, the diets of the whole foods group consisted mostly of vegetables, fruits, fish and whole grains.

Five years later the study participants were analyzed for depression using a

20 item standardized depression scale.

The results were pretty eye-catching. The processed food group was 58% more likely to suffer from depression than the whole food group! And this was after correction for age, gender, weight, marital status, education, employment grade, physical activity, smoking and diseases (high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, and stroke).

The reasons for this astounding correlation between diet and depression are not clear.

The authors speculated that the diets of the whole food group were likely higher in antioxidants, folic acid and omega-3 fatty acids than the diets of the processed food group – and studies have suggested that each of these nutrients may protect against depression.

The authors also suggested that it might be an indirect effect. Diets that are high in saturated fats and refined grains and low in omega-3 fatty acids increase inflammation, and studies have suggested that inflammation can lead to depression.

The thing for you to remember is that, while we don’t know the exact mechanism, it is pretty clear that a processed food diet can lead to the blues down the road.

And, as the authors pointed out, the processed food diet in this study is pretty close to what most Americans are eating. So it is safe to say that the Standard American Diet (S.A.D.) can make you sad!

So keep your spirits up with a healthy diet.

To Your Health!

Dr. Stephen G Chaney

P.S. Now Available For Order: The “180 Lifestyle Program” – comprehensive lifestyle change program that you can use to support all of the 180 Turnaround customers that you will be working with as your 180 parties start getting results. Visit http://www.socialmarketingconnection.com to grab this valuable new tools to support your 180 business. While you are there, you can also check out the many benefits that you will receive when you sign up for my VIP program.