# Anxiety and food. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 26, 2016, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anxiety-and-food/769792 "2016-10-26T18:02:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Memnon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Memnon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Memnon)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anxiety-and-food/769792/1 "2016-10-26T18:02:01Z")
Are there any foods (excluding St. John’s Wort) which has been scientifically proven in well designed studies to have a beneficial effect in people with generalised anxiety disorder and/or panic disorder? I tried googling but all I could find were thousands of pages of obvious woo bullshit. Thanks in advance. ---
**Author:** ![Surreal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@Surreal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surreal)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anxiety-and-food/769792/2 "2016-10-26T18:09:47Z")
Kava has been show to be effective in treating GAD: > **[Kava](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kava)** > > Kava or kava kava (Piper methysticum: Latin 'pepper' and Latinized Greek 'intoxicating') is a crop of the Pacific Islands. The name kava is from Tongan and Marquesan, meaning 'bitter'; other names for kava include ʻawa (Hawaiʻi), ʻava (Samoa), yaqona or yagona (Fiji), sakau (Pohnpei), seka (Kosrae), and malok or malogu (parts of Vanuatu). Kava is consumed for its sedating effects throughout the Pacific Ocean cultures of Polynesia, including Hawaii and Vanuatu, Melanesia, s The root of the plan... ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Quatro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bc8723/32.png) [@Mr\_Quatro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Quatro)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anxiety-and-food/769792/3 "2016-10-26T19:22:01Z")
Dark chocolate and the soothing crashing of the waves on a nearby beach. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anxiety-and-food/769792/4 "2016-10-26T20:21:39Z")
By coincidence, here’s a blog post from today by a medicinal chemist. In the comments, which are generally well-informed and well-reasoned, there’s a side-discussion that Saint John’s Wort has not in fact been proven to work any better than placebo. [http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2016/10/25/regrets-of-a-naturopath](http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2016/10/25/regrets-of-a-naturopath) I’m not competent to assess the evidence myself. I can say these are folks I generally listen to. Who generally \*are \*competent to asses the evidence. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anxiety-and-food/769792/5 "2016-10-27T14:03:40Z")
I thought of several, including [Valerian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerian_(herb)#Medicinal_use) root, but in looking that up. Yeah, I see the OP’s point. I think that this may be one of those “try it and see if it works for you” things. Even if it’s a placebo effect, if it works it works. (In my case, it definitely works. For a while. Then there’s a noticeable bounce-back effect that questions whether taking it at all was really worth it. But the same holds for Rx stuff.) ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anxiety-and-food/769792/6 "2016-10-28T00:00:45Z")
I know two people that swear by ashwagandha for relieving stress and anxiety and helping them to sleep better without some of the side effects they were getting from prescription meds, such as weight gain. There seems to be some evidence of this. > [@](#): > > Discussion and Conclusion > The available scientific data support the conclusion that Ashwagandha is a real potent regenerative tonic (Rasayana of Ayurveda), due to its multiple pharmacological actions like anti-stress, neuroprotective, antitumor, anti-arthritic, analgesic and anti-inflammatory etc. It is useful for different types of diseases like Parkinson, dementia, memory loss, stress induced diseases, malignoma and others. > > Ashwagandha is used as a household remedy by Indians, who consider it as the best tonic for old people and children, and as aphrodisiac by young people. It is one of the best nervine tonics of Ayurveda, the most ancient system of Medical Sciences. Our clinical experience showed that besides the enumerated neurological conditions, brain strokes causing paralysis and neuronal deficit also improve in the long term treatment with Ashwagandha. We are also using it in all forms of cancer including prostate and lung cancers, especially in last stages, giving the patients lot of health benefits. We have some cases of lung cancer who have refused modern therapy and recovered clinically and radiologically with our therapy of Ashwagandha. (Singh N., 2010- unpublished data). In a recent seminar (Singh, 2005) on essential drug concept, it was projected as one of the six essential medicinal herbs. > > Thus, the above findings clearly indicate that the traditional use of Ashwagandha has a logical and scientific basis. Large scale clinical studies are needed to prove the clinical efficacy of this herb, specially in stress related diseases, neuronal disorders and cancers. > **[An Overview on Ashwagandha: A Rasayana (Rejuvenator) of Ayurveda](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3252722/)** > > Withania somnifera (Ashawagandha) is very revered herb of the Indian Ayurvedic system of medicine as a Rasayana (tonic). It is used for various kinds of disease processes and specially as a nervine tonic. Considering these facts many scientific... > [@](#): > > Conclusions > The present review revealed a limited number of human clinical trials testing WS as a treatment for anxiety and stress. The range of study design and outcome measures, as well as the identified sources of bias, should be considered while analyzing the given findings. Those that qualified for inclusion offered somewhat promising but early, and possibly biased, results. Most studies concluded with significant improvement in symptoms for the WS group when compared to a variety of controls, including placebo and psychotherapy. While WS appears to alleviate these prevalent conditions in these limited controlled trials, additional research in larger samples and in more clinical contexts is essential to validate its therapeutic capabilities for widespread use. > **[An Alternative Treatment for Anxiety: A Systematic Review of Human Trial...](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4270108/)** > > Objective: To assess existing reported human trials of Withania somnifera (WS; common name, ashwagandha) for the treatment of anxiety.Design: Systematic review of the literature, with searches conducted in PubMed, SCOPUS, CINAHL, and Google Scholar... > [@](#): > > CONCLUSION: > The findings of this study suggest that a high-concentration full-spectrum Ashwagandha root extract safely and effectively improves an individual’s resistance towards stress and thereby improves self-assessed quality of life. > **[A prospective, randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled study of safety...](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23439798/)** > > The findings of this study suggest that a high-concentration full-spectrum Ashwagandha root extract safely and effectively improves an individual's resistance towards stress and thereby improves self-assessed quality of life.