A while back I got a bout of bad depression for a while. Exercise helped, but not quite enough. Then, I started taking a multivitamin once a day, and it basically went away in just a couple of days and hasn’t been back since, even though actual bad things worth actually getting upset about have happened like not being able to find a job. I’m a fairly skeptical person, not a tree-hugging hippy who thinks vitamins magically cure everything but the results were way too strong and not quite fast enough to be a mere placebo effect.
My diet is terrible; I basically eat nothing but meat and pasta, and almost never eat fruits or vegetables.
I’m just giving this advice out to everyone since it seems that members of this message board suffer from a higher rate of depression than the general population, and maybe someone could use this advice.
I’m not ridiculing people whose depression has non-vitamin-related causes.
A relative does not have a stomach, and therefore does not produce intrinsic factor, and thus cannot absorb vitamin B12 from his diet. He gets a shot once a month. If he forgets, he starts getting cranky and miserable. I haven’t seen this listed as symptom of pernicious anemia, but it’s quite reproducible for him.
There is an old treatment for depression called “precursor therapy.” The theory is that in order to make serotonin, the body needs a balance of certain B vitamins and amino acids. Some people’s diet may be deficient, or imbalanced, or they may simply need more of the building blocks. It involves taking a balanced B vitamin supplement and L-Tyrosine at regular intervals, plus vitamin C (or being absolutely sure one’s diet contains sufficient vitamin C). Having tried lots of other things, I found this treatment to work for quite a while, until it didn’t. I now use an SSRI (Paxil) which continues to work perfectly for me after many years.
IANAD, YMMV, etc.
That said, it seems obvious to me that if a person’s diet is not balanced, he/she is likely to be prone to any number of minor or major ailments, physical, mental and emotional, and that some folks are more sensitive to such imbalance.
The more I read about depression and various conditions, the more I believe that depression should be viewed by medical professionals much the same way that fever is, in that it may be it’s own problem, but it’s also likely that it is indicative of an underlying problem that needs to be addressed.
The stomach is one of several non-essential organs in our body.
His stomach tore, maybe 25 years ago? No one is really sure how. They tried to patch it up, but apparently it’s like sewing muscled jello, so they just took it out. Usually when removing a stomach they try to leave some of it, but I guess that didn’t work this time. His esophagus is attached directly to the duodenum.* The docs said he was going to be pretty disabled, but you couldn’t actually tell anything is wrong without him telling you. He can’t eat sweets right after a meal, and he doesn’t do well with lots of carbonation (no beer from a keg, and when he pours a bottle it’s not down the side.) And the B12 thing. Other than that, he does just fine. He probably eats more than normal, and likes to have lots of small meals rather than a few big ones.
*Thank you, firefox, for knowing how to spell both of those!
I’d caution the OP to remember that correlation does not equal causation. While true vitamin deficiency diseases, such as scurvy or beri beri or pernicious anemia, may also be associated with depression, actual vitamin deficiency in the US is relatively uncommon. (Tho I’ll admit vitamin D deficiency may be more of a problem than originally thought.)
And to address Zyada’s point: Most competent medical professionals should be considering depression to be a symptom, at least at first. Numerous things need to be ruled out before diagnosing primary endogenous depression.
and :dubious:.