14 DAY TRIAL // A new study published in the British Journal of Pharmacology proposes a link between high-fat foods and psychiatric disorders such as anxiety and depression.
The report describes how, in a series of experiments, laboratory mice were fed a high-fat diet for an extended period of time. As a result, they not only gained weight but their blood sugar levels shot up.
What's interesting is that, apart from these biological symptoms, the rodents also started displaying anxiety and depression symptoms. Even when treated with drugs, these symptoms did not go away.
Au contraire, the rodents only started feeling better when they were pulled off the high-fat diet and offered healthy food instead. It took a while, but they eventually experienced considerable improvements.
Their blood sugar levels returned to normal and the mice started losing weight. Whatever other metabolic impairments they developed when on the high-fat diet were blunted too, Science Daily says.
In light of these findings, the researchers behind this investigation propose that there might be a connection between metabolic and psychiatric disorders and that further studies try and investigate it.
They also recommend that, when prescribing drugs to people, psychiatrists choose combinations that do not threaten to upset the body's metabolic balance.
“If we consider metabolic disorders as a putative treatment resistance predictor, this should encourage psychiatrists to put in place a personalized treatment with antidepressant drugs that do not further destabilize metabolism.”
“This finding reinforcing the idea that the normalization of metabolic parameters may give a better chance of achieving remission, particularly in depressed patients with type 2 diabetes,” said specialist Bruno Guiard in a statement.