Vegetarian diet and depression/anxiety
 

Here is an interesting article about the increased risk of depression and anxiety on a vegetarian diet.

http://www.womenshealthmag.com/food/...-vegetarianism

The article mentions the value of Tryptophan and iron that is in meat protein. It does not mention the BCAA's, Branched Chain Amino Acids, that plenty of research says is important for neurological function.

Tryptophan and iron are also found in plentiful amounts in plant based foods. This article does not reference any peer-reviewed research, but instead looks to be taking anecdotal cases as being evidence for a vegetarian diet increasing the risk of mental illness. You can easily still eat a very unhealthy diet while being vegetarian that could easily lead to the symptoms of mental illness from lack of awareness of getting adequate nutrition from healthy food choices.

I would want to see peer-reviewed, scientific studies that control variables before being convinced that not eating meat leads to higher incidence of mental illness. To me, the more logical explanation is that some of those who decide to go vegetarian are not educating themselves on how to properly do it. They might eliminate meat and not change anything else in their diet which could lead to nutritional deficiencies. You need to increase your protein intake from other sources once you get rid of meat, as well as being aware of other key nutrients you were getting from meat that you now need to get from plants, and implement foods that contain them.

Here are a few things that were stated in the article which I find to be rather absurd:

"Then there's tryptophan, an essential amino acid found almost exclusively in poultry."

Doing a quick google search clearly shows that this is false. There are plenty of plant based foods, or even dairy which are all vegetarian that would provide adequate tryptophan.

Link showing foods - http://www.med-health.net/Foods-High-In-Tryptophan.html

"I hear from vegetarians every day; they have this terrible depression and anxiety, and they don't understand why."

So we are going to take a statement made by one person, who we do not even know the intentions of, as being evidence for there being increased incidence of mental illness? Come on now.

If you are educated on how to correctly do a vegan/vegetarian diet, there are no risks.

Here is a link to the original report. The study mentioned was a survey of 50,000 in Australia. A German study of 4000 also showed more mental health issues. http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2...-unhappy-study

Here is a basic report of the research done. It appears the research was very broad and the anxiety/depression issue was not the focus. The complete data is not presented.
http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/52...s-201310272327

The link posted to tryptophan rich foods would do well to have a source to the values listed in the table.
Here is another list.
http://www.healthaliciousness.com/ar...phan-foods.php

Note, processed soy, especially fermented soy, is high in free glutamate that is a neurotoxin.

"So the diet isn't the cause but rather the symptom," he said. "If you think of people that are committed to being a vegetarian it's a fairly significant commitment and it picks up people at the fringe of the obsessive-compulsive spectrum."
(taken from the SBS survey)

I tend to think this is a major factor in establishing a correlation between vegetarian diet and mental health disorders. I for one wouldn't have considered significantly changing my diet if I weren't already anxious and miserable as a result of the head injury. And they do concede in the article that there is no established causal relationship between giving up meat and developing mood disorders after the fact.

Also worth noting is that meat is tasty and thereby addictive, so like it says in the Women's Health Mag article, one respondent felt "weepy" just 3 weeks after giving up meat? That's hardly enough time to develop any serious nutritional deficiencies, isn't it? Sounds like withdrawals from caffeine or nicotine or any other source of habitual comfort. I'd also imagine most vegetarians/vegans are more acutely aware of issues such as carbon footprint, fish extinction, industrial livestock abuses, and pesticide overabundance— which if you start to read into any one of em' can come as a huge shock and lead to some serious despair as well as food anxiety.

I think especially the lack of B12 in vegetarian diet is something to consider. I think I felt much better after reintroducing 1-2 servings of fish/week into my diet, and B12 would be a contributing factor there.
Actually I think if I had to advocate for anything, it would most likely be a "flexitarian" or mostly-vegetarian diet. I find the absolutism and the almost dogmatic attitudes I've found in some vegetarians and vegans to be off-putting, albeit seductive. You really don't have to be in one or the other extreme in order to make significant changes to diet and health.

I agree that this article can be very misleading. Some of the statements make it absurdly obvious of its bias and narrow, cherry-picking standpoint it goes for.

Besides, I think most people suffering with TBI realise that diet is not something to compromise on and hence make choices not to totally eliminate meat in the name of promoting recovery.

I perhaps was one of those aussie vego stats in the report and can say that most vegetarians I know choose the lifestyle for health, social and environmental reasons for which they feel compelled to make a small personal shift. I don't find the stat at all surprising for 'levels of optimism in future' and alike seeing as these groups of people are generally more actively conscious of such things.

To claim that red meat is the primary source responsible for the difference in humans versus gorillas is stupid. Yes, introducing meat played a large role, but so did complex, nutrient rich grains ie carbs (that gorillas also didn't eat). And certainly not all human societies have evolved with red meat or other meats. Look at millions that follow Hinduism, buddhism or the mediterranean diet that is very low in meat. Shouldn't we expect to see depression epidemics across these parts of the world then?

I think the effect of diet is very individual to each person. But there are certainly good reasons for eating less meat compared to the average westerners diet today. And I am not including the exception being people in our condition with TBI/PCS of course. Higher levels of protein and fats are very important obviously. My 'flexi' diet was thrown out the window and changed months ago just after my accident. Similar to BeelzeBore, I find absolutism of being vego/vegan can be a very pretentious attitude, it's only human designed labels after all.

This is an interesting discussion.

I found this link from a vegetarian point of view, that gives the non meat sources for essential amino acids.

http://www.easy-vegetarian-diet.com/amino-acids.html

I personally think methionine is the most crucial for antidepressant actions.

There is a very good video on YouTube, which is given by a well known doctor about vegans dying of heart disease, due to deficient B12 and Omega-3 fatty acids.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7KeRwdIH04

(I am sorry his voice is irritating, but the content is sound IMO)

I was just providing the link for informational purposes. There were plenty of questions raised. That is why I commented about BCAA's. The table shows the need to be careful to properly replace lacking substances with supplementation or other sources.

There have been similar studies about low fat or ultra low fat diets. They can be especially problematic in young children as their brains are trying to grow quickly. There are documented cases of young children suffering severe malnourishment and neurological disorders from vegan diets, especially low fat vegan diets. It is very difficult to replace the amino acids and fatty acids found in animal based diets with vegan sources. A low fat vegan diet is a serious challenge.

If these articles caused people to look carefully at their diets and supplements, the discussion has been worthwhile.