Nutrition and anxiety disorders 🥦

 

🌸The role of the gut on well-beeing:

Anxiety disorders are the most common group of mental illness in the United States. Despite the overwhelming prevalence of anxiety disorders in modern society, medications and psychotherapy sometimes fail to achieve the healing of the mental disease. It is woth it to adress the metabolic pathologies associated with anxiety and mental disorders as a complementary approach to medicating sympthoms. For this, one can take a look at the roles of the microbiome in the gut and inflammation as influencers of anxiety.

The gut contains ~40 trillion microorganisms and is the largest endocrine organ in the body. By communicating to the brain via the Vagus nerves, regulating hormones, and influencing inflammation, the gut can impact mental health. More specifically, the compositions of individuals' gut microbial ecosystems can regulate mental status and anxiety. It is, therefore, unsurprising that microbiome dysbiosis is associated with anxiety.

Negative emotions/thoughts can have an impact on the microbiome in the gut and can interrupt it, which in turn has a bad influence on the amygdala. And the amygdala is responsible for fear response.

Chronic stress may decrease synthesis of neurotransmitters, which may increase the risk of severe anxiety.

→ For mental health, a healthy gut is nessecary. 🌸

Evidence has shown that nutrition, including dietary patterns, foods, and individual nutrients affect anxiety. 🍏🥬🌼


So which food is good for anxiety?

For intestinal health → food with positive effect on the intestinal microbiome, as the intestine has an influence on the amygdala (fear response)


This food should be avoid:

  • Avoid processed or fried foods 🍟

  • Refined grains (white breads, white flour, de-germed cornmeal, crackers, short grain rice) 🥐

  • Sugary foods, refined sugar 🍬

  • Refined carbohydrates 🍝

  • Beer

  • Avoid food with high glycemic index (The glycaemic index indicates the extent to which carbohydrate-containing foods cause blood sugar levels to rise. A high glycemic index causes high blood sugar levels)

  • Alcohol

  • Caffeine 

  • Fast food because it has too many calories and bad trans fats 🍔

  • Refined oils (omega-6-oils: Sunflower oil, soy-oil..) → Better use olive oil 🫒

  • Processed deli meats (hot-dog, bologna, deli turkey or chicken) 🌭

  • Artificial sweeteners and food additives

Inflamation promoting food can lead to more activity in the amygdala → Feeling of anxiety

→ Inflamation promoting food is refined sugar and processed plant oils(omega-6-fatty oils). → Avoid proceeded vegetable oils containing linoleic acid.


People who have problems with anxiety may be more susceptible to gluten, as gluten can alter the permeability of the intestinal mucosa, allowing the gut to pass substances into the bloodstream that trigger inflammation and anxiety. (Gluten is found in wheat, spelt, rye, barley and green spelt, for example, as well as in commercially available oats and all foods made from these grains)


🩷Those foods are good for anxiety: 

Key nutrients: B vitamins, vitamin C, magnesium, and zinc regulate stress responses via involvement in the production and metabolism of neurotransmitters, including serotonin, noradrenaline, and dopamine.1


B vitamin foods: 🍅🥕

  • Wholemeal products
  • Legumes
  • Dairy products
  • Cereal germs
  • Fish
  • Nuts
  • Tomatos
  • Red peppers
  • Carrots2

Vitamin C foods: 🍋🥦🫑

  • Citrus fruits (oranges, kiwi, lemon, grapefruit)
  • Peppers
  • Strawberries
  • Tomatoes
  • Cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower)
  • White potatoes3


Magnesium: 🥬🥗🍫

  • Almonds
  • Sunflower seeds
  • Pumpkin seeds
  • Linseeds
  • Sesame seeds
  • Wholemeal products
  • Unprocessed cocoa, dark chocolate (85% cocoa)
  • Pulses
  • Green leafy vegetables
  • Fish, seafood4


Zinc: 🫘🥚

  • Meat
  • Eggs, dairy products
  • Fish, seafood, oysters
  • Beans
  • Nuts
  • Wholemeal products, oats
  • Lentils
  • Beans
  • Brokkoli5

🌸You can eat all of those foods:

  • Full grain products (quinoa, oats)

  • Vegetables (green vegetables are very good) 🥦

  • Fruits, beans, legumes 🍊🫘

  • Fish, unprocessed meat

  • Follow mediterrainean dietary pattern (fresh vegetables, fruits, fatty fish like salmon, whole grain, beans, legumes, low fat or fat free diery products and nuts. Lmit nutrient-poor, energy-dense foods high in added sugars and saturated fats, including sugar-sweetened beverages, pastries, and refined grains. 🐟🫒

  • Eat fods with long-chain n-3 fatty acids: Nuts and seeds like chia seeds, linseed, walnut and fatty fish like salmon, mackerel, tuna, herring, and sardines.

  • Unproceeded chicken and turkey meat, egg (not eating every day but it can be a good addition in small amounty sometimes)

  • Nature yoghurt, kefir, Kimchi kombucha, Sauerkraut (fermentated foods)-→ food that have very good impact on your gut.

  • Leafy greens, berries, strawbarrys, avocado, green tea, dark chocolate (85%cacao) 🍵🍫


🩷Selenium, multivitamin, vitamin E and the amino acids lysine and arginine, and mineral supplementation can decrease anxiety.6


Selenium foods: 🐟🥛

  • Brazil nuts
  • Seafood
  • Cereals and grains
  • Dairy products7


Vitamin E foods: 🥦🥬💚

  • Hazelnuts
  • Peanuts
  • Almonds
  • Sunflower seeds
  • Broccoli
  • Spinach, green vegetables8


Foods with lysine: 🫘🥚

  • Poultry
  • Fish
  • Shrimps
  • Shellfish
  • Soy
  • Nut
  • Eggs
  • Beans and lentils.9


Foods with arginine: 🫛🐟

  • Meat (red meat, chicken, turkey).
  • Fish
  • Nuts and seeds (almonds, cshews, pumpkin seeds)
  • Legumes (soybeans, chickpeas)
  • Whole grains (brown rice, oats)
  • Dairy products10


Eat whole foods. This means that fruit, raw or steamed vegetables, pulses, full grain products and dairy products form the focus of the diet. Animal products are largely avoided, as are refined sugar, artificial additives and industrially produced products. That leads to good physical, cognitive and mental health. 🥗🥒🥑


→More whole foods

→ Lots of plants

→ Less processed foods


🌸Alternative for sugar can be: Stevia (a natural calorie-free, non-insulinogenic sweetener) and erythritol (a non-insulinogenic sugar alcohol that is absorbed in the small intestine and is not fermented by intestinal bacteria).


🌸Turmeric (curcuma): For turmeric to be absorbed by the body, it must be absorbed together with fats.


🌸Ketogenic diet: Low in carbohydrates (20-50g/day), lots of healthy fats, individual amount of protein11

By reducing carbohydrate intake, the body burns fat, which it uses to generate energy that was previously produced by carbohydrate intake
-->This causes that the liver produces ketones out of body fat and the ketones reduce anxiety.12






2https://www.verbraucherzentrale.de/wissen/lebensmittel/gesund-ernaehren/vitamine-und-mineralstoffe-von-az-5949

3https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/vitamin-c/

4https://www.dge.de/gesunde-ernaehrung/faq/ausgewaehlte-fragen-und-antworten-zu-magnesium/#:~:text=Kerne%20und%20Samen%20wie%20Mandeln,Weitere%20Magnesiumquellen%20sind%20H%C3%BClsenfr%C3%BCchte%20(z.

5https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Zinc-HealthProfessional/

8https://www.aok.de/pk/magazin/ernaehrung/vitamine/vitamin-e-tagesbedarf-wirkung-und-vorkommen/#:~:text=Vitamin%20E%20in%20Lebensmitteln,-Da%20Tocopherol%20ein&text=Besonders%20viel%20Vitamin%20E%20steckt,Gem%C3%BCse%20wie%20Spinat%20und%20Broccoli

9https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK546575/table/glutaric-a1.T.nutritional_requirements_f/

10https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/drugs/22536-l-arginine

11https://eatsmarter.de/abnehmen/diaeten/ketogene-diaet

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