Right food, right mood

11/02/05 Eating the right foods could have the same effect as taking traditional antidepressant medications, report researchers at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital.

In a paper published in the Feb. 15 issue of Biological Psychiatry (Abstract), a team of researchers report that omega-3 fatty acids and uridine, two naturally occurring substances in many foods, including fish, walnuts, molasses and sugar beets, prevented the development of signs of depression in rats as effectively as antidepressant drugs.

"Giving rats a combination of uridine and omega-3 fatty acids produced immediate effects that were indistinguishable from those caused by giving the rats standard antidepressant medications," explains lead author of the study William Carlezon, PhD, director of McLean's Behavioral Genetics Laboratory.

In the study, researchers examined how omega-3 fatty acids and uridine affected the behavior of rats exposed to stress. Normally, rats quickly develop learned helplessness behavior - believed to reflect despair in animal models - when tested repeatedly under stressful conditions. Rats given injections of uridine or fed a diet enriched with high amounts of omega-3 fatty acids showed fewer signs of despair than untreated rats.

McLean Hospital maintains the largest research program of any private, U.S. psychiatric hospital. It is the largest psychiatric facility of Harvard Medical School, an affiliate of Massachusetts General Hospital and a member of Partners HealthCare.

http://www.mclean.harvard.edu/news/press/current.php?id=72