A new study conducted by Dr. Michael Lucas of the Harvard School of Public Health has established a definitive link between carbohydrate consumption and depression. The study, published in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity was conducted over a 12 year period with a group of 43,000 women. A similar study, conducted by researchers at the University of Eastern Finland on men yielded similar results. Dr. Lucas suggests a daily diet of foods that include olive oil, wine, carrots and leafy greens. Pasta should generally be avoided. Lucas also indicated that fruits, berries, poultry, fish, low-fat cheese, and whole grains are acceptable.
Ironically, many people suffering from feelings of depression have major carbohydrate cravings because carbs provide short term comfort and eventually convert into serotonin. Though it is not fully understood why carbs can then trigger depression it is believed that there is a link with inflammation.
The natural antidepressant called 5htp is an easy to circumvent this issue as 5htp is not only a fast acting antidepressant but it quickly works to quell carbohydrate cravings.
Are you a refined carbohydrate addict?
- Do you get strong cravings for specific carbohydrates such as garlic bread or crackers or pasta?
- Do you go out of your way to get a specific type of bread?
- At a spaghetti dinner, do you look at the garlic-bread basket and identify a piece that you really want?
- Do you have rituals around bread products? For example, blueberry muffins every Sunday morning, a certain biscuit on the first morning of vacation.
- Are refined carbohydrates such as bread, pasta, white rice a substantial proportion of your daily food intake?
- Faced with a choice between a large scoop of tuna salad on a lettuce leaf or a tuna salad sandwich, which attracts you more?
- Is a hamburger without a bun like a face without a smile for you?
- At a snack table, do you most often return to the crackers of to the celery?
Are you a sugar addict?
- Do you think about sugar products frequently during the day?
- Do visions of certain candies or sweets get stuck in your mind, rarely going away until you obtain the snack and eat it?
- Are you aware of the location of every sweet thing in your house or kitchen? For example, could you tell me exactly where every package of cookies, every Twinkie, every piece of candy is lurking?
- If special sweets come into the house, such as a box of candy or homemade cookies, are you haunted by them until they are gone (that is, eaten)?
- Do you have a very clear awareness about how much of any sweet is left? Do you get angry when you think there’s a half-piece of pie left in the fridge and find that someone has snitched some so that only an eighth is left?
- Do you hide the evidence when you’ve eaten sweets? Do you wash pans or conceal wrappers so that your mate or children won’t know that you’ve eaten?
- Do you sometimes try to get everyone out of the house so that you can curl up and eat your special food without anyone knowing?
- At a party, do you try to disguise your trips to the dessert table? Do you make excuses for the size of your helping?
- Are you less interested in an activity if no food is involved? For example, if a dear friend were having a party with absolutely no food and an acquaintance were having a party to launch the arrival of a new pastry chef with fresh samples of his desserts, and these parties were at exactly the same time, would you have difficulty deciding which party to attend?
- If I mention a holiday, is your first thought the food associated with it? Let’s try it: Valentine’s Day. July Fourth. Easter. Anniversary. Birthday. State fair. Circus.
- Once you start eating sweets, is it difficult to stop?
- Do you often break your own rules such as, I’ll only have two cookies, I’ll only eat one bowl, and then break these rules and set new ones, only to break these, too?
- After you eat all you can (the bag is empty or until you hurt), does your mood change? Do you feel dreamy or out of it? Is your thinking fuzzier?
- If you’d planned an afternoon of eating and your best friend came to the door, would you try to get rid of her so you could keep eating? Would you feel impatient for her to go? If she called on the phone, would you try to end the conversation quickly? If a housemate came home unexpectedly that afternoon, would you feel angry and cheated?
- Do sweets make up too high a proportion of your daily food intake?
- You are at a dinner party and the woman next to you leaves half a piece of pie on her plate. Do your eyes keep straying to that piece of pie until the waiter mercifully takes it away?
Our 29.5 foot long guts (stretching from the esophagus to the anus) actually contain more serotonin receptor sites than the brain which is largely responsible for cravings for chocolate and cookies. Though addiction to sugar is as powerful as addition to drugs, this craving can be mitigated with the Griffonia seed extract called 5htp. 5htp is transported to the brain where it fights depression, hunger, anxiety and insomnia. If you answered yes to any of the above questions above 5htp AKA Griffonia Seed could be your immediate solution.