Food: can it affect your mood?

Food is a primary requirement to live. Yet, in Western societies where food is abundantly available, food could also be used as a powerful tool to increase mental wellbeing. Stress-related mental disorders like mood or anxiety disorders are the most prevalent and burdensome psychiatric disorders. They are characterised by low mood states and cognitive impairments like reduced learning and memory. Thus, the exploitation of resilience or mood/cognition enhancing food is of extreme value. According to the world-wide web, high tryptophan (Trp) containing foods (e.g. chicken, soybeans, cereals, tuna, nuts, and bananas) improve mood. Trp is an essential amino acid and a precursor of serotonin, a monoamine that plays a central role in the regulation of emotion, mood and cognition. It is hypothesised that in mood disorders like depression central serotonin levels are low. Although ‘Trp-containing food for mood’ appears as an attractive concept to build resilience, it is likely that there is a delicate balance between Trp levels in food and optimal effects on mood and cognition, and that this delicate balance is influenced by the serotonergic state of the individual. Furthermore, while there is a correlation between high Trp levels in food and mood improvement, it is not as straightforward such that eating a bunch of bananas each day will help you get a better mood. Hence, this review provides an overview of the effects of varying levels of food-derived Trp on mood and cognition i...
Source: The Nutrition Society - Category: Nutrition Authors: Source Type: news