
Depression link to processed food - fogus
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8334353.stm
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Alex3917
It seems like depression is really a case of the pharma industry having
everyone brainwashed. The vast majority of people believe that depression is a
disease of biological origin, even though the academic research clearly shows
that it's not a disease (it's a symptom, like AIDS) and in most cases this
symptom is not the result of some underlying brain malfunction.

And yet we have all these people committing suicide because they can't get the
help they need, and we have all these people who freak out whenever you say
that depression isn't a disease. I don't understand it. I've literally never
seen anything where the academic research was so clear and unambiguous, and
yet completely rejected by virtually the entire general public.

~~~
gruseom
Can you supply some links to this "academic research [that is] so clear and
unambiguous"? I came to a similar conclusion years ago and would be interested
in retracing your steps.

As for the not-understanding-it part, how is it hard to understand? It's
effective marketing. The industry doesn't make money by people getting better,
it makes money by getting (their) drugs into them. Humans are a vehicle for
the delivery of their product. (So now are pets. The opening of the pet market
for antidepressants is so classic a move that it will surely be studied in
business schools.)

The vegetable oil industry did the same thing, ingeniously, against dairy fat.
Remember those decades of propaganda about how butter and cream mean
cholestorol which means heart attacks which mean death? It was an industry
contrivance. The original studies it was based on were shamelessly cherry-
picked. The campaign leveraged the widespread public fear that derived from
the heart-attack epidemic of the 1950s and 60s. (Edit: I learned this from a
CBC Ideas episode a few years ago.)

~~~
Alex3917
"Can you supply some links to this "academic research [that is] so clear and
unambiguous"? I came to a similar conclusion years ago and would be interested
in retracing your steps."

Just Google treatment for depression.

~~~
gruseom
Are you being sarcastic?
<http://www.google.com/search?q=treatment+for+depression> is a mire of
orthodox SEO'd junk.

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AndrewDucker
It's an interesting one.

On the one hand, I'm not shocked that taking all the nutrients out of food
makes them less good for us.

On the other hand, we don't have a mechanism nailed down, and I'm wary of the
correlation here - particularly because it's telling me something I'd like to
believe.

Hopefully this will lead to more research - and possibly to ways of processing
food that don't remove whatever the vital nutrients are.

Not to mention that knowing what causes this might be very useful -
particularly if we can make it available in pill form :->

~~~
tumult
Correlation /= causation, which the article didn't really make note of. Does
the actual research suggest causation, or merely a link?

~~~
AndrewDucker
Actually, it does make note of it:

 _Although the researchers cannot totally rule out the possibility that people
with depression may eat a less healthy diet they believe it is unlikely to be
the reason for the findings because there was no association with diet and
previous diagnosis of depression._

~~~
Freebytes
I tend to eat unhealthier when I am feeling down. Of course, when I resolve an
issue with a bug that has been given me trouble, I usually celebrate with
unhealthy food as well. Many people have habits that are based on unhealthy
food as a reward mechanism.

~~~
bpyne
I think they looked more to people who eat processed foods as part of their
normal diet and not people who eat processed foods as a reward.

It would be good to know how much processed food within some recurring time
frame - say weekly - the people with recurring depression ate.

~~~
joeythibault
there's a correlation between depression and food, but there are also
correlations between food and socio economic status. So being low income might
also be contributing to mental health (which isn't addressed in the article at
all; though they do point out that if there are a lot of takeaway joints near
by then the problem is exacerbated...might those areas also be lower income?).

~~~
bpyne
I'd need to read the article again but I think the study was done on civil
employees. I don't know how broad the pay range is for civil employees nor if
the authors sampled the full range.

The thing to keep in mind is that Western science made a dichotomy between the
mind and body for religious reasons. In reality, they are completely
interrelated. Eating unhealthy food will eventually affect your mind: right
now it's just not predictable how or to what extent.

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hegemonicon
Does anyone know of any estimates of rates of depression say, 75-100-150 years
ago? Depression seems to be a disease of civilization, but as far as I know
it's not clear if it's rooted in something chemical (as this article suggests)
or psychological (we simply have trouble finding meaning in the sorts of lives
we live today).

~~~
poppysan
Another question is when was depression first classified to the scope at which
it is today. We can't know if its rising or falling over an extended period of
time without such info.

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joshu
I wonder if they controlled for socioeconomic biases. High fast food intake is
correlated to a bunch of other things.

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gorm
It's really depressing to come back from a hamburger (with fries) and read
this article on hacker news.

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Dilpil
I see about 5 of these articles a week. Whats the point? Are any of us going
to change our behavior based on slight correlations reported in non scientific
journals? Do the social and life sciences really experience breakthroughs
every week? Or are these articles just fluff?

