High-fat diet can make you depressed

Tempted to grab a handful of french fries? Think again

A diet high in fat content can lead to anxiety and depression by causing measurable changes in the brain, researchers report.

The beneficial effects of an antidepressant were also blunted in mice fed with a high-fat diet. When treating depression, there is no predictor of treatment resistance.

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"So if we consider metabolic disorders as a treatment resistance predictor, this should encourage psychiatrists to put in place a personalised treatment with antidepressant drugs that do not further destabilise metabolism,” explained Bruno Guiard, senior author of the study that appeared in the British Journal of Pharmacology.

On the other hand, taking mice off a high-fat diet completely reversed the animals' metabolic impairments and lessened their anxious symptoms.

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"This finding is reinforcing the idea that the normalisation of metabolic parameters may give a better chance of achieving remission, particularly in depressed patients with Type 2 diabetes," Guiard added.

The results set the tone for future investigations on potential mechanisms that may link metabolic and psychiatric disorders.