Vitamin's and there effect on depression

[Starless]

I was just curious about everyone's opinion about the relation between vitamin's and depression.I was readin an article in discover magazine the other day that really caught my interest.they conducted studies with peolpe who have such mental diseases as depression,schizophrenia,ADHD and borderline personality disorder.Those people conducted in the study had a history of now showing any affects of getting better when it came to prescription drugs.They had each test patient take one multivitamin every day(i forget which kind it was),the shocking thing is that after 4 days these people had a symptom decrease of up to 50%!They tried the treatment on a young man who had very violent urges and was constantly thinking about guns,he could'nt go 20 seconds without thinking about them.Within 4 days of taking the vitamin the child stopped showing all signs of abnormal behavior and once they took him off the vitamin the behavior started up again.Now is it just me or do vitamin's play a more important role in depression than we realize.For a vitamin to do in 4 days what it takes a month or two for prescription drug's to do is just incredible.There were barely any side effects,the only two that were a big issue were diarreah and dizzyness.I know some people are goona say that im wrong or that im crazy but i think personally that vitamin's could be the cure we've been looking for.Do a search on the internet and look up at how many stories there are of people getting well with vitamin's,while people who do prescription's only get worse and have to take more and more just to get the same effect as a lower dose used to have on them.how could alll these people who have show that they get better can be all wrong?It would be insane to say that they are all wrong.Now you ask why would it affect only some people and not other's?well maybe some of us were born with the need for more vitamins to run at a normal pace,maybe you for example could eat horribly and not feel a thing.but me personally if i eat horrible i feel horrible.Some people metabolisims require more vitamins than others,and without the proper fuel to supply it the brain is not goona work correctly.Think if it as oil for your car,if you put in the best brand,it runs great.But if you put in something cheap,its not goona run at the best level it can.Maybe one cause of depression is the lack of nutrients we take in,we are at a time where most people are so busy during there daily lives that they have to move quickly and dont have time to cook so they buy a lot of fast food.Fast food has barely any nutrients or vitamins in it and continually shows to not help peoples health.maybe if we ate a better quality diet than some of these mental illness'es might not appear as frequently.Thing's seem to have went downhill when we started to process our foods and not eat healthy like we should have.I think we should take a deeper look at how our diet and vitamins's have an affect on our mental health.This is all just my opinion on the subject,lets hear yours.

[SimoneTiger]

Could you please post a link to the article? Thanks!

PS. I am not sure that there were any less mental diseases in the 1700s and 1800s--just not as well documented. Also, I doubt very much people ate healthy back then... Most of the population was malnourished (lack of essential nutrients--vitamins, too!) or undernourished...

[Starless]

discover.com/issues/may-05/features/vitamin-cure/

whoops that was an error on my part,thanks for pointing that out.

[SimoneTiger]

Thanks! That is really interesting... I never thought that vitamins might have such a dramatic effect on your mental well-being. Another good reason to take my Vitaworms

[SPark]

IMHO nutrition has a major effect on depression, and brain chemistry in general. Trying to remember the name of the book I read about excessive sugar intake?? I`ll think of it eventually! I`d better go eat some DHA-rich fish or something...LOL.

When I was in England, Chef Jaime was working on reforming the school lunch program...a typical lunch was microwaved chicken nuggets with tater tots and an optional sprig of broccoli. He made a cooking camp and taught the lunch ladies (no men that I saw) how to cook healthy and delicious food from scratch for less than the cost of the processed junk. It took a month for the students to change their eating habits (but showing them what goes into chicken nuggets converted the hard-core micro-meal fans) and then the teachers reported amazing behavioral improvements and many fewer trips to the nurse.

[Tears May Fall]

Im not surprised by the study and outcome, although 4 days is a little fast to display results and it might be entirely psychological the results, in which case the study might be biased, if lets say the makers of Centrum or One-A-Day conducted the study.
You'll be surprised at what just eating more healthily, staying in shape, and taking in the correct vitamins/nutrients can do for the body.
I couldnt being to tell you how many patients we have at our pharmacy, that we consistently recommend taking a daily multi-vitamin, and how much it can improve ones daily life.
A large part of this study would depend on one particular thing, what type of nutrition was the case recieving prior to initiation of the multi-vitamin, and then they would have to setup controls of people already in good health vs people with depression/neurological conditions, pre and post multi-vit. and also people with neurological conditions who were following good nutrition. and this would have to be whats called a "double blinded case control study," where these is various groups, and also placebo's included.

[james02]

Hello, I am a 28 yr old mother of 4 plus 2 step children, 2 dogs 2 cats and a husband! I have decided to start taking a super B complex vitamin for mental health as I have read a lot on the association between B's and depression. I have a red burning tipped tongue and severe anxiety (panic attacks) and was wondering if the B's are ok to take and if I could still take it with a womans regular multi vitamin.