A brand new study in Food Science and Nutrition suggests that the natural plant extract, lycopene (eat tomatoes and you’ll get it, eat sun-dried tomates and you’ll get even more) reduces depressive symptoms of depression in mice by enhancing a key protein involved in brain health and associated with depression.
Here’s the upshot.
Scientists took 60 mice and induced depression in them by stressing them out (interestingly).
Then they divided the critters into two groups, and gave one group a bunch of lycopene and the other a corn oil placebo.
The mice that got the lycopene started mixing socially with other mice and showed greater mouse joie de vivre.
The mice that got the corn oil placebo remained the ending of Jules and Jim – awful depression.
So the lycopene appeared to help, but how?
SciTech Daily notes that it enhanced brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDFN)* which is an essential protein for brain function, memory, and learning. Further, in the depressed mice, BDFN expression was reduced.
Lycopene treatment helped restore this pathway, potentially improving neural communication and brain health.
That’s great news, particularly considering that you can get lots of lycopene from eating tomatoes, watermelon, papaya, guava, and cooked sweet red peppers (plus, as Healthline notes, there are loads of potential benefits you can get from lycopene for other physical conditions).
However, as Tracy Swartz at the NY Post notes, the study does point out some limitations.
First, the mice were given an incredibly high dose of lycopene to reach the mouse joie de vivre.
In fact, it was double the amount per day that’s currently considered safe for a human to consume, on a pound-for-pound basis!
The researchers acknowledged the limitation in the paper, as well as a few more — limiting their study to male mice and only looking at lycopene’s effect on the hippocampus.
In other words, chronic depression in humans is much more complex than a short scientific experiment involving male mice.
However, the study does advance research on the role of BDNF and depression (potentially leading to more significant therapies for the disease) and further suggests that eating lycopene (if it’s safe for you) can theoretically provide benefit, in some way.
So it’s a worthwhile and interesting study.
From a personal point of view, as someone who’s suffered from chronic depression, I’ve tried lots of diets and this is a very individual disease and we each have unique bodies, and it’s been hard to say that diet has helped me. But it would be impossible to prove it hasn’t, because we never know what helps us at the margin.
Before taking antidepressants, it seemed nothing helped me, but again, everyone’s disease is different. Maybe diet works for some, maybe it doesn’t work for others.
But at the very least, we do know that eating a healthy diet is good for your body in other ways.
*BDNF’s role in brain diseases other than depression has been studied, including its links with neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimers, Parkinsons, and Huntingtons. It’s remarkable how many ways depression and neurodegenerative diseases overlap in key brain processes.
In the meantime, if you’re struggling with depression, anxiety, or any other mood disorder (all medical conditions)….
For readers in the United States…
Find a psychiatrist here.
Find a therapist here.
For readers, internationally, seek help from a local resource.
For salvation, Christ and Christ alone.
[Painting: Plant de Tomates, Picasso]
