Mediterranean Diet vs Depression

Everywhere you look, someone's trying to sell you this diet or that diet, most w/preposterous claims of miraculous weight loss and dramatic cures of a multitude of conditions.  In truth, very few of these diets have any peer-reviewed published evidence supporting their claims.  Of these, I would daresay that the Mediterranean diet has the most data behind it, having been linked to lower risk for dementia, diabetes & heart disease.

So perhaps it shouldn't surprise you that a multicenter, randomized, primary prevention trial of community dwelling participants published 2 weeks ago in BioMedCentral found that the Mediterranean diet supplemented w/nuts was linked to a lower risk of depression in diabetics. No, we can't explain the physiology behind this finding but given that there's been no harm found as a result of this manner of eating, it's certainly reasonable to consider the reverse, that perhaps eating this way may be useful in treating depression.  

Yes, I realize this is a major leap of faith since we haven't established cause & effect in the forward direction.  But for the multitude suffering from depression who aren't responding to medications, suffering from side effects, or who want a more natural means of treating their depression, we should consider adding the Mediterranean diet to counseling, exercise & sleep.

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