Depression: A disease of energy production

Depression is often considered complex problem, but many so called experts overlook and ignore the nutritional aspects of depression. One wonders why, because it is well known that the precursors to the neurotransmitters in the brain, their enzymes and coenzymes (vitamins and minerals) all derive from the food we eat.

We cannot expect psychotherapy to be of much help if indeed depression is a biological disorder. Yet, drug therapy does not treat the underlying biochemical imbalance and most patients are advised that they may have to take drugs for the rest of their life. With the inevitable side effects of drugs it does not provide an optimistic future. Thus according to the drug and/or psychotherapy model, depression is incurable. This of course could benefit the pharmaceutical corporations and their investors who benefit from the rise of degenerative (incurable) diseases in the community, including depression.

The alternative is to look and investigate an alternative model that relies less on the drug/psychotherapy model. The psycho-nutritional model aims to look at the causes of depression from both a nutritional and biochemical point of view.

We could start off with the idea that all biochemical machinery in our body - including in brain cells - is driven along by energy. The molecule of energy is called adenosine triphosphate (ATP), that could be compared to a biological battery. An active cell in the body may use up as much as 2 million molecules of ATP per second, and hence biological energy is very important to us. When it gives up its energy it becomes adenosine diphosphate (ADP). The only way to recharge that battery is through nutrition.

The source of all energy is ultimately glucose found in food sources, that is then converted along a biochemical pathway - called glycolysis - by 13 or so biochemical reactions to form ATP. At each step proteins, enzymes, coenzymes, all derived form food, are necessary to complete the biochemical conversion to the next step. Thus there may be many biochemical reasons why the body has problems manufacturing its energy sources, to produce for instance serotonin - our happy hormone. And without energy we become depressed!

Thus if we are deficient in vitamin B6, - a coenzyme involved in the conversion of tryptophan (found in food) to serotonin - then this could be a factor in us becoming depressed. This is especially so if we are using xenobiotic drugs (strangers to our body) that requires high doses of vitamin B6 (pyridoxine) for detoxification purposes.

There are of course a host of other nutrients - such as magnesium, vitamin B3 (niacin), zinc and chromium, essential fatty acids - that are necessary in the synthesis of a many other neurotransmitters in the brain, such as dopamine, norepinephrine and acetylcholine.

Fortunately, we can simplify the problem by the fact that most of the obstruction in energy production occurs at the entrance point of glycolysis (glucose metabolism) that starts with the ingestion of various forms of sugars. In the Western world with the high sugar consumption hidden in all foods, we should not be too surprised to find a connection between sugar intake and depression.