Visceral Fat Leads to Depression? More fuzzy diet thinking …
By Ed Taekema in Health on April 29th, 2009
Rush University Medical Center researchers have publsihed a study that shows there is a connection between increased belly fat (visceral fat) and a high incidence of depression. Read about it here. For some crazy reason they assme that because there is a relationship between these two conditions, it is the visceral fat that causes the depression … It could also be the other way around, namely that depression leads to conditions that make accumulating belly fat more likely … What is probably closer to the truth is that there is a common underlying cause of both of these conditions. This is the point made in one of my favourite documentary movies Fat Head. A diet that is low in fat and high in carbs leads to an accumulation of body fat AND results in a higher incidence of depression. The depression seems linked to the brain’s need for dietary fat for normal function. Of course more study is required … particularly studies that prove causation rather than just correlation.
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