Women who suffer from depression and anxiety may want to take a look at their diet and cut out processed foods, according to an Australian study. Researchers from the University of Melbourne found that mood disorders were more common among women aged 20 to 93 who, over 10 years, ate primarily processed, refined, high-fat foods.

“There’s no magic diet,” Dr Felice Jacka said in an email to Reuters Health but said eating a diet mainly of vegetables, fruit, whole grain foods, low fat dairy products, and lean meat, and reserving processed and sweet treats to “sometimes foods,” will aid physical health and may also support mental well-being.
Jacka’s team assessed diet and psychiatric evaluations gathered over 10 years from 1,046 women.
A total of 925 women were free of mood disorders, whereas 121 had depressive and/or anxiety disorders, the researchers reported in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

When they assessed how diet might relate to mood disorders, they found that a “Western” diet  eating primarily hamburgers, white bread, pizza, chips, flavored milk drinks, beer, and sugar-laden foods  was associated with more than a 50 percent greater likelihood for depressive disorders. By contrast, both depression and anxiety disorders appeared about 30 percent less likely among women eating a more “traditional” Australian diet —- mostly of vegetables, fruit, beef, lamb, fish, and whole-grain foods. These associations remained when the research team allowed for a variety of factors including age, body weight, social and economic status, education, physical activity, smoking, and alcohol drinking habits.
But similar “adjusted” analyses in women mainly consuming fruits, salads, fish, tofu, beans, nuts, yogurt, and red wine showed no similar associations. The researchers said the findings highlighted the need for additional investigations to determine whether unhealthy eating leads to declining mental health or vice versa.

Obesity: Brazilians feel the most pressure to be thin, the Finns are acutely aware of the dangers of obesity and Americans have the toughest struggle to lose weight, according to a global survey.
The Reader Digest poll also revealed that Russians smoke the most to try to drop excess weight, and along with Germans and Indians they are most likely to blame genetics for their penchant for piling on the pounds.
“Our poll makes it clear that people around the world are struggling with their weight,” said Peggy Northrop, the vice president and global editor-in-chief of the magazine.
“People are both very concerned about weight and think that people pay too much attention to weight,” she added in an interview.
About 1.6 billion people around the world are overweight or obese. Excess weight also contributes to 2.5 million deaths globally each year, according to the WHO.
But people are trying to lose weight.
More than 80 percent of Finns have tried to slim down, followed by 73 percent of the Dutch and 72 percent of Australians and Americans.
But Mexicans had one of the best approaches to losing weight.
“In Mexico, people have a healthy attitude about what you’re supposed to do if you want to lose weight. The majority of people there understood that eating a healthier diet was key and getting more active was key,” Northrop said.
“In the United States people were still on the deprivation cycle and we know that doesn’t work,” she added.
Around the globe women were more likely than men to diet, according to the survey of 16,000 people in 16 countries.
In the United States, 85 percent of women have tried to diet at some time during their life, and 70 percent thought there was too much of a focus on weight.
In Brazil, the land of the bikini, 83 percent of people said there is too much emphasis on weight.
In addition to being unhappy with their own weight, 51 percent of wives in the United States thought their husbands could benefit from dropping some weight.
It was also an issue in India where 48 percent of men and 46 percent of women admitted to being dissatisfied with their spouse’s weight.
People around the globe had excuses for their bulging bulk, but the Russians topped the chart at 70 percent in blaming their problem on genes, followed by 61 percent of Germans and 50 percent of Indians.
In the Philippines lack of willpower was cited as the main culprit for the battle of the bulge, while 20 percent of Americans blamed their parents.
The magazine also cited cultural tips for a gaining and maintaining a healthy weight.
In Thailand it said spicy food was recommended, including hot peppers that raise metabolism and burn extra calories. High-fiber muesli is a favorite in Switzerland to control weight, while in Brazil rice and beans is a staple.
Exercise is also a key component to a svelte physique, with yoga a favorite activity in India, walking in Finland and cycling in the Netherlands.

Diabetes: Diabetes may hasten progression to dementia in older people with mild thinking impairment, new research shows.
So-called mild cognitive impairment, or MCI, increases a person’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia. But aside from a person’s severity of mental impairment, there is currently no way to predict which people with MCI will go on to develop full-blown dementia.
Diabetes has been tied to mental decline and dementia in aging, but it is not currently known whether people with MCI who have diabetes are at greater risk of future dementia.
To investigate, Dr Latha Velayudhan of the Institute of Psychiatry in London and her colleagues followed 103 men and women with MCI over age 65 for four years, during which time 19 developed dementia. Most of these individuals had “probable or possible” Alzheimer’s.
The 16 individuals in the study with diabetes were nearly three times as likely to develop dementia as the study participants without diabetes, the researchers report in the British Journal of Psychiatry.
While the study is small, Velayudhan and her colleagues note, it is fairly representative of the population at large because participants were recruited from primary care centers, not specialized memory clinics.
There are several ways that diabetes could speed mental decline, the researchers say, for example through its effects on insulin, which plays a key role in how the brain uses glucose for fuel.
“Whatever the mechanism, with an expected increase in the prevalence of diabetes in people of all ages including older adults, the risk of developing dementia may increase,” Velayudhan and her colleagues say.
“Identification of those at particular risk of progression might help to target early treatment — both pharmacological and social,” they conclude.