Depression is nothing new. King Saul in the Old Testament struggled with depression; Greek philosophers, such as Plato and his student Aristotle, examined the mind in depth; and the ancient Greek physician Arateus studied subjects during mania and depression, recognizing characteristics and patterns. The effects, causes and outcomes of depression have been studied since the dawn of time. Major depressive disorder, as well as debilitating amounts of anxiety and other mood disorders, is, unfortunately, common. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), mood disorders—major depressive disorder, dysthymic disorder and bipolar disorder—are present in approximately 20.9 million American adults, or about 9.5 percent of the U.S. population age 18 and older in a given year. Major Depressive Disorder is the leading cause of disability in the United States for ages 15 to 44 and affects approximately 14.8 million American adults, or about 6.7 percent of the U.S. population age 18 and older in a given year. It is more prevalent in women than in men. Fortunately, much like Hippocrates’ approach, the natural products industry has several natural solutions for depression, stress, anxiety and other mood disruptors, so users can avoid the negative side effects of many pharmaceutical-based antidepressants.
Mineralizing Mood
Trace minerals, such as chromium are essential to the body’s well-being; and, as more studies are conducted on natural products, researchers are finding many supplements are multi-purposeful and many ailments have a cause-and-effect relationship with other ailments in the body, such as glucose and metabolism.
These efforts have been investigated starting as far back as 1996, when William Eaton of John Hopkins University examined depression and the risk of onset of type 2 diabetes.1 Eaton concluded: “Major depressive disorder signals increased risk for onset of type 2 diabetes. Limitations of the findings arise from the difficulty in determining temporal order with two chronic conditions, even when the temporal order of measurement is clear. In addition, even though control variables were introduced for the use of health services, it is possible that the treatment for depression led to an earlier diagnosis of diabetes in this sample.”
Recent research further explores the relationship between mood and diabetes. A placebo-controlled, double blind, pilot study of chromium picolinate (as Chromax, from Nutrition 21) was conducted in 15 patients with Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) major depressive disorder, atypical type.2 Patients received 600 mcg of chromium picolinate or matching placebo for eight weeks. Seventy percent of the chromium picolinate patients versus zero placebo patients met responder criteria (P=0.02). Other outcomes were consistent with a greater effect of chromium picolinate. Chromium picolinate showed promising antidepressant effects possibly via 5HT2A downregulation or increased insulin sensitivity.
