When you're depressed, a healthy diet may be the last thing on your mind. Junk or convenience foods can be all too tempting, or maybe you just don't think about what you eat. But, in the face of growing concern about poor diet and the rise in mental health problems, research indicates that food can make a real difference to your feelings. The Depression Diet Book looks at:

• the food and mood link
• how to discover your food triggers
• emotional factors in eating
• how the right food provides the nutrients your brain needs

In this informative, comprehensive guide, Theresa Cheung shows you how your diet can be a powerful self-help tool to prevent and treat symptoms of depression. Eat right and you'll feel right.

Contents 

• Depression: the 'common cold' of mental illness
• The food and mood link
• The depression diet
• Nutritional healing
• Discover your triggers
• Protecting yourself
• A to Z of useful supplements for depression
• Fine-tuning your diet to beat symptoms of depression
• 'Eating your emotions'
• Finding the motivation

When you are depressed, the last thing you may feel like doing is taking care of your diet. While you doubtless know you should concoct a healthy salad for lunch, in practice you may be more likely to grab the nearest thing you can find. You may open the fridge door, and just stare at the fresh red cabbage waiting to be diced up with a handful of sunflower seeds and a rinsing of lemon juice and olive oil. But somehow it is all too much trouble, the fridge door slides shut, and you maybe reach for the last stale doughnut in the bag, or a lump of cheese and some biscuits, or a sweet milky coffee and a chocolate bar. Or you can't face anything you've got in the house, and go out to buy some junk food. Or, you simply don't bother at all - you just couldn't care less about eating.

It is an awesome thought that these apparently minor decisions - what you put in your mouth - can affect your entire outlook on life and yourself. The food you take into your body can make a tremendous difference to the way you feel - even when you don't believe it. The key point is that, when you eat, you are feeding not just your stomach, but your brain. Your brain is obviously key in depression - and indeed it may be screaming out for the right nutrients. Your brain is what manufactures the chemicals implicated in depression. Food can, quite simply, change this. When you feed your brain right, you often start to feel right.

This book explains exactly what the brain and body need for optimum mental and physical health. Most mental health experts now recognize that what you eat plays a major role in depression. There is a wealth of evidence linking what we eat to how we feel. For instance, a `Feeding Minds' report released in January 2006 by the Mental Health Foundation' and the UK group Sustain revealed that changes to the human diet in the last 50 years or so could be an important factor behind the major rise of mental illness in the country. According to both organizations, significant changes in the way food is produced and manufactured have not only reduced the amounts of essential fats, vitamins and minerals consumed, but have also disturbed the balance of nutrients in the foods eaten. As a result of both the quantity and quality of the evidence, the report proposed that the changes to the food system seen in the past century may be partly responsible for the increased incidence of depression and behavioural problems in this same time period.

Estimated to affect up to one in five Britons at some point in their lives, depression costs the UK £100 billion a year in medication, benefits and lost working days. Depressive disorders also affect approximately 18.8 million American adults, or about 9.5 per cent of the US population aged 18 and above in a given year.

Instead of causing us to feel helpless, all this research brings good, news for the many millions of people whose lives are blighted by depression. What you eat really can change your state of mind, and, using the latest scientific research, this book explains how diet can be a powerful tool in preventing and treating symptoms of depression. After a brief overview of depression and its causes, it offers a practical plan for nutritional self-help and shows you how to beat depression and its symptoms.

Although the dietary guidelines given here are designed to ease depression, it is reassuring to note that they also fit the standard requirements for a healthy diet - so following the guidelines will not only help you feel happier, but healthier too. The only drawback to the dietary approach is that although it can give mood an immediate lift, it may take a few weeks or more before lasting positive results can be seen. But, as anyone with depression will agree, it is certainly worth persevering in order to gain relief from the dark misery of this condition.

Of course, if you are very depressed, you may need more help than a change of diet, so do not hesitate to contact your GP or other health professional if you think you are suffering from depression. This is very important. Some people do need medication. But the great thing about The Depression Diet Book is that it can be used in combination with any form of treatment - it won't interfere, it has no side effects (apart from good ones), and it is eminently user-friendly.

Bear in mind also that, when you are depressed, it all looks more difficult - so don't try to change everything all at once. Break it down into bite-sized chunks. If you read nothing else, study Chapter 3 and follow the seven steps suggested there. Just do one step at a time if need be: for example, cut down on coffee and start drinking more water. Or just start eating breakfast if you don't do so already - this alone can revolutionize your life. Anything you do - even the smallest change - will start to make a difference. And, once you have found how well your body and brain respond when you treat them kindly, it will give you the motivation to continue towards a happier and fuller life.

About the author
Theresa Cheung is the author of 16 health and popular psychology books, including The Glycaemic Factor: How to Balance your Blood Sugar and How to Boost Your Immune System. She also co-authored the best-selling PCOS Diet Book and has contributed features to Here's Health, Health Plus, NHS Mother and Baby, You Are What You Eat, Red, She and Prima magazines.