Al-Amn Magazine

GREENAPPLE R esearch shows that certain foods really can help with depression and stress. Here’s why - and which foods help most. You’ve undoubtedly heard the adage that you are what you eat. It turns out that it may apply to brain health nearly as much as physical health. Research increasingly supports the idea that eating the right foods and avoiding the wrong ones may improve your mood and emotional well-being over time. “Just as we recognize that diet plays a role in conditions like heart disease or diabetes, we now understand that food choices can affect brain function, mood, and mental health disorders,” says Wolfgang Marx, deputy director of the Food & Mood Centre at Deakin University in Australia and president of the International Society for Nutritional Psychiatry Research, a growing field that explores how diet influences mental health and brain function. “Diets high in ultra-processed foods and low in nutrient quality are consistently associated with a higher risk of depression and anxiety,” says Marx. Indeed, a study by Marx and colleagues in a 2024 issue or BMJ found that people who consume high amounts of ultra-processed foods have a 48 percent increased risk of anxiety and a 22 percent increased risk of depression.  By contrast, research has found that improving your diet can improve major depression. And a review of 13 studies published in the February 2025 issue of Nutrition Reviews found that the Mediterranean diet could reduce the risks of depression, anxiety, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) among children and teenagers. What’s more, in a study of 7,434 adults, researchers found that those who eat more legumes, other vegetables, fruits, yogurt, fish and seafood, milk, and fruit juice have lower levels of perceived stress, according to a study in a 2024 issue of BMC Public Health.  The proof really is in the processed pudding and potato chips. The goal, Marx says, is to combine dietary strategies with mental-health treatments like psychotherapy and medication. “I don’t think people appreciate how food choices are tied to the risk of mental health disorders,” says Drew Ramsey, a psychiatrist based in Wyoming and author of Healing the Modern Brain and Eat to Beat Depression. Compounding the problem, he adds, mental-health professionals don’t usually receive nutrition training. Which means that often people must figure out these connections for themselves. How can food boost your mood? While much of the research in this area has focused on correlations between certain eating patterns or consumption of specific nutrients and mental health conditions, “there are multiple Cop i ng wi t h s t ress and depress i on Sci ent i s t s are uncoveri ng connect i ons between d i et and ment a l hea l t h