The foods you choose may influence your behavior and emotional well-being.
Food and Mood by Design
"In the past, whether food worked for you or against you usually was a matter of luck or choice. It no longer has to be that way. With all that we now know about the food/mind/mood connection...you can begin to select (food) that will power your brain, modify your moods, and in the process make you a more effective, motivated, and perhaps even more contented individual."
Imagine choosing one type of food to alleviate anxiety, another to bolster brain power, or yet another to curb your urge to splurge on that donut. A new field of pioneering nutrition research, often referred to as the study of food and mood, is confirming what many of us have always suspected: What and when we eat can affect our mind and mood, the tendency to pile on pounds-even the quality of our lives. For example, to curb the urge to splurge on that donut, you could instead choose a lower fat sweet/fat food combination, such as graham crackers, fig newtons, or hot chocolate made with skim milk.
Richard Wurtman, M.D. and Judith Wurtman, Ph.D., scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), first linked food with mood when they found that the sugar and starch in carbohydrate foods boosted a powerful brain chemical called "serotonin." Soon they linked serotonin and other neurotransmitters (substances that pass information from cell to cell in the brain) to our every mood, emotion or craving. For instance, they noted that eating carbohydrate-rich foods (breads, cereals, pasta, fruits and starchy vegetables such as potatoes, winter squash or corn) elevated serotonin levels, helping you to feel more relaxed and calm; high protein foods (nonfat dairy products such as cottage cheese, yogurt or milk; or beans, peas, nuts and also soy products, such as tofu or soy milk) had the opposite effect: They released other substances that let you think and react more quickly, or feel more alert and energetic.
Carbohydrate Cravings
More current studies have shed additional light on issues surrounding carbohydrate intake and mood. Researchers at Rockefeller University in New York believe food cravings may be hints from Mother Nature. Perhaps the sugar cravings many women experience at puberty, premenstrually, during pregnancy, and after menopause, could be a response to estrogen's effect on brain chemicals and blood sugar levels.
"Women may be more sensitive to changes in serotonin than men," explains Catherine Christie, Ph.D., R.D., a food/mood specialist in Jacksonville, Florida. "When estrogen levels fall and progesterone levels are high" serotonin levels may drop. "We postulate that this drop is why women crave carbohydrates during (certain) times of the menstrual cycle. If serotonin levels fall, appetite increases, particularly for carbohydrates." The same mechanism seems to occur during perimenopause, the menopausal transition. "When estrogen levels decline," says Dr. Christie, "there's (often) increased appetite, carbohydrate craving and reported weight gain. This may also be related to changes in serotonin."
Chocolate "High"
Taking the female food/mood research a step further, University of Michigan researchers have linked the desire for sugar with its ability to calm; for fat, with its ability to elevate moods. Adam Drewnowski, Ph.D., director of the Human Nutrition Program at the University of Michigan, believes it's not carbohydrates we crave, it's fat.
The real craving, he thinks, is triggered when we combine sugar with fat, creating a sweet-and-creamy concoction that's hard to resist. According to Drewnowski and Barbara Smith, Ph.D., a researcher at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, it is endorphins-naturally occurring substances in the brain that produce pleasurable feelings-that function as pain killers. They believe we crave high fat, sugar-laden foods to experience the blues-bursting benefits of endorphins. These findings could explain cravings for chocolate. With its 50 percent fat/50 percent sugar content-plus an endorphin-releasing substance called phenylethylamine-chocolate may offer the perfect blend of ingredients both to stimulate and soothe at the same time.
The fat and sugar in chocolate can raise both serotonin and endorphin levels, which explains why women may crave chocolate both before and during their menstrual periods. But because it's not nutritionally smart to eat chocolate, to get the same brain-chemical change, choose high complex carbohydrates, such as whole grain bread or crackers to stabilize serotonin levels. To keep endorphin levels up, try a regular exercise program.
But what if the chocolate urge doesn't go away? Debra Waterhouse, MPH, RD writes in her book about chocolate cravings, "there is no evidence that small amounts of chocolate pose any harm to health or well-being (so) satisfying a chocolate urge in moderation might be the best strategy."
