Posted by Larry Hoover on February 6, 2006, at 13:00:13
In reply to Re: SUGAR IS AS BAD AS BENZOS » davpet, posted by yxibow on January 17, 2006, at 17:30:43
> Yes, because those darn sugar pills just don't seem to cut the edge off of panic disorder and cause people to walk screaming in front of cars.
>
> More benzo.org.uk drivel.....
>
> But don't stop me from one's belief.
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> tidings
>
> -- JIt is interesting, though, that national sugar consumption rates are highly correlated to the incidence of depression. My interpretation of that correlation is that sugar consumptiom is a surrogate variable. In this instance, sugar consumption stands for industrial food processing in general. It's a pretty robust correlation....could be loss of PUFA content, loss of minerals, loss of antioxidants, also. The more coincidental contributors, the stronger the correlation.
Lar
Depress Anxiety. 2002;16(3):118-20.
A cross-national relationship between sugar consumption and major depression?
Westover AN, Marangell LB.
Mood Disorders Center (MDOC), Department of Psychiatry, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA. anwestover@yahoo.com
We have preliminarily investigated the hypothesis that sugar consumption may impact the prevalence of major depression by correlating per capita consumption of sugar with the prevalence of major depression. Major depression prevalence data (annual rate/100) was obtained from the Cross-National Epidemiology of Major Depression and Bipolar Disorder study [Weissman et al., 1996]. Sugar consumption data from 1991 was obtained from the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations. For the primary analysis, sugar consumption rates (cal/cap/day) were correlated with the annual rate of major depression, using the Pearson correlation coefficient. For the six countries with available data for the primary analysis, there was a highly significant correlation between sugar consumption and the annual rate of depression (Pearson correlation 0.948, P=0.004). Naturally, a correlation does not necessarily imply etiology. Caveats such as the limited number of countries with available data must be considered. Although speculative, there are some mechanistic reasons to consider that sugar consumption may directly impact the prevalence of major depression. Possible relationships between sugar consumption, beta-endorphins, and oxidative stress are discussed.
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:600080
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/health/20060202/msgs/606900.html