Foods Like Fish May Buoy Your Mental Health

Foods Like Fish May Buoy Your Mental Health

By Ed Edelson
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Feb. 10 (HealthDay News) -- In research that literally offers food for thought, scientists have found that omega-3 fatty acids and uridine -- a natural substance found in foods -- work as well as antidepressants in preventing signs of depression.

The rat experiments used a well-established animal model of depression, according to the researchers from Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass.

The rats were placed in a tank of water, where they had no choice but to swim. After a while, the rats realized swimming was futile, so they simply began to float, a sign of surrender to depression. Given an antidepressant drug, however, they started swimming again, the researchers said.

But combined doses of omega-3 fatty acids and uridine were as effective as three different antidepressants in prompting the rats to start swimming again, said study author William Carlezon, director of McLean's Behavioral Genetics Laboratory.

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