Eating an Orange Daily Cuts Depression Risk by 20%, Harvard Study Shows
Eating just one orange each day could reduce your chances of depression by a fifth, according to new research from Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.
Researchers followed over 100,000 women who tracked their food intake and health conditions. The study suggests that citrus fruit increases beneficial gut bacteria, which then affects important brain chemicals – serotonin and dopamine – that influence our mood.
“I would love to see a clinical trial done to definitively show that eating citrus can lower the risk of depression, or maybe even alleviate the condition in some cases,” said Dr. Raaj Mehta to CBS News Boston.
While other fruits like apples or bananas were studied, only citrus fruits showed this remarkable mental health connection. The relationship seems to be specific to citrus fruits.
These findings add to growing evidence that our diet affects our mental health through gut bacteria. Interestingly, our gut produces almost all – 90-95% – of the body’s mood-regulating serotonin.
Researchers found particular bacteria, like E. coli and Proteus vulgaris, that produce dopamine in the gut. These tiny organisms help control how our bodies make chemicals linked to happiness.
The connection between our gut and brain goes deep. Bacteria play a role in how the body uses tryptophan, which helps make serotonin.
“There’s such a huge unmet need for depression treatments, and eating citrus doesn’t really have any major side effects, so it would be great to see how much this simple treatment can help,” Dr. Mehta noted.
Future treatments might combine citrus with traditional depression medications, though more research is needed to understand exactly how gut bacteria create these brain-affecting compounds.
