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20.06.2016


Simple multivitamin supplement can make you happier

Supplementation with a handful of vitamins and minerals helps people to feel noticeably more upbeat and less depressed, report Australian psychologists in Nutrients.

Study
The researchers gave 27 healthy adults a multivitamin supplement every day for four weeks. The researchers used Berocca, a Bayer product. Bayer funded the study.


Supplementation with a handful of vitamins and minerals helps people to feel noticeably more upbeat and less depressed, report Australian psychologists in Nutrients.


A similar group was given a placebo.

The researchers analysed the subjects' blood and asked them to complete the Profile of Mood States test before and after the supplementation period. The test measures how people are feeling.

Results
The supplement had no influence on most of the areas that the Profile of Mood States test measures. But there was one exception, and that was the extent of depression [Depression/Dejection]. Click on the figure below for a larger, more legible version.


Simple multivitamin supplement can make you happier


Simple multivitamin supplement can make you happier



The supplement boosted the concentration of vitamins B6 and B12 in the subjects' blood and reduced the concentration of homocysteine. Around the start of the 21st century nutritionists regarded homocysteine as the root of everything that was bad and unhealthy in people, including depression. The lower the homocysteine level, the better, was the motto.


Simple multivitamin supplement can make you happier



This theory is no longer embraced wholeheartedly, and this study does nothing to restore it either. The researchers found no correlation between a reduction in the homocysteine level and an improvement in mood. So how the supplement improved the subjects' mood the researchers don't know.

We, the ignorant compilers of this free webzine, have our suspicions. Vitamin B6 and vitamin B12 are both involved in the biosynthesis of the 'feel-good' neurotransmitter serotonin. The supplement tested also contained pretty much vitamin C, as the table below shows.


Simple multivitamin supplement can make you happier



High doses of vitamin C probably have anti-depressive effect, working through the GABA receptor.

Conclusion
"The present study explored the effects of multi-vitamin and mineral supplementation in healthy younger adults, providing further support for potential mood benefits associated with multi-vitamin and mineral supplementation", the researchers wrote.

Source:
Nutrients. 2015 Oct 30;7(11):9005-17.

More:
The anti-depression diet 31.03.2016
Five things you can do to be happier - and one of them has something to do with diet 30.03.2016
People who eat vegetables are happier and more creative 24.02.2016

Archives:
Cerebrogenics
Depression
Vitamin C
Vitamins


Happy people catch cold less quickly Positive emotions extend life expectancy by ten years Chasing after happiness will only make you less happy

Happy people catch cold less quickly
If you are infected by an influenza or cold virus, the chance that you'll actually develop symptoms is forty percent less if you are happy, energetic and in harmony than if you don't have these positive feelings.

Positive emotions extend life expectancy by ten years
The more positive your attitude to life is - the more optimistic, upbeat, content and happy you are - the longer you are likely to live.

Chasing after happiness will only make you less happy
If you want to be happy, don't go after it. Happiness becomes more elusive the more you search for it.