Active Low-Carber Forums - View Single Post - "Atkins can cause depression"

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthre...hlight=liberals

If we look at that thread here it says

Quote:

Part of the reason we're able to reach a balance without carbohydrates is because of what the excessive consumption of refined carbohydrates does to our brains. First, the consumption of large quantities of sugar and other refined carbohydrates causes the level of a brain chemical called serotonin to increase significantly. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter, one of the chemicals that gets shuttled from one neuron to another as part of the infinitely complex process of communication among brain cells.

Serotonin is one of the important "relaxing" neurotransmitters. When your brain is producing adequate levels of serotonin, you feel calm, relaxed, unflustered. Adequate levels of serotonin also help you sleep soundly. It's one of the important feel-good brain chemicals: when you eat lots of carbohydrates, you feel good. Up to a point, at least. The problem is that when you continue to eat large amounts of carbohydrates, you begin to overtax your brain's ability to produce serotonin.

Let me back up here and explain a little bit about the process. Serotonin is produced from nutrient molecules, particularly amino acids, vitamins, and minerals. (Notice there's no mention of carbohydrates here.) Neurons literally assemble serotonin molecules from these nutrient substances. Then they transmit them across a synapse (or gap) to adjacent neurons in order to send a message that helps you relax. This process takes place billions of times every hour in your brain as hundreds of millions of neurons communicate with each other.

When you stimulate your brain to over-produce serotonin by eating excessive amounts of carbohydrates, you use up your body's supplies of the nutrients necessary to produce serotonin. This often results in a kind of backlash, where your brain will struggle to produce serotonin when it is stimulated, but when it's no longer got the nutrients it needs, serotonin production is actually cut back. Eventually, if you eat lots of carbs, you're going to get fat and you're going to experience symptoms of depression due to reduced serotonin production.