Top 6 Supplements for Depression and Anxiety

In the last few blogs, we focused on Omega-3 and its potential effects on your mood.

Especially, EPA Omega-3.

What’s at the tip of your fork can certainly affect the way you feel.

But even if you are diligent about your diet, it’s difficult to get all the ‘happy nutrients’ you need from just your plate.

This is when supplements can help.

And no, a multivitamin does not count as a supplement for depression! They will not give you the right kind and quantity of what you need.

EPA Omega-3

• It’s EPA, not DHA, that helps with mood
• Take 1000 mg of ‘unopposed EPA’ per day.
• The mg of EPA minus the mg of DHA is the unopposed EPA in your fish oil pill.

The best Omega-3 supplements for depression:

1. OmegaVia – 520 mg of unopposed EPA
2. Minami MorEPA- 528 mg of unopposed EPA
3. Renewlife OmegaSmart - 660 mg of unopposed EPA

The current batch of OmegaVia has 572 mg of unopposed EPA per pill. We are conservative on the label, so per the label, there is 520 mg unopposed EPA per pill. (I’ll explain more about the importance of unopposed EPA in another blog)

So you’d need two pills each of any of the above three products. And more is not necessarily better!

OmegaBrite is good too but it only has 300 mg of unopposed EPA Omega-3 per pill.

Nordic Naturals Ultimate Omega has 100 mg of unopposed EPA Omega-3. Nordic’s EPA Xtra has 393 mg unopposed EPA.

 Vitamin D3

There is quite a bit of evidence linking low Vitamin D levels to mood. More studies on Vitamin D and depression here, and here.

Vitamin D3 stimulates production of serotonin, so this is not surprising.

How much should you take?

Well, I feel pretty comfortable telling people to take 10,000 IU of D3 per day for the first week. But I don’t recommend staying at that high dose for more than a week or so.

Your ideal maintenance dose is impossible to guess without actually measuring it – so don’t guess. Talk to your doctor and get it measured. It’s relatively cheap to measure and even cheaper to supplement. Get it to around 50 ng/ml. For most people, ideal dosage is somewhere between 1000 IU and 5000 IU per day depending on where you live and how much sun you get.

Vitamin D is slow-acting. If your ‘tank was on empty’ for a while, it may take a few months before levels reach acceptable levels. So don’t expect to feel remarkable a day after taking 10,000 IU.

Vitamin D is not exactly a ‘vitamin.’ It is a steroid-like substance. So more isn’t always better. In some people, too much D can increase calcium levels in the blood. So, again, work with your doctor on this.

More about Vitamin D3 at the Vitamin D Council’s page and Dr. Michael Holick’s page.

Favorite brands? None. Most Vitamin D3 supplements are comparable. The raw material ingredient (cholecalciferol) is very inexpensive and you should be able to get a year’s supply for under $20.

Oh, here is a brilliant and even cheaper idea: go outside in the summer, and get 10-15 minutes of upper body and leg exposure to midday sun. No sunscreen – it blocks D3 production. No shades – the bright light will help reset your circadian rhythms and can have a positive effect on mood.

And finally, this study says combing Prozac with Vitamin D is much better at treating depression than Prozac alone.

Magnesium

Magnesium is often called the original chill pill.

Geek speak: magnesium does a lot of things but it does its best work between brain synapses, where it keeps calcium and glutamate from ‘exciting’ the NMDA receptors too much. Overexcited neurons = tension and anxiety. Magnesium keeps a lid on this. Not enough magnesium and the neurons will eventually die. Neurons and synapses going kablooey in the brain doesn’t help you stay cheery. Oh, and remember St. John’s Wort from the 1990s? Everyone thought it was a natural alternative to Prozac. Turns out St. John’s Wort was simply good at protecting cells from the dangers of magnesium deficiency.

Too much calcium (yes, even from bone health supplements) and stress can wipe out magnesium. Food and water is where we used to get most of our magnesium.

But processed foods have virtually no magnesium. And they remove magnesium from the tap water to keep pipes clean. Dandy.

All that calcium and very little magnesium can make you pret-tee tense, anxious and may be even depressed.

This study showed rapid recovery from major depression in just 7 days, with magnesium supplementation with each meal and bed time. It’s not a perfectly designed study, so your mileage may will vary. But the study is a good read and I think you should pay attention to the message.

Leafy green veggies and nuts are good sources of magnesium. Googling ‘magnesium rich foods’ will turn up beans and whole grains. Ack! Pass on the whole grains – they will spike your glucose, goose your triglycerides, cause havoc with gluten and the phytates will remove valuable nutrients from your body. There is NOTHING present in whole grains that you can’t get from veggies. Nothing. But I digress.

Unlike Vitamin D3, if you decide to supplement with magnesium, it is very easy to buy the wrong product.

Most drug-store magnesium pills are made of magnesium oxide. Even reputable brands like NatureMade use magnesium oxide. Magnesium oxide is not easily absorbed. You might as well swallow a pebble. Stay away from these products.

Favorite Brands

You can find lots of Magnesium citrate products online. They’re fine. I take Natural Calm powdered magnesium citrate dissolved in a cup of water and/or Jigsaw Health Magnesium.

Well-absorbed magnesium salts are not dense – they are fluffy and cannot be compressed into one small pill. You need to take 4 Jigsaw magnesium pills – and they are not cheap – but they are time-released, so you’re unlikely to experience a laxative effect.

Unless you eat like a hunter-gatherer caveman, you need to take a magnesium supplement. Even if you don’t have depression.

 B-Vitamins

There are lots of studies that link B-vitamin deficiencies to mood imbalance and depression.

Examples here, here, here, and here.

Getting enough Vitamin B12 is a real problem for some people, especially vegetarians. Unless you eat clams, oysters and liver regularly, you may want to think about supplementing.

People used to eat liver. Now they think it is gross. It isn’t. Avoid it at your own risk. Here’s a recipe.

Folate, B6 and B12 help create happy chemicals – dopamine and serotonin. SAM-e is also important here – see more on that below.

As far as supplement recommendations, well, I think these are OK. I’m open to suggestions. Share your thoughts in the comments section below if you know a good brand. I take an occasional chewable B12 but depend mostly on my diet for B-vitamins – egg yolks and grass-fed beef liver.

Watch out for the wrong type of B-vitamin!

Most multivitamins and drug-store variety B-complex contain small amounts of the cheap form of B12 called cyanocobalamin. Not good. Look for the better methylcobalamin form instead.

Same goes for Folic Acid and Folate. Folic acid is cheap, synthetic stuff and found in most multivitamins. You can overdose in Folic acid. You are much better off choosing Folate. Look for Metfolin or Quatrefolic brand Folate.

Jigsaw Health provides the right type of B-vitamins in their formula. Someone at Jigsaw has done their homework.

SAM-e

SAM-e levels are low in depressed individuals. And several positive studies show that it is at least as good as prescription antidepressants in effect.

SAM-e (say Sammy) is made by our bodies…but to produce it, you need B-vitamins and methionine. Methionine is an amino acid found in meat. Vegans take note.

Which brand to buy?

The recommended dosage is 400 to 800 mg taken twice a day. This can get very expensive. Most brands of SAM-e are fine. There are only a couple of factories in the world that make this stuff and most brands sell the same raw material – usually Italian made. The Chinese may be getting into the game, in which case, forget what I said! Drugstores and Walmart type stores value cost competitiveness, so the likelihood of finding Chinese ingredients there is high.

Costco has a good deal on NatureMade SAM-e.

SAM-e is generally pretty safe, but taking a lot of it without taking a B-complex or a good multivitamin is not a good idea (long story) but just to be safe, take it with a multi.

Creatine

Creatine also works in a similar way to SAM-e. But I’m not aware of any comparisons between the two when it comes to efficacy.

In a recent study, depressed people taking creatine along with their anti-depressants responded better than those taking the Rx pills by themselves.

And creatine has the advantage of being a lot cheaper than SAMe.

Iodine

Every thyroid molecule in your body has iodine attached to it.

And iodine can only come from your diet. Mostly wild seafood, seaweed and dairy. A little bit comes from iodized salt. But since so many people are cutting back on salt and so many more eat at restaurants where they don’t use iodized salt, iodine deficiency is coming back.

A lot of vegetarians and almost all vegans are deficient in iodine. Notice a trend?

Without enough iodine, you’re likely to have an under active thyroid. And an under active thyroid can make you feel tired and depressed.

Some of my vegan friends like to snack on dried seaweed – the stuff is loaded with iodine. I tried it. Ptoooey!

So now I take LifeExtension’s Sea Iodine.

 In case you were wondering…

Why didn’t I talk about 5-HTP, Tryptophan, GABA, Theanine or St. John’s Wort? Well, these may work, but they don’t address the root cause of the problem – poor nutrition. Other than SAM-e, all the other supplements recommended here are actual nutrients that you need on a daily basis. Once you’ve met those needs either through your diet or with supplements, then you can start looking at other ingredients.

Other References:

Jorde R. Effects of vitamin D supplementation on symptoms of depression in overweight and obese subjects: randomized double blind trial. Intern Med. 2008 Dec;264(6):599-609. Epub 2008 Sep 10.

Gariballa S. Testing homocysteine-induced neurotransmitter deficiency, and depression of mood hypothesis in clinical practice. Age Ageing. 2011 Nov;40(6):702-5.

Sanchez-Villegas A, et al. Association between folate, vitamin B(6) and vitamin B(12) intake and depression in the SUN cohort study. J Hum Nutr Diet. 2009 Apr;22(2):122-33.

Jacka FN,et al. Association between magnesium intake and depression and anxiety in community-dwelling adults: the Hordaland Health Study. Aust N Z J Psychiatry. 2009 Jan;43(1):45-52.

Janice K. et al. Depressive Symptoms, omega-6:omega-3 Fatty Acids, and Inflammation in Older Adults sychosomatic Medicine 69:217-224 (2007)

Adams PB, et al. Arachidonic acid to eicosapentaenoic acid ratio in blood correlates positively with clinical symptoms of depression. Lipids. 1996 Mar;31 Suppl:S157-61.

Conklin SM, et al. High omega-6 and low omega-3 fatty acids are associated with depressive symptoms and neuroticism. Psychosom Med. 2007 Dec;69(9):932-4. Epub 2007 Nov 8.

 

DISCLAIMER: This website is for your education and general health information only. The ideas and suggestions contained on this website are not to be used as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment from your doctor for any health condition or problem. Users of this website should not rely on information provided on this website for their own health problems. Any questions regarding your own health should be addressed to your own physician.

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About the Author: Vin Kutty, M.S. is OmegaVia’s Scientific Advisor and Chief Blogger. He is a nutritionist, author, and Omega-3 expert with over 20 years of experience.