What You Should Eat For Your Mental Health: Mussels
There are many reasons why. Iodine is one of the best
A regular weekend treat in our household is mussels steamed in butter and white wine. As well as being a feast for the senses, this dish is also a complete brain food, par excellence.
Mussels are an extraordinarily rich source of the key brain nutrients: vitamin B12, zinc, omega-3 fatty acids, selenium, and of course iodine. Mood, memory and concentration all depend on these nutrients. Mussels are also a decent and surprising source of vitamin C.
But for now the spotlight is just on iodine, because there’s a good chance that you lack this critical nutrient, and that could seriously affect your mental health.
Thoughts on thyroid
Think iodine and you probably, quite rightly, think thyroid and metabolism. Iodine is a trace element and is the main component of thyroid hormone. Lack of iodine can lead to an underactive thyroid gland.
Even so, the part of the body that is most dependent on this trace element is the brain. You need it to form myelin, the protective sheath that wraps around the neuron. It is involved in the communication of messages between neurons. Without it, you can’t develop your cognitive skills. Deficiency can also leave you tired and depressed.
Your thyroid gland may be in charge of your metabolism, but it also influences your mental health, because the two are connected.
“The potential relationship between thyroid diseases and mental disorders have been demonstrated….. Anxiety and depression are psychiatric disorders that are commonly observed in society and have been associated with chronic diseases such as thyroid function disorders.”
Symptoms of an underactive thyroid gland (hypothyroidism) can be similar to those of mental ill-health, and include fatigue, sleep disturbance and depression. Thyroid dysfunction, “common in major psychiatric disorders” has also been found in patients with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders, leading researchers to suggest screening of these patients for abnormal thyroid status.
And even if you are tested and found not to have overt hypothyroidism, you might still have subclinical hypothyroidism, and pass straight under the radar. Tests aren’t sensitive enough to detect this.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Your Nutritionist Recommends to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.