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You don’t need to travel to Santorini to eat like a Greek. A Mediterranean-like diet has been shown to lower the risk of suffering depression by a third – proof of the link between the gut and brain. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 8:15pm, 10 May 2019Updated: 8:08am, 11 May 2019

In 1829, epicure Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin wrote: “Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.” Philosopher Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach echoed the sentiment: “Man is what he eats.” And in 1942, nutritionist Victor Lindlahr published the influential book You Are What You Eat: How To Win and Keep Health With Diet.

In the 21st century, this understanding underpins an entire industry that claims you can eat your way to health. Now a whole new movement is claiming you can eat your way to happiness – and not in the fleeting, temporary way associated with enjoying a slice of chocolate cake.

“Lifestyle interventions are not simply effective – they can be as, sometimes more, effective as drugs in protecting us from depression,” claims Shawn Talbott, a Fellow of the American College of Nutrition and the American Institute of Stress who has written a dozen books on mood state. Talbott advises that people who experience high stress can adopt strategies to manage it. And while he acknowledges that stress and depression are different, he says they are often closely related.

“Chronic stress is frequently a predisposing factor for depression. In fact, many of the ‘anti-stress’ interventions that are effective in reducing cortisol [a stress hormone] exposure will also alleviate depression – eating right, exercising, getting adequate sleep,” he says.

A researcher studies gut bacteria in a laboratory. The health of the body’s microbiome is linked to mental health, research has shown. Photo: Alamy

One of the reasons lifestyle interventions are beneficial for sufferers of depression, Talbott says, is because of the multifactorial nature of the illness. He points to research that suggests depression can stem from imbalances, whether this is from a lack of the “happy chemical” serotonin, too much inflammation, a “leaky gut” in which in which bacteria and toxins are able to “leak” through the intestinal wall, or when there are more “bad” bacteria than “good bacteria”.