Vitamin B12
Creatine
As Paleo dieters, we tend to ignore recommendations regarding vitamin B12. The best sources are animal products, and we eat plenty of those. There’s no way we would need to worry about vitamin B12. Right? Wrong. Nearly every mental disorder, including depression, anxiety, Alzheimer’s, dementia, ADHD, and bipolar, has been linked to vitamin-B12 deficiency. If you’re suffering from any of the above, you might want to consider a closer look at your vitamin B12 levels; a methylated B12 may prove helpful.
Not only useful for improving anaerobic muscle performance, creatine also serves as an important modulator of mood and cognition. The vast majority of Paleo dieters get plenty of creatine in their diets, but we may have deficient vegetarian and vegan friends or family who could benefit from a little creatine monohydrate (none of which is sourced from animal flesh). Ideally, get it from meat and fish.
Zinc There is ample solid evidence that zinc deficiency plays an important role in multiple psychiatric disorders. Low zinc levels are considered a reliable biological marker for both major depressive disorder and anxiety. When bipolar patients have depressive episodes, their serum zinc level actually drops. One study found that 41% of older patients with a wide range of psychiatric disorders presented with zinc deficiency. Most importantly, zinc improves gut-barrier function, thereby enhancing nutrient absorption, reducing oxidative stress, and shielding against endotoxins that have been shown to affect mood and increase depressive symptoms. It is best sourced from red meat and shellfish.
Magnesium
Mental-health problems don’t just appear out of the ether. They develop from imbalances in physical precursors, and our successful regulation of those precursors requires various nutrients. It’s no wonder, then, that our eating habits are a critical factor in our mental health. How so? Sure, following a general Paleo template, exercising regularly, getting sufficient, high-quality sleep, and implementing other positive lifestyle interventions is a good start. For many, though, it goes deeper. Here, we’re going to look at some specific nutrient deficiencies that can cause or exacerbate common mental-health concerns.
Everyone reading this probably already knows of magnesium’s importance for general health. You’ve all heard that nearly every physiological function involves magnesium in some capacity. One of its primary jobs is to guard the NMDA receptors in nerve cells, regulating activation by calcium and glutamate. With magnesium deficiency, there’s no check on calcium and glutamate activation of the NMDA receptors, increasing the risk of excitoxicity-related diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s. Adequate magnesium levels also help prevent the type of low-level, chronic inflammation that can lead to depression, anxiety, and other brain-based disorders. Teens who miss out on sufficient amounts of magnesium, for example, are more likely to display aggressive or antisocial behavior. A recent study even used intravenous magnesium sulfate in patients with treatment-resistant depression; as subjects’ magnesium levels rose, their depressive symptoms dropped. Among foods, though, the best sources are leafy greens, nuts, and seeds.