Diet and Anxiety (BPD)

[Depression = 72% of members]

Hi All

I have been reading a little bit on the huge subject of nutrition and BPD

and it seems as if there are quite a big correlation between mood/anxiety and diet.

What I read was that with the correct diet, symptoms can decrease considerably

(im not suggesting healing but surely suggest that our modern

diets are not good for us in many cases for a myriad of diseases

we inflict (eat) to ourselves, such as glutamate. MSG etc. )

[Fanie]

Hi All

I have been reading a little bit on the huge subject of nutrition and BPD

and it seems as if there are quite a big correlation between mood/anxiety and diet.

What I read was that with the correct diet, symptoms can decrease considerably

(im not suggesting healing but surely suggest that our modern

diets are not good for us in many cases for a myriad of diseases

we inflict (eat) to ourselves, such as glutamate. MSG etc. )

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[maxsterling]

I'd be curious to what information is out there.  My girlfriend has altered her diet in many ways over the years, been vegan for awhile, cut out this or that, says that one thing is bad for her, or another, and yet nothing has changed with her BPD.  The only thing that seems to matter is that she views eating with shame.  In other words, eating is part of her addictive brain, so if she eats something that society tells her is bad for her, the shame builds and she dysregulates.  I don't think it has anything to do with the food itself.

[charred]

It is generally the other way around... your predominant mood/stress level affects your eating. When you are in the moment/in the flow... it is easy to eat right and watch your weight, good food choices and overeating is seldom a problem. When you are mildly stressed, you can be willful and control your diet, and stick to one if you want. At a higher stress level, you have trouble remembering to diet, are inclined to start stress eating and even forget what you have eaten. When really stressed out, you binge eat, looking for stress relief in horrible foods.

Laurel Mellin has written a few excellent books on stress and how people act. "The Pathway"... is fantastic... explains how to understand and reduce your stress level and be much happier. "Wired for Joy" expands on the ideas, and explains how we have 3 levels of brain that each act different and that we can be fully in any of the three or between stages (giving 5 ways of relating with people)... mostly driven by our stress level. Much of the BPD behavior is high stress limbic/reptilian in nature for instance. Before writing those two books she wrote a few diet books based on the idea that we overeat and make poor choices as we are using the food as a substitute for something we are not getting, so "The Solution: For Safe, Healthy, and Permanent Weight Loss"  is unusual in that it is a diet book based on changing the underlying cause for needing to diet, rather than just the calories and foods you eat. It has had lasting results in keeping the weight off (once lost)... versus nearly every other yo-yo diet.

All in all those books are excellent reading, and help to understand stress and relationships and how to improve things... . but for BPD... I believe the set-point, average stress level of most pwBPD is going to be firmly in the range where bad eating is the norm... . except during the early idealizing time.  Now that I am no longer in a r/s with a pwBPD... working on getting more joyful and finding bad eating is starting to take care of itself.

[Fanie]

I found this at www.mainlinehealth.org/oth/Page.asp?PageID=OTH000456

But there are many sites that advocate good diet, examples

(Still looking deeper into it)

"What has been perhaps the most interesting -- but hardly the most surprising -- outcome of nutrition and mental health studies has been the realization that the varieties of nutrients that appear to have a positive effect on brain health are the same nutrients that are known to have benefits for physical health.

So, can a good diet control mental illness? It certainly cannot cure a person who has bipolar disease, but studies demonstrate that it can help to prevent a person from having multiple episodes. Will schizophrenia go away if you eat an apple a day? Hardly But a good diet certainly will keep your mind and body in a stabilized state. Unfortunately, mental health has been neglected by those working on food policy. If we don't address it and change the way we farm and fish, we may lose the means to prevent much diet-related ill health"


A Danish study showed that better prognoses for schizophrenic patients strongly correlate with living in a country where there is a high consumption of omega-3 fatty acids [58]. Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), which is found in omega-3 fish oils, has been shown to help depressive patients and can also be used to treat schizophrenia [41,42,59]. Furthermore, studies suggest that supplements such as the commercially available VegEPA capsule, when taken on a daily basis, helps healthy individuals and schizophrenic patients maintain a balanced mood and improves blood circulation [59-65].

The VegEPA capsule contains:

• 280 milligrams of EPA from marine omega-3 fish oil

• 100 milligrams of organic virgin evening primrose omega-6 oil

• 1 milligram of the anti-oxidant vitamin E

• An outer capsule made out of fish gelatine

For schizophrenic patients, docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) supplements inhibit the effects of EPA supplements so it is recommended that the patient only takes the EPA supplement, which the body will convert into the amount DHA it needs [59-65]. Double-blind, placebo controlled studies, randomized, placebo controlled studies, and open-label clinical studies have all shown that approximately 2 g of EPA taken daily in addition to one's existing medication effectively decreases symptoms in schizophrenic patients [59,60,65].

[Haye]

I live with a dBPD guy who has also an eating disorder (EDNOS) and mixed set of anxieties. I've understood that eating disorders are a rather typical comorbidities with BPD and i've also understood that problems with eating and body-image are quite common results of BPD, not the other way round. Like with his case, eating and anxities are truly linked, but it means eating causes anxiety. What he is or isn't eating isn't usually the problem, it's the situation - people watching. He doesn't feel hungry (like never), food can feel disgusting and well he eats mostly by forcing himself to eat (knowing it is not good for him not to eat) or after somebody else (like me) reminds him. And of course, too much pressure in matters of food and eating will also create anxiety so it's best not to be too strict on that, either.

So, what can i say. I do think everything has an effect, also what we eat and thus one should always try to have a healhty, nutrious diet (in my experience that would trying to limit the amount of "whitywhite" carbohydrates like huge amounts of suger, excessive amounts of all white bread, or eating like nothing but pizzas only; making sure there is plenty of fresh fruits or veggies and also enough protein, preferably from fish, poultry or vegetables). But I would still hesitate claim that certain kind of food would cause anxieties let alone think something as severe as serious anxieties or BPD could be corrected by changing a diet.

[Fanie]

Its true - some BPD's eat because they feel anxious

              and its scientifically proved that some foods are bad for your brain functions

What happened at home is that my uBPDw realized that she cant afford "binge eating" as she then had to go up another size AND as she said the more weight she puts on the worse her IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) gets. As you might know IBS is 50% or more caused by stress. I the subtle reading books about body building and she got interested (not much but at least)

What I did is to suggest gymming at home as due to work hours we cant go to a regular gym. I investigated the gym stuff extensively as well as supplements for weight loss for her and muscle building for me. So I bought some equipment and supplements and we started . So far so good... . she is slightly excited that she is losing some weight,

  just one snag:

  she is not interested in eating more healthy, saying she's not interested ?

Funny thing she does not want to understand is that; what is the use to workout if you grad a hamburger and 4 beers afterwards ?

[Irabelle]

Has anyone had any experience with the carnivore diet and BPD?