Seratonin & Diet

Healthy eating is commonly associated with choosing foods with your physical health in mind. However, choosing foods that contribute to your psychological health can also improve your well-being. Knowing which foods help you maintain healthy levels of serotonin may improve your mood and reduce your risk of experiencing mental illnesses, such as depression.

Function

Your brain uses serotonin to send messages among the millions of cells that make up your brain. The release of serotonin in your brain activates many brain areas that perform vital functions. According to the McGill University web page, "The Brain from Top to Bottom," your brain requires healthy levels of serotonin to properly regulate your mood, sleeping patterns and eating habits.

Significance

Lower than normal levels of serotonin can cause serious mental illnesses. In a 2006 article in the journal "Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews," neuroscientist Julie Hensler reports that low levels of serotonin in the brain cause depression. Drugs that increase serotonin levels are usually prescribed for people suffering from depression. Hensler adds that drugs that increase serotonin to healthy levels sometimes improve the symptoms of anxiety disorders, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder and social anxiety disorder.

Tryptophan and Protein

Your brain produces serotonin from the chemical tryptophan. However, according the Dr. Simon Young in a November 2007 article for the "Journal of Psychiatry & Neuroscience," eating foods that contain tryptophan and protein does not raise your serotonin levels. Tryptophan travels from your digestive system via a limited capacity channel. When you eat foods that contain tryptophan, it fails to pass through the transporter due to competition from the proteins in the food. However, Dr. Young advises that consuming pure tryptophan as a supplement does raise serotonin levels.

Tryptophan and Carbohydrates

In a January 2007 article in the journal "Public Health Nutrition," David Benton and Rachael T. Donohoe report that consuming carbohydrates triggers a process in which your muscles absorb many amino acids from your blood, but not tryptophan. This increases the concentration of tryptophan relative to other amino acids in your blood. Therefore, more tryptophan can cross the blood-brain barrier, and your brain can produce higher amounts of serotonin. In the book, "The Serotonin Power Diet," Rebecca Wurtman, Ph.D., and Dr. Nina Frusztajer point out that any carbohydrate foods can raise your serotonin levels; however, they recommend getting half of your carbohydrates from unrefined foods such as whole-grain breads and pastas.

Misconceptions

A popular misconception, says Dr. Young, is that eating bananas raises your serotonin levels, because bananas contain serotonin. While bananas do contain serotonin, Dr. Young states that they do not raise the levels of serotonin in your brain. Serotonin cannot cross the blood-brain barrier to enter your brain. Your brain must produce serotonin from tryptophan after it crosses the blood-brain barrier. Similarly, consuming pure serotonin as a supplement will not raise the levels of serotonin in your brain.