The Dire Connection Between Diet and Obesity, Depression, and Anxiety

The link between obesity and mental health disorders is more significant than most people realize, and one physician researcher has been working to better understand the reasons.

Obesity has become epidemic, with the average American man now weighing 198 pounds—up from 166 in the 1960s—and the average American woman weighing 170 pounds—up from 140 in the 1960s. Concurrently, mental disorders like depression, anxiety, ADHD, and post-traumatic stress disorder are also becoming epidemic, and Dr. William Wilson, author of “Brain Drain,” believes the phenomena are correlated.

While many researchers have linked several of these conditions to factors related to modern life—everything from sitting too much, to social isolation, to environmental contaminants including endocrine disrupters—Wilson believes the overarching cause is our food. Or more accurately, his findings focus on how the food we commonly eat triggers a neurological/psycho-emotional disorder he calls “carbohydrate associated reversible brain syndrome” or the CARB syndrome.

Wilson is the rare family physician who is also active in the research community, a combination that led to his work in the field.

According to Wilson, the long-term consumption of highly processed foods made by Big Food, or the “Food Industrial Complex” as he calls it, has had a profound impact on brain function. These foods are packed with high glycemic carbohydrates and sugars that drain the body of crucial neurotransmitters like dopamine, epinephrine, serotonin, and norepinephrine. This loss nudges people toward mental disorders even as it compels the body to store extra fat—regardless of how much the person eats.

“I noticed a strange correlation [in my patients] between certain brain dysfunction symptoms and changes in body composition, and the symptom changes always preceded the body composition changes,” Wilson told The Epoch Times.

In other words, psychological factors seemed to have a causative role in weight gain.

“To me, this suggested that when it comes to fat storage, the brain calls the shots,” he said​​.

Wilson made this observation after taking the somewhat unusual step 16 years ago to begin measuring body composition using a Futrex machine. It measures body composition far more accurately than the typical method of using body mass index (BMI), which is a formula based on dividing weight by height. Unfortunately, BMI doesn’t take muscle mass into account.

Even people with anorexia can still have excess body fat, Wilson says.

Over the years, Wilson has amassed a database of more than 18,000 cases, and he noticed another pattern: When body composition improved so did several psychological conditions.

A 2003 paper by Harvard researchers theorized that 14 common brain disorders may be part of an overall disease called “affective spectrum disorder.” The paper got Wilson thinking.

“I realized they were the same symptoms associated with changes in body composition and I eventually identified 22 symptoms that fit this pattern,” he said.

The symptoms that Wilson says characterize CARB syndrome are: