A diet high in refined carbs increased depression in post-menopausal women by 22%.

Watch out for those refined carb food binges. A new study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition has revealed a diet high in refined carbohydrates may lead to an increased risk of depression in postmenopausal women. One might also assume the foods are trouble for men, but women have higher rates of depression in general.

Carbs are found in a wide variety of foods and have often been the focus of new weight-loss diets. However, the emphasis should not be on how many carbohydrates we eat, but the type.

Refined carbohydrates are contained in refined grains, such as white flour, white bread and white rice. They differ from whole-grain foods because they have been milled - a process that increases the texture and shelf life, but that also removes much of the nutritional value which includes important fiber and vitamins.

Once carbohydrates are eaten, some of the sugar is broken down into glucose that then proceeds to enter the bloodstream. The glycemic index (GI) is a metric tool used to measure and rank the extent to which our body's sugar levels are raised after eating.

Low glycemic index foods take longer to digest and break down and, therefore, enter the blood stream slowly. Thus the blood's glucose level raises more slowly over an extended period of time.

High glycemic index foods cause a more rapid rise of the blood's glucose level. Refined grains fall into this category, and it is this reason why a high glycemic index ( refined carbs) diet can lead to a host of health problems, such as insulin resistance, obesity and type two diabetes.

Foods that have some of the highest GI scores include white bread, breakfast cereals like puffed wheat and rice and corn flakes, also instant oatmeal. Pasta, crackers, cookies, pretzels and popcorn.

Doctors at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC), NY, set out to investigate the relationship between a diet high in refined carbohydrates and depression.

The researchers analyzed data from more than 90,000 postmenopausal women who participated in the National Institutes of Health's Women's Health Initiative Observational Study that was conducted between 1994-1998. The observational study enlisted postmenopausal women between the ages of 50-79 and tracked their health over an average of 8 years.

They examined the levels of depression reported, the types of carbohydrates consumed, the GI rank and the glycemic load.

It was found that refined carb diets increased the risk of depression in postmenopausal women by 22%. Also, a higher consumption of lactose, fiber, non-juice fruits and vegetables was significantly associated with a lower chance of developing depression.

Poor Glucose Control Raises Risk of Dementia and Alzheimer's

Getting your blood sugar under control appears to have far reaching effects according to a new study coming out of Japan. The study links glucose regulation with dementia and prediabetes and diabetes with dementia, vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease. In the population group studied poor glucose control accounted for one in six cases of dementia and one in five cases of Alzheimer’s.

Diabetes patients were 74% more likely to develop dementia of any type over 15 years of follow-up after adjustment for other confounding factors.

And Alzheimer's disease developed 2.05-fold more often in those with diabetes than in those with normal glucose tolerance.

Most interesting, though, was the strong risk prediction of postload glucose levels during the oral glucose tolerance test, mimicking how meals are metabolized.

Higher two-hour postload glucose levels correlated with greater risk of developing dementia, Alzheimer's disease, and vascular dementia.

After adjustment for age, sex, hypertension, electrocardiogram abnormalities, body mass index, waist-to-hip ratio, total cholesterol, prior stroke, education, smoking, alcohol intake, and physical activity in the multivariate analysis:

Two-hour postload glucose levels of 7.8 to 11.0 mmol/L predicted 50% elevated risk of all-cause dementia and 87% elevated likelihood of Alzheimer's disease.

Two-hour postload glucose levels above 11.0 mmol/L predicted 2.47-fold higher risk of all-cause dementia and 3.42-fold elevated Alzheimer's risk and 2.66-fold elevated vascular dementia risk (P=0.01).

Those findings suggested "that postprandial glucose regulation is critical to prevent future dementia.

Hyperglycemia itself may have an impact on the brain through atherosclerosis, oxidative stress and accumulation of advanced protein glycation, and changes in insulin metabolism yielding distorted amyloid metabolism.

One important tool to reduce high after meal blood sugar levels is the glycemic index. Foods that are low are better than foods that are high.

Have a look at how the foods you eat frequently score on the index here.

http://www.glycemicindex.com/

Ohara T, et al "Glucose tolerance status and risk of dementia in the community: The Hisayama Study" Neurology 2011; 77: 1126–1134.