The Evolution Diet helps combat depression?

In an article in the August/September Scientific American Mind, neuroscientist and psychologist Kelly Lambert showed how our brain’s reward system is triggered from the type of manual labor and mental tasks our ancestors and confronts the paradox that we are getting more and more depressed as we become more and more pampered. She poses the question, “Did we lose something vital to our mental health when we started pushing buttons instead of plowing fields?”

Lambert pinpoints the accummbens-striatal-cortical network (the “effort-driven-rewards system”) for the need to remain active in order to remain happy. She said that we needed some sort of mechanism to keep our ancestors from becoming “cave potatoes”. “Hanging out all day didn’t put freshly caught game on the campfire…” Lambert said.

The Evolution Diet works to promote the type of behavior the effort-driven-rewards system by emulating our hunter/gatherer ancestors and to eat what and how we were designed to eat. Pick vegetables and fruits, eat fresh foods, and exercise! Perhaps with more studies, we’ll be able to add depression to the list of ails that The Evolution Diet cures.