Yet another reason to adopt a vegetarian diet... Rodale reports
that a new study in Nutrition Journal finds vegetarians have
lower incidence of depression, anxiety, and other mood problems
than their meat-eating neighbors. I say neighbors specifically
because the researchers came to this conclusion after studying
Seventh Day Adventists, who were split about 4-5 between
vegetarians and meat-eaters. Rodale notes that this group was
chosen because the nature of the community is such that it is
easier to account for external influences than diet coming into
play. The researchers found the vegetarians reported diets
significantly lower in EPA and DHA, the omega-3 fatty acids that
we get from eating fish, and which many studies have found are a
key factor in improving both physical and mental health. So they
expected to find the vegetarians would have higher incidences of
issues like depression, anxiety, and mood problems. Instead,
they found the opposite result. Vegetarians scored lower on
depression tests and had