Asparagus, the Natural Depressant Whole Food, Biomedical Literature Suggested

By Kyle J. Norton, Master of Nutrition

Scientists may have found a dietary vegetable that processes a strong and profound impact in ameliorated psychological depression, recent study suggested.

Depression is a commonly psychological disease that affects your normal feeling, thinking and reacting to events that occur daily in your life.

People with depression may feel ashamed or afraid to ask for help. others suffer in silence.

According to the statistic of the World Health Organization, 300 million people around the world have depression. The numbers of  Americans suffer from depression are increasing at an alarming rate. As of today, 16.2 million adults in the United States or 6.7% of all adults have depression in the country.

Women are more susceptible to develop depression than men and fewer than half of those affected by depression in the world are seeking professional treatment. 

The disease is the leading cause of disability worldwide, and  a major contributor to the overall global burden of diseases.

Depression is a normal response as part of our daily lives such as the loss of s job, the death of a love one, and illness. Over 30 million

Contrary to some misconceptions, depression can be treated and avoidable.

What cause depression? is debatable, however, genetic predisposition, personality, stress and brain chemistry are found to associate to the onset of the disease.

Chronic medical conditions also can trigger the development of depression. According to the study by the Shanghai University of Sport in the review of 60 articles with a total of 4311 patients, chronic diseases are highly correlated to the expression of depression and reduced quality of life(5).

The study also suggested that increasing SF-36 physical function subscale in such patients in short and long term may have a profound and positive effect in ameliorated depression and improved quality of life.

Use of antidepressants by conventional medicine,  may be effective. However, they can induce side effects of upset stomach, insomnia, sexual problems, anxiety, dizziness,….. and fatigue.

In severe cases, intake of anti depressant may cause serotonin syndrome, seizures, irregular heartbeat and unconsciousness and some people in the group of under the age of 25 may experience suicidal thoughts, according to the BBC report By Lesley Ashmall(6).

Asparagus is a flowering plant, belongings to species the genus Asparagus, native to the western coasts of northern Spain, north to Ireland, Great Britain, and northwest Germany, northern Africa and Western Asia.

The vegetable has been used from early times as a food and medicine, because of its delicate flavour and diuretic properties.

In an oral administration of methanolic extract of roots of AR (MAR) of the doses of 100, 200 and 400 mg/kg daily for 7 days and then subjected to forced swim test(FST) in mice, researchers found that application of the extract decreases immobility in FST and increases avoidance response in learned helplessness test (LH), an indication of antidepressant activity.

Dr. Singh GK, the lead author said, ” MAR had insignificant effect on l-DOPA-induced aggressive behavior indicating absence of activity on dopaminergic system” and  “MAR has significant antidepressant activity and this effect is probably mediated through the serotonergic and the noradrenergic systems and augmentation of antioxidant defenses”.

Furthermore, the injection of extracts of Asparagus cochinchinensis (AC) also expressed anti depressive effects, through inhibited oxidative stress that cause of neuro cell damage and improve cell signal reponse and signal transmitting.

Total saponin isolated from AC significantly is found ti inhibit free radical of H2O2 in induction of cell death in cultured cortical neurons. 

Additional analysis suggested that AC antidepressant-like and neuroprotective (reducing infarct size) effects are associated to the activation of Shp-2 pathways which are associated to inhibition of depression in animal model.

Some researchers suggested that antidepressant activity of Asparagus racemosus (AR) may also be mediated by the neurotransmitters system, and cognitive activities possibly through the cholinergic system involved neuromuscular junctions, preganglionic neurons of the sympathetic nervous system…. 

Moreover, the study also showed that AR may be used as food and have potential drug-drug, drug-food and food-food interactions with drugs and foods, sharing the cholinergic and monoaminergic pathways in sending message between neuro cells, induced protective activities against development of depression.

These results suggested that asparagus ameliorated depression is it’s neuroprotective effect by inhibited free radical that cause neuro cells damage and improved cell signal response.

However, further data collection on large example size and multi centers studies performed with human consumption of the whole food during the course of the disease will be necessary to complete the picture of asparagus anti depression possibilities.

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Kyle J. Norton, Master of Nutrition
Health article writer and researcher; Over 10.000 articles and research papers have been written and published on line, including world wide health, ezine articles, article base, healthblogs, selfgrowth, best before it’s news, the karate GB daily, etc.,.
Named TOP 50 MEDICAL ESSAYS FOR ARTISTS & AUTHORS TO READ by Disilgold.com Named 50 of the best health Tweeters Canada – Huffington Post
Nominated for shorty award over last 4 years
Some articles have been used as references in medical research, such as international journal Pharma and Bio science, ISSN 0975-6299.

Sources
(1) Antidepressant activity of Asparagus racemosus in rodent models by Singh GK1, Garabadu D, Muruganandam AV, Joshi VK, Krishnamurthy S.(PubMed)
(2) The neuroprotective effects and possible mechanism of action of a methanol extract from Asparagus cochinchinensis: In vitro and in vivo studies by Jalsrai A1, Numakawa T2, Kunugi H2, Dieterich DC3, Becker A4.(PubMed)
(3) Asparagus racemosus competitively inhibits in vitro the acetylcholine and monoamine metabolizing enzymes by Meena J1, Ojha R, Muruganandam AV, Krishnamurthy S.(PubMed)
(4) Behavioural and neurochemical evaluation of Perment an herbal formulation in chronic unpredictable mild stress induced depressive model by Ramanathan M1, Balaji B, Justin A.(PubMed)
(5) Effect of traditional Chinese exercise on the quality of life and depression for chronic diseases: a meta-analysis of randomised trials by Wang X1,2, Pi Y3, Chen B1, Chen P1, Liu Y4, Wang R4, Li X1, Zhu Y5, Yang Y6, Niu Z(PubMed)
(6) The ‘extreme’ side-effects of antidepressants By Lesley Ashmall