Eating citrus may lower depression risk
Health Eating citrus may lower depression risk Physician-researcher outlines gut-brain clues behind ‘orange a day’ finding Saima Sidik Harvard Correspondent February 21, 2025 5 min read New findings add another dimension to “gut feelings.” Eating an orange a day may lower a person’s depression risk by 20 percent, according to a study led by Raaj Mehta, an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School and a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital. That might be because citrus stimulates growth of Faecalibacterium prausnitzii (F. prausnitzii), a type of bacteria found in the human gut, to influence production of the neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine — two biological molecules known to elevate mood. In this edited conversation with the Gazette, Mehta discusses key takeaways from the study. What inspired this study? I was working with a fantastic postdoc named Chatpol Samuthpongtorn, who was reading through the literature on depression, looking for an interesting project to take on. And he came across this one paper from...