If you search youtube for supplements for anxiety you will find a multitude of videos claiming that
some vitamin or supplement will cure your anxiety. This is no surprise since the supplement market
is estimated to be worth 140 billion dollars globally. These videos are often backed up
by a convincing clinical study or trial supposedly proving that the supplement works.
But do any of these supplements really help anxiety and if so which ones are the
best. I decided to help you navigate this minefield of supplement advice.
To do this I spent a few weeks reading through clinical research papers available on reputable
websites like the national institutes of health, pubmed and researchgate to see what I could find.
The single trials quoted in supplement marketing can often give a misleading picture
so I focused mainly on systematic reviews. Systematic reviews analyse multiple trials
and are designed to weed out trials of poor quality or risk of bias.
i focused on the most common supplements I saw when googling supplements for anxiety. Let's start
with the vitamins B C and D which seem to feature in a lot of supplement marketing for anxiety.
My search for vitamin B found this document which said that most studies of anxiety groups
showed no benefit for vitamin B over placebo. Placebo means some of the volunteers were given
a pill thinking it's a supplement but actually there was nothing more than sugar in it. This
is because the belief that something will help can sometimes actually make people feel better.
So vitamin B seems to be no more effective than a sugar pill. So let's see if vitamin C does any
better. Finding reviews on vitamin C specifically for anxiety disorders was difficult and most
studies seem to be small scale and limited to fish, rats, students or people with diabetes.
However a review published in the journal of nutritional biochemistry
concluded that high doses of absorbic acid, (that's vitamin C to you or me) was effective
in reducing mental disorders including anxiety. It said that these studies suggest the potential
of absorbic acid as an anxiety reducing agent but conceded it needed further investigation
in a broad population to ascertain this potential. So vitamin C has potential but needs more trials.
Well that's a bit more positive I suppose. Next vitamin D. For vitamin D I found this
systematic review by researchers in Taiwan. Now I'm a big fan of vitamin D as since taking it
I've had far fewer colds, so I was keen to see if it is also effective for anxiety. The review
findings were that vitamin D supplementation does reduce anxiety but the effect is small.
So moving on from vitamins let's have a look at magnesium which is one I often
see mentioned on anxiety forums. This review analysed the results of 18 trials
and concluded that the existing evidence is suggestive of beneficial effect of magnesium
in people vulnerable to anxiety. However it also said that the quality of existing evidence is poor
and well-designed trials are needed to confirm if magnesium is effective. We are always hearing
how good for you omega-3 is so surely that can help anxiety. This review from Taiwan looked
promising as it indicated that omega-3 might help to reduce the symptoms of clinical anxiety.
However the review acknowledged a number of limitations including the modest number of
participants in the trials and warned that the findings needed to be considered with caution.
And indeed it seems caution was right as a much larger systematic review funded by the world
health organization was not at all positive. This review looked at 32 randomized controlled trials
lasting at least six months with over 46 000 participants so a decent-sized study.
It concluded omega-3 supplementation probably has little or no effect
in preventing anxiety symptoms. So it seems a thumbs down for omega-3 also.
So this is what I took from these reviews. Vitamin B probably no better than placebo. Vitamin C
might help anxiety but more research needed. Vitamin D small effect on reducing anxiety.
Magnesium might be beneficial but the evidence is poor.
Omega-3 possibly beneficial but probably not. So not quite the same positive picture
as the supplement marketing videos would have you believe.
However the human body is complex what I learned in reading these studies is how nutrition is
important for the correct functioning of the brain and if you are deficient in certain nutrients it
could at least theoretically affect your anxiety. So a healthy balanced diet can only help.
Also some people may find certain supplements work for them and it doesn't matter if it's just the
placebo effect or something unique in their genes. If you find a supplement that does work for you
let me know in the comments or if there are supplements that you'd like me to research
let me know, but don't pin all your hopes on supplements as there are other ways to help reduce
your anxiety that are supported by much stronger evidence and I cover these on my channel. So make
sure you subscribe as I've made over 50 videos about anxiety and I'm making more all the time.