What Vitamins Can You Not Take With Antidepressants?

There are a variety of essential vitamins and minerals you should consume on a daily basis. If you’re taking antidepressants and vitamins at the same time, be aware of the ingredients in your vitamin supplements.

Certain ingredients can influence the effectiveness of your antidepressants and how they affect your health.

There are no vitamins contraindicated for consumption with antidepressants, according to the British Psychological Society, but you should be cautious about consuming a mixture of supplements. Certain antidepressants may not be compatible with herbs or other natural ingredients in these products.

Antidepressants and Your Health

Antidepressants come in various forms. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), there are seven different types of medications commonly used to treat depression. These are:

• Serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)
• Serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs)
• Tricyclic antidepressants
• Atypical antidepressants
• Monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs)
• Norepinephrine and dopamine reuptake inhibitors (NDRIs)
• Noncompetitive N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonists

In addition to these commonly prescribed antidepressants, there are other central nervous system drugs with antidepressant effects, such as antipsychotics, as well as herbs and supplements that have natural antidepressant properties.

Mental health statistics show more than 5 percent of adults live with a depressive disorder globally, according to the World Health Organization.

SSRIs are the recommended treatment for depression, according to the Mayo Clinic. Commonly prescribed SSRIs include sertraline (Zoloft), paroxetine (Paxil), fluoxetine (Prozac), and citalopram (Celexa). All of these SSRIs work by blocking the reuptake of serotonin in the brain, which essentially makes serotonin more available.

However, SSRIs don’t work for everyone, and other antidepressants work via different pathways in your body. The exact type of antidepressant you’re taking will determine which foods, vitamins, and supplements you should or should not ingest. If you consume something that isn’t recommended, you could end up reducing the effectiveness of your medication or increasing the likelihood of side effects.

Interactions of Antidepressants and Vitamins

There are a variety of vitamins and minerals that are essential for good health. When people can’t obtain all of the nutrients recommended, they typically look into taking supplements. Sometimes these supplements are stand-alone products or multivitamins; in other cases, they are mixed in with healthy food products like spirulina, chlorella, or herbal products.

According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, other medications, supplements, and your diet all have the potential to affect the way your body processes your antidepressants. It’s much more likely for certain foods like grapefruit juice or herbal supplements to affect antidepressant function. That said, the average vitamin or mineral should not affect your antidepressant’s functionality or your health.

It’s best to talk to your doctor before you start taking antidepressants and vitamins, especially mixed supplements. Certain supplements may contain ingredients that are dangerous when mixed with specific medications, even if they are safe on their own.

Diet, Supplements, and Antidepressants

Herbal supplements, such as St. John’s wort or garcinia cambogia, are much more likely to affect the functionality of your antidepressants compared with vitamins or mineral tablets. You may think that these supplements are safe because they also have antidepressant effects, but it’s not that simple.

Some herbal supplements with antidepressant properties are safe to consume alongside medications. However, if you were to combine St. John’s wort with antidepressants like SSRIs, you could end up with disastrous results. St. John’s wort can cause a buildup of serotonin in the body when taken with antidepressants. This can result in serotonin syndrome, according to the Mayo Clinic, which causes side effects like anxiety, sweating, confusion, tremors, lack of coordination, and an accelerated heart rate. Serotonin syndrome can even result in death.

Ultimately, the supplements and foods you can safely ingest depend entirely on the antidepressant. While supplement and drug-induced serotonin syndrome poses a major risk for people taking SSRIs, other antidepressants can require stricter dietary changes.

Unlike people taking SSRIs, who can consume most foods without issue, people taking MAOIs need to avoid foods rich in tyramine, a nonessential amino acid. You can mix other nonessential amino acids and antidepressants without any issues.

However, tyramine-rich foods like cheeses, beer, and other fermented products are dangerous for people taking MAOIs. Mixing tyramine and MAOI antidepressants can result in headache, nausea, anxiety, dangerously high blood pressure, and even hemorrhagic stroke, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Nutrients That Reduce Depressive Symptoms

A variety of vitamins and nutritional supplements have been shown to help treat depression, and deficiencies in these nutrients can negatively impact brain and nervous system function and affect the appearance of depressive symptoms, according to researchers. Essential vitamins, minerals, and amino acids that are involved in brain function include:

• Protein
• B vitamins
• Vitamin D
• Magnesium
• Zinc
• Selenium
• Iron
• Calcium
• Omega-3 fatty acids

Be aware that antidepressants and vitamins typically work with each other — the vitamins won’t replace your medication. If you’re interested in taking a nutritional supplement to support your treatment for depression, talk to your doctor so you can find the one that works best for you and doesn’t affect your antidepressants.