Psychiatry is at an important juncture, with the current pharmacologically focused model having achieved modest benefits in addressing the burden of poor mental health worldwide. Although the determinants of mental health are complex, the emerging and compelling evidence for nutrition as a crucial factor in the high prevalence and incidence of mental disorders suggests that diet is as important to psychiatry as it is to cardiology, endocrinology, and gastroenterology. Evidence is steadily growing for the relation between dietary quality (and potential nutritional deficiencies) and mental health, and for the select use of nutrient-based supplements to address deficiencies, or as monotherapies or augmentation therapies.
I’m excited to share this groundbreaking publication, “Nutritional medicine as mainstream in psychiatry” which was published just last week in the mainstream journal Lancet. We have members of The International Society for Nutritional Psychiatry Research, also known as ISNPR to thank: Jerome Sarris, PhD, Alan C Logan, BA, Tasnime N Akbaraly, PhD, G Paul Amminger, MD, Vicent Balanzá-Martínez, MD, Marlene P Freeman, MD, Joseph Hibbeln, MD, Yutaka Matsuoka, MD, David Mischoulon, MD, Tetsuya Mizoue, MD, Akiko Nanri, MD, Daisuke Nishi, MD, Drew Ramsey, MD, Julia J Rucklidge, PhD, Almudena Sanchez-Villegas, PhD, Andrew Scholey, PhD, Kuan-Pin Su, MD, Felice N Jacka, PhD.
The abstract concludes as follows:
We present a viewpoint from an international collaboration of academics (members of the International Society for Nutritional Psychiatry Research), in which we provide a context and overview of the current evidence in this emerging field of research, and discuss the future direction. We advocate recognition of diet and nutrition as central determinants of both physical and mental health.
You may recognize some of these people from my prior writings and interviews.
- Felice Jacka was interviewed in season 1 of the Anxiety Summit. Our topic was The Research: Food to prevent and treat anxiety and depression? She has been and still is very active in the nutrition/mental health/anxiety/depression research community
- Julia Rucklidge recently did a fabulous TEDx talk called The surprisingly dramatic role of nutrition in mental health. She is also a very prolific researcher.
Dr. Marlene Freeman is also the author of an editorial, Nutrition and Psychiatry, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry in 2010.
It is both compelling and daunting to consider that dietary intervention at an individual or population level could reduce rates of psychiatric disorders. There are exciting implications for clinical care, public health, and research.
This is one of my favorite quotes! If you’ve ever heard me present I’m sure you’ll recognize it! This was in 2010 so we are making progress with getting nutrition recognized in the mainstream mental health world and I couldn’t be happier.
Here are a few select quotes from the new paper (which will shortly be released as an open-source document).
Mental disorders in general, and major depression and anxiety disorders in particular, account for a large burden of disability worldwide. Rapid urbanisation, and an overall transition from traditional lifestyles (concerning diet, physical activity, and social structures), which are some of the most pressing global and environmental issues of our time, have both been linked to increases in depression and other mental disorders
The mechanisms by which nutrition might affect mental health are, at least superficially, quite obvious: the human brain operates at a very high metabolic rate, and uses a substantial proportion of total energy and nutrient intake; in both structure and function (including intracellular and intercellular communication), it is reliant on amino acids, fats, vitamins, and minerals or trace elements.
The purpose of this Personal View is to provide a platform for robust debate in the specialty, particularly regarding the need to move towards a new integrated framework in psychiatry, whereby consideration of nutritional factors should be standard practice.
Diet and nutrition offer key modifiable targets for the prevention of mental disorders, having a fundamental role in the promotion of mental health. Now is time for the recognition of the importance of nutrition and nutrient supplementation in psychiatry. Nutritional medicine should now be considered as a mainstream element of psychiatric practice, with research, education, policy, and health promotion supporting this new framework.
This is so powerful! I commend the efforts of these authors and thank the researchers for all the groundwork which has led to where were are today…recognizing the very powerful connection between what we eat and how we feel. It’s exciting to be part of this movement!
This makes a lot of sense to me. I had not thought about it much before so thanks for enlightening me.
Glad you enjoyed it Mary Ellen – the plan is to elighten!
I really hope the word gets out so people can attack anxiety and depression from the food first before going to prescription drugs, because once you’re on the drugs they are so hard to get off and have terrible side effects. Thank you for all of the illumination you bring to the subject Trudy!
Yes Jessica, so many people start with drugs because they are not told there are other options. And then drugs like benzodiazapines have all sorts of issues (while on them and then while tapering)
ps that burger looks a heck of a lot better than prozac 🙂
It was a delicious burger! home made, grass-fed beef and organic everything else!
This is great article, Trudy. Thanks for sharing the release of this important article. There is no question in my mind that food and mood go together! I’m with Jessica that the burger you posted looks delicious. I’d much rather eat that then take a prozac!
Thanks Tandy – and oh yes food and mood do go together!
Agree with Jessica on the horrible side effects of taking drugs. It has become such an ingrained aspect of MD’s to
medicate rather than resolve and diagnose. An endless loop
of the insurance companies – the pharma companies – the hospitals – the MD’s. Thank you for sharing this information.
You’re so right Mitch – we need to get back to the basics of real nourishing food
In September 2014 UCLA released results of a very small study with 10 patients suffering from dementia. They were treated with ONLY lifestyle changes. Improved diets, CoQ10, omega 3, B12, and D supplements.
9 of the 10 showed improvement. Most so dramatic that they were able to return to work.
The one that didn’t see results, had the most severe symptoms and the longest duration of the illness.
I cannot figure out why this information is not a huge national news story?
Hi Carol
Thanks for sharing this valuable research. These are dramatic results and I agree, this should be a national news story!
I’m curious about your interest in this topic and if you are some how involved with this study? Could you also share a link to it?
Trudy
So excited to see this getting mainstream attention. I’m glad that researchers are reporting on the connection between nutrition and mental health. Thank you for staying on top of this and bringing all of this information to our attention.
I’m pretty excited myself Mira! especially when I see papers like this published in mainstream journals like the Lancet!
Thank you Trudy for getting the word out there about this important new field of research.
The International Society for Nutritional Psychiatry Research (ISNPR) was formed to support and expedite research and collaboration on this critically important topic. There is so much that we need to do and find out and the need is so pressing!
We are grateful for your support and hope that people can continue to benefit from the work we are doing.
Dr. Jacka
Lovely to see you commenting here! It’s my pleasure to be able to share such exciting and ground-breaking work. Again, thank you for all you do and a big thanks to everyone at ISNPR!
I’m sharing the ISNPR Facebook page here so folks can also find you there https://www.facebook.com/ISNPR
Trudy
Hi..
So what do they recommend to eat beside vegetables, fruits and meat ? Vitamins.. ?
Yes Tina, real whole food: quality grass-fed red meat, wild fish, healthy fats, organic vegetables and fruit, fermented vegetables
This is great news! I know just from my own experience that what I eat has an impact on my mental state.
Yes, it’s powerful when we see the results first-hand Michele! I certainly have!
Thank you for everything YOU do, Trudy, to increase awareness about nutritional medicine! : D
Thanks PJ – I love having the opportunity to share this valuable research and increase awareness. My goal (and the authors/ISNPR) is for this to become part of mainstream psychiatry and with papers like this I feel we are further along the the way to this happening.
Interesting developments in the connection between nutrition and our mental health Trudy!
Thanks for sharing. 🙂
I have Hashimoto Thyroiditis and the mother of a son who was a victim of a gun incident and survived when the gun that was put to his head didn’t fire. Through researching my disease, I found Trudy Scott and read Why My Brain Doesn’t Function by D Kharrasian and began connecting diet to what happened to my son. Recently Trudy, posted “Nutritional Medicine as Mainstream in Psychiatry,” from the January issue of Lancet which supports my premise that much of the gun crisis in America is directly related to the movement away from traditional lifestyles, meaning our diet, choices we make and food sources available to us.
I shared my reasoning with several members of my medical team and they encouraged me to write about this because it is not being addressed in our national discussion of gun violence. For 23 years we have kept our story private and I’m sharing it now hoping it helps to jumpstart this discussion. If it saves a life, it will be worth our loss of privacy.
While helping our son pack to come home for the semester break at the university, he quietly said, “Mom, my roommate was arrested for attempted murder, and I was the intended victim.” I went numb as the story unfolded. Earlier that week, one of his roommates returned to the dorm after being expelled. He found his bike pedals missing and put a gun to our son’s head demanding to know where they were. Our son told him a new set was in a box, a birthday present from the roommates. As he pulled the trigger, our son’s life passed before him as he slumped to the floor in shock. Only then did he realize he was still alive, that the gun did not fire.
When our son reported the crime to campus police, they locked him up, instead of the roommate, in an interrogation room for several hours. The university offered no help, no counseling and we were not notified.
The next day, experiencing severe post -traumatic tress, our son took his final exam in biology and was accused of academic dishonesty (grounds for expulsion) because the teaching assistant reported his eyes, “were all over the place.” We hired an attorney and in the end
the professor dropped the charges when our son pointed out he was near sighted. Had he been able to copy other exam papers on the table, his score would have been higher than the 47 he got, which was far below his semester average. He had to take the course over.
We noticed changes in our son. He began to self-medicate with alcohol, “To relax,” he said. His personality changed. Eventually we became parents of an adult estranged child.
I was a teacher and over the years and I witnessed a change in student behavior. School lunches were made from government supplied foods packed in cans with food labels I couldn’t understand. Students were herded into a cafeteria and given 20 minutes to wait in line, get their lunch and eat, preferably with no talking. Under a special program the kids got an apple, and were told to throw it away if they didn’t finish it before going out to play. My fourth graders thought that food was grown in bags, cans and boxes, even though our school was five miles from California’s farmland. A candy store was open after school. One time a teacher donated a crate of bright red apples. The kids who got to the store first bought the apples, skipping the candy. Nevertheless, the administration continued to sell candy and teachers rewarded students with sugar treats.
In Europe there is a different attitude regarding food, and at the present time, we don’t see an obesity epidemic there, although it might be coming. French schools have chefs preparing lunches and the students have ample time to enjoy the meal. In fact, chefs prepare the foods for prisoners, a requisite for rehabilitation. When mom and pop restaurants were starting to close as fast food places opened, the country’s workers were issued food vouchers. Worth 12 euros per day, the worker eats lunch in a restaurant where food is made from scratch.The restaurants stayed open, employees kept their jobs, vendors delivered their goods, farmers kept growing and all the employed paid taxes. A win-win with nourishing food on the table. French take longer lunch hours, so they can enjoy their food with colleagues, and digest it well. In England, school staff have enough time to go to the local pub for lunch. Compare that to the American worker, many of whom have to down their food in 10 minutes at their desk!
Visiting an organic farm in Provence, we discovered a weekly camp type experience for elementary age kids who worked the fields, helped prepare the food, set the table, and cleaned up under supervision. During free time, the children played outside, unsupervised, using their leadership and creative thinking skills to play sweetly with each other. There was a sense of community. In many of our schools, recess has become a place for bullying and fighting. With low quality food for lunch, a scary playground, learning becomes difficult in the afternoons and the teachers have their hands full.
The evening dinner hour is sacred in the European homes we visit. The whole family sits together and the meal can take hours with the family enjoying each other and helping with the meal preparation and clean up. Most of the food is made from scratch and occasionally roasted meat will be bought at a local butcher, not a manufacturing plant. Some American parents joke that they have to make appointments to see their teens at night and grandparents are perplexed at family dinners where they watch their loved ones eat in silence while texting.
We have always known that humans need nourishment in order to think clearly and make informed decisions. Many of the school shooters have come from homes that could have afforded real food, but working moms buy manufactured fake food and take their families to fast food places. Many don’t know how to cook. For those who do, it is time consuming. As the article in Lancet points out, the transition out of traditional lifestyles has been linked to depression and mental disorders, and I propose that gun violence is one result of that transition.
No family should suffer the loss of a child to a gun, nor the life altering post traumatic stress that rocked our family. My hope is that the reader will consider the link between nourishment and gun violence and speak to it. We must become part of the “robust debate” that the esteemed authors of the Lancet paper deem necessary to make changes in our medical and psychiatric model of treating people, and make us all safer and less fearful.
Karin
What an incredible message you have shared here! Thanks so much for taking the time to compose such a valuable and heartfelt account of what happened to your son. I am so sorry he had to experience all that – the attack and then the exam issue. I’m so glad all charges were dropped and I do hope he is doing well now!
You are spot on with the way diets have changed, how we don’t sit down and eat together, and how the USA is so different from other countries like Europe. I love reading your accounts of Provence and what you’ve seen change in the schools over the years!
I grew up in South Africa and we always ate breakfast and dinner as a family and enjoyed Sunday lunch together as well. It was mom, dad, 5 kids and granny all squeezed around a 6 person dining room table and it was special. We also ate real food that was home cooked.
This comment needs to be a blog post on it’s own and with your permission I’d love to do this and share it in a bigger way? I’ll need a few pictures and wonder if you have any pictures of family meals in France or something else that could work?
Again, thank you! I’ll also be sharing this with one of the Lancet authors, Dr Felice Jacka. I know she’ll really appreciate it.
Trudy
Why we call ourselves Earthing Ambassadors: In answer to Trudy’s question……
We are Earthing Ambassadors, self appointed and not connected [pun] to Barefoot Connections or Earthing Institute. But, you can read my [Karin’s] article on Grounded Wine in the latter’s website. Our story: Dr. Stephen Sinatra wrote about grounding/earthing in ’09 and we bought a bed pad [a small sheet]. We slept so deep and sound that a month later we purchased a full sheet for our bed. We now own all of the available products and here is why. Earthing/grounding keeps the blood flowing, reduces inflammation, and helps healing. Rowbear experience a TIA Stroke and due to a medical mix-up did not get the necessary surgery for 2 weeks. Remember the warning that you need to get to the hospital in 4 hours? During that 2 weeks, we laid in bed holding hands and I believe it saved his life. After surgery, I wrapped the smaller bed pad around the incision on the next….as he looked like Dracula. A week later, all of his MD’s couldn’t believe he had a TIA, the scar had healed. When we travel LA to Paris, and are up for 36 hours, we use the bed pad for 90 minutes in our hotel and voila! We are on French time, no jet lag. Prior to that, I would experience jet lag for 2 weeks. The first night I used a bed pad, I woke up with ankles as thin as when I was 19 [I was 69 when we started grounding]. Without grounding, my ankles would be swollen big time before bed. We have more stories, but this is getting long. To finish, let me point out that you can earth by walking grounded barefoot on grass, soil, sand, and maybe cement [depending on the moisture content of the soil beneath the cement]. I can’t walk barefoot 8 hours a day, but I can sleep grounded, I have a grounded mouse pad, car seats, flip-flops, foot pads for use at the computer and while watching TV, and silver pillowcases.
This is SO interesting to me and I’m really looking forward to learning more – thanks so much for sharing Karin! I just love this: Earthing Ambassadors, self appointed!
Hi Trudy, I just picked up your request and it is already March 16th….I apologize! Yes, you have my permission to use my article in any way possible to get the message out. A blog about this topic would be perfect. As you have experienced another kind of family life, you totally understand what I’m speaking to. We have had the good fortune to live for short periods of time in homes of family and friends in Budapest, the CZ republic, Germany, Holland, France, Spain, England, and Denmark. In every family, the meals were center to family life, as you experienced growing up, and all were home cooked from scratch. I’ll look for photos tomorrow…..Again, I apologize for the length of time before I responded….no excuses, other than Hashimoto fatigue.
PS Our son appears to be ok physically, is a geneticist and engineer with his own company. As we are estranged, we don’t know for sure. We only hear tidbits from a distance…..not from him. I really appreciate your asking. It means a lot to both Rowbear and myself.
Glad to hear he’s ok and so sorry to hear you are estranged
There is no rush Karin and no need to say sorry – the family meals sound lovely and photos will be most welcome!