Eating right for mental health

Posted on July 4, 2015

It's always seemed obvious to me that if what we eat affects our physical health then it probably has an impact on our mental health as well. Yet to consider that our diet could influence in any meaningful way our psyche is regarded by many who work in the mental health field as fringe medicine. As a result, people who present with psychological problems are rarely asked about their dietary habits.

Yet that may be about to change following the publication earlier this year of a huge review of the available evidence into what some are calling nutritional psychiatry. One of the lead authors was Felice Jacka, Associate Professor at Deakin University and Black Dog Institute. According to Jacka in this interview she gave to discuss the review, she and her colleagues found repeatedly "that healthy diets are related to a decreased risk for depression, in particular, and unhealthy diets … are related to increased risk and probability."

As well as depression, diet also seems to play a role in anxiety disorders, bipolar disorder and even schizophrenia. Jacka describes how in one well-known study involving young people thought to be at high risk of developing psychosis, those who received fish oil were less likely than those who received a placebo to transition one year later to a full-blown psychotic disorder.

Click on the link below to read the full article


Category(s):Child Development

Source material from Happy Well