[NYAPRS Enews] HE: Dietary Link To Mental Health Found

[Harvey Rosenthal]

Dietary Link To Mental Health Found

By Harold Mandel
<http://www.examiner.com/health-in-national/harold-mandel>  Health
Examiner October 17, 

 

For years there has been a raging battle between natural mental health
care advocates and psychiatrists regarding the vital significance of
diet in dealing with mental health. Natural health care practitioners
take the position that a good diet, often with supplements, can
generally play a primary role in preventing and curing mental illness
without drugs.

 

Psychiatrists to the contrary have consistently taken the position that
the not so simple consideration of what constitutes a good diet is too
simple a consideration in dealing with their fictional considerations of
what actually causes mental illness. Psychiatrists far too often
misdiagnose dietary deficiencies as serious mental illnesses and pump
their patients up with highly toxic drugs which always cause more harm
than good instead of suggesting better nutrition.

 

Two new studies by Australian investigators has found that diet quality
can in fact have a significant effect on mental health outcomes.
Furthermore, these studies support the position that good diets may also
play a pivotal role in preventing and treating mental illness.

 

Caroline Cassels has reported for Medscape Today "More Evidence Confirms
Diet's Link to Mental Health."
<http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/751533>  In their most recent study
principal investigator Felice Jacka, PhD, and colleagues from Deakin
University  <http://deakin.edu.au/> and the University of Melbourne
<http://www.unimelb.edu.au/>  in Australia have found that better diet
quality was associated with better mental health in Australian
adolescents cross-sectionally and over time. This study has been
published online in the September 21 edition of PLoS One
<http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0024
805> . 

 

Dr. Jacka has said that the findings from this study show that it may be
possible to prevent teenage depression with sufficiently nutritious
diets. Furthermore, improving the quality of diet may help to treat
depressive symptoms on adolescents. It was found that children whose
diets got poorer had a worsening in their mental health, while those
whose diet improved had improved mental health.

 

In this study a healthy diet was defined as a diet which included fruit
and vegetables as "core food groups" and which included both 2 or more
servings of fruit per day and 4 or more servings of vegetables. A
healthy diet also consisted of a general avoidance of processed foods
including chips, chocolate, sweets, and ice cream. An unhealthy diet in
this study consisted of a diet high in snack and processed foods.

 

These findings have followed a recent study on the effect of diet on
mental health by the same investigators. This earlier study, which has
been published in the July issue of Psychosomatic Medicine
<http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org/content/73/6/483.abstract?sid=4558
14fa-cf04-4bc7-8200-8877e71bb033> , showed a significant link between
better-quality diets and improved mental health outcomes, and
specifically for depression and anxiety, in a cohort of Norwegian adult
men and women. In this study it was found that individuals with better
quality diets were not as likely to be depressed, whereas a higher
intake of processed and unhealthy foods was associated with increased
anxiety. Dr. Jacka's findings highlight the significance of a
consideration of nutritional approaches to preventing and treating
common mental illnesses, including depression and anxiety.

 

Mandel News Service <http://www.mandelnews.com/> 

The Harold Mandel, MD Natural Mental Health Care Reform Association
<http://www.haroldmandel.com/> 



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