Optimizing nutrition is a safe and viable way to avoid, treat or lessen mental illness. Nutrition matters.
NOTE FROM TED: Please consult with a mental health professional and do not look to this talk for medical advice as the intersection of mental health and nutrition is still an emerging field of study. We’ve flagged this talk for falling outside TEDx’s curatorial guidelines because it oversimplifies interpretations of legitimate studies.
TED Talk by Julia Rucklidge
Key Takeaways
The simple idea that optimizing nutrition is a safe and viable way to avoid, treat or lessen mental illness. Nutrition matters. Poor nutrition is a significant and modifiable risk factor for the development of mental illness
- According to the 2013 New Zealand Health Survey, the rates of psychiatric illnesses in children doubled over the last five years.
- Internationally, there’s been a 3-fold increase in ADHD, a 20-fold increase in autism, and a 40-fold increase in bipolar disorder in children.
- There’s been a 4-fold increase in the number of people who are on disability as a direct consequence of an underlying psychiatric illness.
The rates of mental illness are on the rise. So how are we dealing with this problem?
Currently, our healthcare system operates within a medical model. Now, this means that you would typically be offered psychiatric medications first, followed by psychological therapies, and other forms of support. Our reliance on medications as a front-line form of treatment is evident from the increasing rates of prescriptions.
- For example in 2012, half a million New Zealanders – that’s one-eighth of us – had been prescribed an antidepressant; that’s 38% higher than five years previously.
- The rates of prescriptions for antipsychotics doubled, from 2006 to 2011. Given that this medical model is fairly universal across all Western societies, you would rightfully expect that it was working well.
And indeed, in some cases, these treatments save lives. And I’m not here to dismiss it altogether. However, if a treatment is truly effective, then shouldn’t the rates of disorder and disability as a direct consequence of that illness be decreasing rather than increasing?
That’s why we need to consider the role that medications might be playing in some of these outcomes. If we take any class of medication: antipsychotics, anti-anxiety medications, antidepressants; the pattern is the same. In the short-term, these treatments are often very effective, but in the long-term, they aren’t. And in some cases, they’re making life worse.
- For example, studies that are being done on ADHD children treated with stimulants or Ritalin, in the short-term, they are better, and responding – better responders than any other form of treatment, but in the long-term, they fare less well than children who were never prescribed these medications.
- Another study showed that despite our ever-increasing reliance on antidepressants, the recovery rates and relapse rates are no better now than they were 50 years ago, prior to the advent of these medications.
- Children with depression who were treated with antidepressants are three times more likely to convert to bipolar disorder than children who were never given these medications.
- People who were randomized to stay on their dose of antipsychotic medications are less likely to recover from schizophrenia in the long-term than people who had been randomized to a dose reduction or complete elimination of the drug.
Is there another way forward? Almost two decades ago, my PhD supervisor at the time, Professor Bonnie Kaplan, told me about some families who were treating themselves with nutrients, in Southern Alberta, Canada. Now, they had bipolar disorder, psychosis, depression.
These are serious conditions, and my education in clinical psychology had taught me that nutrition and diet were of trivial significance for mental health, and that only drugs or psychotherapy could treat these serious conditions.
But she and others were publishing preliminary data in the earlier part of this century, showing people getting well and staying well. And so, I decided to study the nutrients, and that’s what I’ve done for the last decade.
In 2009, I received some funding to run a randomized placebo-controlled trial, using minerals and vitamins, also known collectively as micronutrients, for the treatment of ADHD in adults. And this study was published in the British Journal of Psychiatry in April of this year, and here’s what we found.
- Within just an 8-week period, twice as many people responded in the micronutrient group compared to placebo; twice as many people went into remission in their depression, in the micronutrient group.
- Hyperactivity and impulsivity reduced into the normal, non-clinical range
- Those who were taking the micronutrients were more likely to report that their ADHD symptoms were less impairing and less interfering in their work and social relationships than people who were on the placebo.
- One year later, those people who stayed on the micronutrients maintained their changes or showed further improvement, and those who switched to medications or stopped the micronutrients actually showed worsening of their symptoms.
The message is clear, that a well-nourished body and brain is better able to withstand ongoing stress and recover from illness. Giving micronutrients in appropriate doses can be an effective and inexpensive public health intervention to improve the mental health.
- When people get well, they get well across the board, not only in the symptoms that we treated, but also in other areas, like improved sleep, stabilization of mood, reduction in anxiety, and the reduction in need for cigarettes, cannabis, and alcohol.
- Research have shown that 60 – 80% of people respond to micronutrients, showing just how powerful this intervention is.
- There have now been 20 randomized placebo-controlled trials – this is the gold standard that we use to make clinical decisions – showing that we can reduce aggression in prisoners, slow cognitive decline in the elderly, treat depression, anxiety, stress, autism, and ADHD.
- They might even be more cost-effective than current conventional treatments.
The more you eat a prudent or Mediterranean or unprocessed type of diet, the lower your risk for depression. The more you eat the Western diet or processed food, the higher your risk for depression. I know of only one study that has not found this association, and not a single study shows that the Western diet is good for our mental health.
- Western diet one that is heavily processed, high in refined grains, sugary drinks, takeaways, and low in fresh produce.
- Healthy diet is one that is fresh, high in fruits and vegetables, high in fish, nuts, healthy fats, and low in processed foods. What your grandmother would recognize as food.
So with all of this data, this rich data highlighting the power of nutrition, I think we can make some individual and collective changes now. We could reconsider our current treatment approach: prioritize lifestyle factors, healthy eating, exercise, supplements, and when necessary, psychological treatments, and save medications for when these approaches don’t work.
As Michael Pollan stated, cheap food is an illusion; there is no such thing as cheap food. The price is paid somewhere, and if it’s not paid at the cash register, then it’s charged to the environment and to the public purse in the form of subsidies, and it’s charged to your health.
So this is my idea worth spreading: Nutrition matters, and if we’re really ready to get serious about mental health, we need to get serious about the critical role played by nutrition.