Medical World VS. Mental Health World
Each person’s mental health is widely varied as are treatments. As you know, our mental health is based on a high number of factors including genetics, environment, upbringing, support, risk, etc. My favorite and most forgotten about factor is nutrition.
Nutrition is a missing link when it comes to my clients mental health.
Maybe it’s because I have a masters in holistic nutrition or maybe it’s because I’m a mental health prescriber, so people assume medications are my focus.
As you know, our diets have been linked to many medical illnesses such as high blood pressure, cancer, cardiac disease, degenerative disorders and so on. From the medical world’s perspective, psychiatry still seems like the ugly stepchild of medicine. I believe it’s due to the difficulty of “objectifying” mental health. You can look at a blood pressure cuff and see the high blood pressure etc.
In our society, mental health is still highly stigmatized but that stigmatization is still happening in medicine too.
So where does that leave us?
I believe this leaves the mental health world behind. In the medical world, nutrition and interventional medicine has already had high amounts of research done.
Within the last couple of years stigmatization of mental health is being faced and challenged. Research is being published showing that nutrition plays a vital role in mental health. So it’s up to us push these issues forward.
That being said, I want to talk about the role of nutrition in psychiatry.
Harvard released an article in 2015 that talks about nutritional psychiatry which has become a turning point thrusting the discussion into the public eye, which for me, is extremely exciting.
There have been multiple systematic reviews that are showing how what we eat impacts our mental health. Upon my own review, the most studied mental health disorder regarding nutrition and its effects has been depression. But there are studies in regard to multiple mental illnesses and more is being done as we speak.
Now, does this mean taking a supplement and consuming more fish will get rid of depression. Absolutely NOT! But can it help? ABSOLUTELY!
I’ve seen in my own practice that making dietary adjustments can greatly reduce the severity of mental health symptoms, but it doesn’t “cure” mental illness.
But nutrition CAN help outcomes and symptomology. What we put in our bodies is the fuel are our brains. If you put cheap gas in a diesel truck guess whats going to happen? Our brains run our entire lives from instructing our hearts to beat to logic and high levels of reasoning. The human brain is incredible.
In regard to our diets, I highly recommended the Mediterranean diet.
The Mediterranean diet is well-known for its benefits in heart health. It’s shown positive outcomes in mental health and slowing cognitive decline. It’s shown to decrease symptomology in anxiety, depression, and it’s also shown a much lower rate of relapse!
The foods to focus on for the Mediterranean diet includes:
- Vegetables
- Fruits
- Nuts
- Seeds
- Legumes
- Potatoes
- whole grains and breads
- Herbs
- Fish and seafood
- extra virgin olive oil
- poultry, eggs, cheese, and yogurt (in moderation),
- Small amounts of red meat (like once a week).
Things to Avoid:
- Added sugar
- Refined grains
- Trans fats
- Refined Oils
- Processed meat
- Highly processed foods
I’m in favor of the Mediterranean diet as it’s one of the longest known, well studied research available. It’s not really a “diet” as I hate the word “diet”. It’s just nutritious food that can help improve your mood and benefit you on a consistent basis.
It’s also not the most restrictive meal plan either, which I appreciate it.
The MoodFood Project
In 2014, the European commission funded something called the MooDFOOD project. It uses an integrative approach that combines psychiatry, behavior, healthy psychology, and experts in nutrition that plans on investigating how food intake, nutrient status, and food related behaviors are linked to the development and management in depression. This project is hoping for evidence based nutritional strategies for prevention of depression.
Depression is often misunderstood as people assume when they are sad, they are “depressed”. But really when that feeling of sadness turns into a disabling long-lasting disorder that interferes with daily life this is depression. More prevention focused research is being done.
I will be writing more articles here soon about recommendations!
Talk soon,
Sarah 😀
References
