Dietary Change Key to Improving Mental Health, Experts Say

Dietary changes that reduce the incidence of, and prevent, mental health disorders are a cost-effective and efficacious means of improving mental health, urges a position statement that sets out a series of recommendations to advance nutritional medicine in psychiatry. The statement, released by the International Society for Nutritional Psychiatry Research (ISNPR), emphasizes that there is epidemiologic, basic scientific, and clinical evidence to show that diet both influences risk for and outcomes of mental health disorders. Moreover, a number of nutrients are linked to brain health. The statement calls for more robust research to determine the clinical impact of dietary changes and to identify biomarkers. A number of nutrients, it says, have a "clear link" to brain health, including omega-3 fatty acids, B vitamins, choline, iron, zinc, magnesium, S-adenosyl methionine, vitamin D, and amino acids, and that dietary consumption could be supplemented by the prescription of nutraceuticals, where justified. Nevertheless, further research is required, particularly randomized controlled trials (RCTs) using methodologically rigorous designs, to explore the biological pathways affected by nutritional modification, alongside clinical trials of nutraceuticals and the assessment of biomarkers.