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TEDx Talks
Title: The surprisingly dramatic role of nutrition in mental health | Julia Rucklidge | TEDxChristchurch
Published: 2014-11-10
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dqXHHCc5lA
well in eighteen forty seven a physician by the name of salvajes advise that all physicians wash their hands before touching a pregnant woman in order to prevent child that fever his research showed that you could reduce their mortality rates from septicemia from eighteen percent down to two percent simply through washing your hands with chlorinated lime his medical colleagues refused to accept that they themselves were responsible
for spreading infection some of us was ridiculed by his peers dismissed and the criticism and backlash broken down and he died in asylum two weeks later from septicemia at the age of forty seven what I'm gonna talk about today may sound as radical as handwashing sounded to a mid nineteen century doctor and yet it is equally scientific it is a simple idea that optimize the nutrition
is a safe and viable way to avoid treats or lesson mental only if nutrition matters poor nutrition as a significant and modifiable risk factor for the development of mental illness according to the two thousand thirteen New Zealand health survey the rates of psychiatric illnesses in children doubled over the last five years internationally there's been a three fold increase in eighty HD a twenty fold increase in
autism and a forty fold increase in bipolar disorder in children and this graph here shows there's been a four fold increase in the rates of 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 health care 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 are the frontline form of treatment is evident from the meat increasing rates of prescriptions for example in two thousand twelve half a million New Zealanders that's one eight of us had been prescribed an anti depressant that thirty eight percent higher than
five years previously similarly the rates have prescriptions for anti psychotic doubled from two thousand and six to two thousand eleven 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 all together however if the treatment is truly a factor then
shouldn't the rates of disorder and disability as a direct consequence of that illness be decreasing rather than increasing and that's why we need to consider the role the medications might be playing in some of these outcomes if we take any class of medication antipsychotics anti anxiety medications anti depressants 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 force if we look at for example studies on that have been done on ADHD children treated with stimulants are wrestling in the short term they are better and responding that better respond hers than any other form of treatment but in the long term they fare laughs well then children who were never prescribe these medications another
study showed that despite our ever increasing reliance on anti depressants the room recovery rates and relapse rates are no better now than they were fifty years ago prior to the advent of these medications and children with depression who are treated with antidepressant are three times more likely to convert to bipolar disorder than children who were never given these medications and people who are randomized to stay
on their dose of anti psychotic medication our laugh likely to recover from schizophrenia in the long term then people who had been randomized to a dose reduction or complete elimination of the drug and I can show you more and more studies all highlighting the same leak Sir so pretty depressing is there another way forward almost two decades ago my P. Steve supervisor the time professor body
Kaplan told me about some families through cheating themselves of nutrients in southern Alberta Canada now they had bipolar disorder psychosis %HESITATION depression either serious conditions in my education and in clinical psychology had taught me that nutrition and diet where of trivial significance for mental health and that only drugs or psychotherapy could treat the serious conditions but she and others were publishing a preliminary data on the
earlier part of the century showing people getting well and staying well and so I decided to stay the nutrients and that's what I've done for the last decade into the other nine I received some funding to run a randomized placebo controlled trial using my 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 women Justin eight week period twice as many people responded in the micronutrient group compared to placebo twice as many people went into remission and their depression in the micronutrient group hyperactivity and impulsivity reduced since the normal nonclinical range and those who are taking the micronutrients were more likely to report that their ADHD symptoms
were lesson Parry and left interfering then I in their work in social relationships and people who are on the placebo and one year later those people who stay on the micronutrients maintain their changes are so poor further improvements and those who were %HESITATION if who switched or spend to medications are stopped the micronutrients actually showed a worsening of their symptoms now I need to tell you
something here and that is when I see micronutrients I'm actually referring to a dose higher than what you get out of a vitamin pill purchased in the supermarket we in this study we gave participants of the fifteen pills a day with thirty six nutrients so in the unlikely that if you went and got an over the counter supplement you unlikely see these positive benefits both because
the dose is lower and the breadth of nutrients is lower now these steps and these positive benefits you know are not confined to a single study my lab at the university of Canterbury is the mental health nutrition research group and we've published over twenty papers in medical journals all documenting the benefits of micronutrients for example this study here showed that we could reduce the symptoms of
bipolar disorder in children by fifty percent with a simultaneous reduction to meditate medications this study here so that we could reduce rates of probable post traumatic stress disorder from fifty five percent down to eighteen percent following the Christchurch earthquakes with the one month intervention of micronutrients with no change in those not taking the nutrients even one year later those people who had received the nutrients were
doing better than those who didn't and we've just replicated these findings in collaboration with researchers at the university of Calgary following the floods of June two thousand and thirteen in Alberta Canada to me 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 of the population following an environmental catastrophe in my twenty year career I have rarely seen these dramatic responses from conventional treatment 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 stabilize ation of mood reduction in anxiety and a reduction in need for cigarettes
cannabis and alcohol my research on those around the world have shown that sixty to eighty percent of people respond to micronutrients showing just how powerful this intervention as and internationally we are there have now been twenty randomized placebo controlled trials isn't the gold standard that we use to make critical decisions showing that we can reduce aggression and prisoners slow cognitive decline in the elderly treat depression
anxiety stress autism and ADHD and they might even be more cost effective than current conventional treatment this study here documented the treatment of a ten year old boy with psychosis when his six month inpatient treatment with medications was unsuccessful he was treated with micronutrients not only did he the micronutrients completely eliminate has hallucinations and delusions she changes that were maintained six years later but the cost
of the treatment with laugh than two percent than the cost of the unsuccessful inpatient treatment cost savings alone they compared of that our society pay attention to the wider benefits of this approach and there is more good news treating supplementing before mental illness emerges can actually stop these problems and developing in the first place this fantastic study looked at eighty one adolescence at risk for psychosis
in randomize them to receive either make a three fatty acids in the form of sufficient oils essential nutrients for brain health or placebo for a twelve week period one year later five percent of those who received the fish oil had converted to death psychosis versus twenty eight percent of those on placebo that represents an eighty percent reduction in the chances of you getting hurt converting to
psychosis simply through giving fish oils I wonder if I know what some of you are thinking I wonder if some of you are thinking hold I don't I just eat better why don't I just tell everyone to eat better and indeed there are some fantastic studies that document the strong relationship between dietary patterns in mental health although this is a we're still in very early days
a scientific investigation we don't know who would benefit from dietary manipulation alone and who may need the additional boost from extra nutrients but even in the last five years there have been eleven epidemiological studies cross sectional Lee and around the I'm an and longitudinally in large populations around the world all showing the same thing the more you eat a prudent or Mediterranean or un pros this
type of diet the lower your risk for depression and 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 what is the western diet well it's one that is heavily pro stuffed hi refined
grain sugary drinks takeaways and low in fresh produce and healthy diet is one that is fresh high in fruits and vegetables hi and fish not healthy fats and low in processed foods what your grandmother would recognize his food there are still many questions remain about the relationship between mental health and nutrition what role do genetics play in determining who's going to respond to nutrients and who
needs additional nutrients and they can what get out of their diet what world is an infected inflamed got to play in the absorption of nutrients if not we are what we eat it's what we are what we absorb and what role do medications play in determining how effective the nutrients are combining medications and nutrients is actually complicated and we need more research in better understanding these
interactions but ultimately we need to know how long these good benefits last 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 we consider our current treatment approach prioritize lifestyle factors healthy eating exercise supplements it when necessary psychological treatment and save medication for when these approaches don't work if nutrients
work then shouldn't they be covered through our health care system take universal prevention seriously by optimizing the nutrition of those who are vulnerable we don't wait for the heart attack to hit in order for us to modify lifestyle behaviors that we know contribute to heart disease it should be no different with mental health an easy way to implement universal prevention would be to have pregnant women
not pregnant women midwives tell pregnant women about the importance of nutrition nutrient depleted mothers produce nutrient depleted children nutrient poor food during pregnancy increased the chances that your child will have enough mental health problem learn about the risks of cheap processed foods as Michael Pollan stated cheap food is an illusion there is no such thing as cheap food the prices paid somewhere and if it's not
paid at the cash register than its charge to the environment and to the public purse in the form of subsidies and its charge to your health all children need to learn how to cook all children need to know that food doesn't have to come in a package schools could reflect on the content of their lunch menus children are too frequently rewarded with processed foods for good
behavior we need to reflect on whether or not the steering intuitively make sense ultimately we have a responsibility to teach them that every time they put something in their mouth they make a choice to eat something nursing or something nutritionally depleted in the nineteenth century physicians were offended when some of I suggested they wash their hands before delivering babies we are now asking them to consider
whether the medications that they prescribe are contributing to the poor long term outcome for some people with mental illness but eating well and when appropriate additional nutrients can improve the mental health of many people I leave you with one last thought randomized trials in the sixteen hundreds show the putting climbs aboard ships headed out for long voyages completely eliminated the forty percent mortality from scurvy but
it took two hundred and sixty four years for the British government to mandate that all ships must carry citrus square there sailors how long will it take our society to pay attention to the research showing that sub optimal nutrition is contributing to the epidemic of mental illness so this is my idea were spreading nutrition matters and if we're really ready to get serious about mental health
