Nutritional medicine as mainstream in psychiatry

Posted on Mon, 8 Jun 15

A revolutionary call for modern psychiatry to acknowledge the limitations of drug therapy and adopt dietary and nutritional supplement-based approaches has been published in the leading journal, The Lancet Psychiatry.

Nutritional approaches to preventing and treating mental illness have a long history of being ignored, or met with harsh criticism, despite evidence of their effectiveness dating back almost a century. But the tide is turning.

The journal The Lancet Psychiatry, one of the highest impact journals in the field, recently published a scientific consensus; “Nutritional medicine as mainstream in psychiatry” from a collective of world-leading researchers.

“Evidence is steadily growing for the relation between dietary quality (and potential nutritional deficiencies) and mental health, and for the select use of nutrient-based supplements to address deficiencies, or as monotherapies or augmentation therapies.” *

Optimal nutrition is a fundamental determinant of good mental health and nutritional interventions can change the course of mental illness, yet they are rarely considered in a medical system that favors synthetic, patentable and highly profitable drugs that have limited benefit and serious side effects.

With intensifying evidence for nutritional medicine as a safe, viable approach in psychiatry it is time for change, and this publication is a welcome sign that change is coming.

“Now is time for the recognition of the importance of nutrition and nutrient supplementation in psychiatry. Nutritional medicine should now be considered as a mainstream element of psychiatric practice, with research, education, policy, and health promotion supporting this new framework.” *

Reference:

*Jerome Sarris, Alan C Logan, Tasnime N Akbaraly, G Paul Amminger, Vicent Balanzá-Martínez, Marlene P Freeman, Joseph Hibbeln, Yutaka Matsuoka, David Mischoulon, Tetsuya Mizoue, Akiko Nanri, Daisuke Nishi, Drew Ramsey, Julia J Rucklidge, Almudena Sanchez-Villegas, Andrew Scholey, Kuan-Pin Su, Felice N Jacka, on behalf of The International Society for Nutritional Psychiatry Research. Nutritional medicine as mainstream in psychiatry. Lancet Psychiatry 2015; 271–74 - link to free-full text (requires free registration)