Growing evidence suggests we can feed our brain

Medical mainstream is now beginning to embrace the concept of nutrient or nutritional therapy for schizophrenia, depression, ADD, anti-social behavior and Alzheimer’s dementia. Orthomolecular medicine is a part of this movement as it is a nutrient and diet therapy that provides endogenous, already existing substances that the body uses, essential or non-essential, to correct your biochemical or physiological state. Using the right nutrients in the right amount is a corrective process from which the term ‘ortho’ is derived.

In the most current 2012 Spring 15(3) issue of The Journal of Addiction and Mental Health issued by the CAMH, we see a solid mention of nutrients having a role in mental health. A UK organization called Sustain is now trying to advocate agricultural and food practices and policies that improve our health. They have initiated The Food and Mental Health Project in partnership with the UK Mental Health Foundation (MHF). In this project they looked at over 40 years of peer-reviewed medical archives to determine the link between nutrients in diet and mental health (brain function).       

The Food and Mental Health Project found that “people who miss one or more elements of a healthy diet or who eat too much saturated fat or other harmful elements seem to be at higher risk of developing attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, depression and antisocial behaviour”. This Project also found, as is the main thrust of orthomolecular thinking, that nutrients “only work if a wide range of other nutrients are also available in the right amounts and in proportion to one another. These nutrients include polyunsaturated fats, particularly the omega-3s; minerals, such as zinc, magnesium and iron; and vitamins, such as folate, a range of B vitamins and the antioxidant vitamins C and E”.

This article mentions that despite the fact that poor physical health is clearly associated with junk food intake, policy makers are idle to curb junk food commercialization. In the same vain, Sustain admits that they “made the common mistake of believing policy makers when they say they base their decisions on scientific evidence. A cursory look at any government policy will show, at best, only a tenuous link with evidence. Much more influential are money, the lobbying power that comes with it and the desire of most politicians to keep their jobs”.

The good news is that scientific results mean something to medical mainstream psychiatric researchers.

Psychiatric medical practitioners are now more and more open to entertain the concept that humble nutrient interventions have potential. For your appraisal, I report on the use and response of nutrient therapy in the treatment of a variety of mental health conditions including schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, ADD and OCD.