Search results
Can nutrition affect your mental health? A growing research literature suggests the answer could be yes. Western-style dietary habits, in particular, come under special scrutiny in much of this research.
- Causes
- Function
- Benefits
- Results
- Treatment
- Resources
- Other animals
Think about it. Your brain is always on. It takes care of your thoughts and movements, your breathing and heartbeat, your senses it works hard 24/7, even while youre asleep. This means your brain requires a constant supply of fuel. That fuel comes from the foods you eat and whats in that fuel makes all the difference. Put simply, what you eat dir...
Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that helps regulate sleep and appetite, mediate moods, and inhibit pain. Since about 95% of your serotonin is produced in your gastrointestinal tract, and your gastrointestinal tract is lined with a hundred million nerve cells, or neurons, it makes sense that the inner workings of your digestive system dont just help...
Studies have shown that when people take probiotics (supplements containing the good bacteria), their anxiety levels, perception of stress, and mental outlook improve, compared with people who did not take probiotics. Other studies have compared traditional diets, like the Mediterranean diet and the traditional Japanese diet, to a typical Western d...
This may sound implausible to you, but the notion that good bacteria not only influence what your gut digests and absorbs, but that they also affect the degree of inflammation throughout your body, as well as your mood and energy level, is gaining traction among researchers. The results so far have been quite amazing.
When my patients go clean, they cannot believe how much better they feel both physically and emotionally, and how much worse they then feel when they reintroduce the foods that are known to enhance inflammation. Give it a try!
For more information on this topic, please see: Nutritional medicine as mainstream in psychiatry, Sarris J, et al. Lancet Psychiatry. 2015
Extensive animal data show that dietary manipulation affects brain plasticity and there are now data from humans to suggest the same:
- hhp_info@health.harvard.edu
Whereas discovering the anti-inflammatory properties of a single nutrient or uncovering the subtleties of interactions between the gut and the brain may shed new light on how food may influence mood, it is important not to neglect the existing knowledge on other ways diet may affect mental health.
Jun 29, 2022 · Diet is a critical component of social, emotional, and mental health. This article is your guide to understanding how your diet may affect your mental health and wellbeing.
Jun 12, 2024 · Anxiety and depression can seriously undermine mental health and quality of life globally. The consumption of junk foods, including ultra-processed foods, fast foods, unhealthy snacks, and sugar-sweetened beverages, has been linked to mental health.
Jun 29, 2020 · Poor nutrition may be a causal factor in the experience of low mood, and improving diet may help to protect not only the physical health but also the mental health of the population, say Joseph Firth and colleagues.
People also ask
How does food affect mental health?
Does eating affect your mental health?
How does diet affect mental health?
Do food additives affect mental health?
Does junk food affect mental health?
Jan 29, 2020 · What it boils down to is that what we eat matters for every aspect of our health, but especially our mental health. Several recent research analyses looking at multiple studies support that there is a link between what one eats and our risk of depression, specifically.
