Can diet affect your mental health?

Macy9336 wrote: »

So someone was telling me the other day about how mentally unwell people tend to have bad diets and a higher risk for obesity. I looked this up and it's somewhat true. However, this person claimed that these people were mentally unwell BECAUSE they had a bad diet. This didn't make sense to me. I always thought that the mental illness came first and because of the illness, the person then has zero energy or motivation to shop, cook, etc and so often just eats crisps, microwave meals, takeaways/fast food etc which then leads to comorbid factors like obesity. What do you think?

I think first we have to define unwell. I don't think eating too much McDonald's will give anybody schizophrenia for example. But I do think your mental state can be affected by many things, including stress and diet.

Your friend is both right and wrong. Mental health CAN be affected by diet, but in many cases a bad diet is a symptom of poor mental health. It's not an either or, that would be too simplistic. One can co-exist with the other without having caused it although there are cases where it can.

A nervous dieter worrying about every detail to perfection may make their anxiety worse, while an excited dieter feeling positive changes may feel better even if it's not strictly caused by nutrition. Don't forget the positive impact of exercise which often goes hand in hand with "trying to eat better".

ETA: this topic reminded me of a couple of small interesting studies some time ago.
Https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25862297
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26706022

Macy9336 wrote: »

So someone was telling me the other day about how mentally unwell people tend to have bad diets and a higher risk for obesity. I looked this up and it's somewhat true. However, this person claimed that these people were mentally unwell BECAUSE they had a bad diet. This didn't make sense to me. I always thought that the mental illness came first and because of the illness, the person then has zero energy or motivation to shop, cook, etc and so often just eats crisps, microwave meals, takeaways/fast food etc which then leads to comorbid factors like obesity. What do you think?

@Macy9336 it seems to be the old chicken/egg question to a degree since mental illness can be trigger by diet and mental illness can impact our eating choices.

telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/05/12/anorexia-partly-genetic-eating-disorder-risk-could-passed-onto/

Breaching the Blood-Brain Barrier as a Gate to Psychiatric Disorder
https://hindawi.com/journals/cpn/2009/278531/

Do You Have a Leaky Brain?
Is a Leaky Blood-Brain Barrier part of your mental health problem?
balancingbrainchemistry.co.uk/peter-smith/112/Repairing-&-Making-the-Brain-Healthy/Leaky-blood-brain-barrier-and-mental-health.html
This actually a great article for those interested in the impact diet may have on mental health since it seems a leaking gut that can be triggered by diet may precede a leaking BBB. These may be some of the WHY factors that can impact body weight beyond just calories.

StarBrightStarBright wrote: »

French_Peasant wrote: »

Out of curiosity, what did she think the connection was between gut issues and ear infections? Just that a healthy gut might cure one problem so it might cure them all? Or was it to help re-establish his gut flora after the antibiotics did their damage to it?

I think it was more about re-establishing gut flora because it might be so inter-related to our whole body. She'd say things like "Make sure he eats lots of fruits and vegetables and yogurt for the next month, you don't want to mess with bad microbes, we're going to be talking about guts a lot in the next 10 years."

Depauperating the gut of bacteria can predispose it to colonization by non-beneficial microbes. The recommendation to consume yogurt and other foods with microbes is simply to aid recovery of a balanced, healthy community within the gut. Recent studies show the gut microflora responds very quickly to what we eat.

I am extremely skeptical of diet being a primary cause of a mental illness, although in this case the OP did not define what was meant by "mentally unwell".

It is not logical to think that humans have evolved to be so sensitive to diet that eating poorly results in erratic and "mentally unwell" behavior. However, the opposite seems logical... people who are suffering from a mental disorder may have diminished capacity to care for themselves and resort to eating foods that are easy to obtain, which typically means low quality (high fat, low nutrient) foods.

From my personal experience with depression, I think it's a little bit of both. I know that when I'm struggling with depression, I eat terribly (way too many calories and little fruits or vegetables). When I'm feeling good, I eat better.

However, I find that if I can recognize that I'm in the downward depression spiral (which isn't always easy to admit) and I start eating better and exercising, I find that I start feeling better. So, for me, it's both.

LZMiner wrote: »

Actually, a very famous murder case was defended with "The Twinkie Defense." The man who murdered Harvey Milk received something crazy like 2 years in prison due to his junk food diet causing erratic behavior.

Cart before the horse there. His lawyers used his rapidly declining nutritional choices and personal hygiene as evidence, not cause of, his mental state.

Mental health is tied into the digestive biome. We eat a vastly reduced diet in 2017 to the one we would have eaten a 100, 500 or a 1000 years ago. People who are closer to their original ways of eating have fewer health issues than we in the industrial world we have many fewer species of microbes as a result.

Anyone who has taken even one round of antibiotic will have lost beneficial microbes. Years ago before the thyroid numbers game was started doctors used to treat mental health issues with NDT, natural desiccated thyroid which contains both the t4 and t3 hormones. Many responded to this regime and it was popular. Unfortunately big pharma got in on the act post tsh, t4 testing and this natural form is shunned because they got away with saying it was not of the required standard but all medicines have to be made to a proper standard.

It is possible to ensure you have adequate levels of iodine and other minerals and vitamins in your diet. Nutritional advice says we need 150 microns of iodine a day, I think at least this. This level amounts to about half a teaspoon a year but it is vital for each and every cell particularly those in the brain. Looking for foods to supply iodine, examples, a medium egg is 24, dark green veg 100 grams have about 4, milk 100 ml has 30, yoghurt doubles this. Fish like cod is higher, possibly 70 per 100 grams. Salmon is lower in iodine but has selenium which is essential for the conversion of t4,iodine to t3 the active form. so it is all too easy for us to be unaware we are deficient in these and other minerals as well as other vitamins d,c,and e for starters.

A consequence of having restricted microbes and or too many of the least helpful microbes (yeasts) is that we are less able to absorb sufficient nutrients from our diet. The microbes are responsible for breaking down the foods along with the digestive enzymes we should all produce.

Someone said, thinking of autism in this thread is not necessarily appropriate. I need digestive enzymes made for first for children with autism who share my issue with phenol. When our digestive biome is out of balance it sets in place the potential for a chain of issues relating to how we eliminate the chemicals we encounter in our modern world.

Someone else said of their undereating they felt better when the started to eat better again. One study done in London a couple of years ago and was the topic of a radio programme cited better t3 levels as crucial for the anorexic person. Ironically doctors are not permitted to test our t3 levels here in the UK.