'Nutritional psychiatry can be an effective treatment'

Eating well can keep away the blues but can a good diet combat something more severe and specific, like psychosis or suicidal tendencies? Can trauma after an earthquake be healed faster with the right mix of vitamins and minerals?

These are some of the questions that nutritional psychiatry tries to answer. In simple terms, this branch of science involves treatment of mood and anxiety disorders and psychiatric symptoms using nutrients. For a relatively young science, of about 15 years, it has had its share of controversies of legal cases, murder, suicides and even cross-border smuggling.

There are two sides to this debate on the treatment's efficacy - one which believes that using nutrients to treat mental illness can be dangerous and the other which sees nutrient formulae as a breakthrough. Bonnie Kaplan, professor at University of Calgary and a leading researcher in nutritional psychiatry, explains to Asha Menon some of the basics.


What makes you think nutritional psychiatry is an effective treatment?
Brain cells cannot function optimally without optimal micronutrients. They are critical for every metabolic step, for full mitochondrial function and fighting inflammation. Here's a case to illustrate - there was a boy of 10-11 years with severe psychosis. After six months of medication trials as an inpatient, he was ill as ever. Then after six months of micronutrient treatment, at a cost of less than 2 per cent of the previous six months, he became completely well. That was 6 years ago. I just saw him about 3 weeks ago and he is a delightful 17-year-old about to graduate high school, excited about his driver's license and mentally well.

There have been several law suits against this form of treatment. Why is there so much resistance to this branch of science?
It is very difficult to gain acceptance particularly among psychiatrists. Most of them are not interested in brain metabolism and they're very drug oriented. There is no support from drug companies because this option is much cheaper (than drug-based interventions) and it is tough to get funding from conservative federal agencies for research.

What is the focus of your research under nutritional psychiatry?
My research is into treatment to reduce psychiatric symptoms using vitamins and minerals, more specifically, using broad spectrum nutrient formulae to treat mental disorders. All of this is recent, mostly from the past 15 years.

Can nutrients replace drugs?
Not totally and it depends with the severity of each case. But in an ideal world nutrition should be primary and medication supplementary.

Is nutritional psychiatry partial to supplements over diet?
It is not true. We cannot put the whole world on pills and so we need to get people to eat better and improve the declining nutrient quality of our food. However, we also have clear evidence that nutrient supplementation can have an enormous impact on people with mental disorders.

What is the ideal diet for the brain's neural system?
It is important to eat all the minerals and vitamins and phytonutrients that you can.