Food psychiatry: which foods affect well-being?

nutritionist, member of the scientific department of the Scientific Research Center “Bio-Vesta”.

In medicine, nutritional approaches have long been used in the treatment of mental disorders.

What is nutritional psychiatry?

Nutritional psychiatry is not exactly a medical term, but rather a kind of trend. After all, physicians have long turned to nutritional medicine when prescribing treatment for mental health conditions. The latter include, for example, neurogenic anorexia, autism, epilepsy (which, incidentally, is how the ketogenic diet came about), schizophrenia, alcohol and drug addiction.

Paul: For example, a deficiency of magnesium in the diet can lead to a decrease in memory, attention, disorders of consciousness. In alcohol dependence, vitamins A, B1, PP play an important role. In autism, a gluten-free diet is prescribed, and the elimination of casein improves the course of other mental illnesses.

For example, researchers have noted several substances that reduce symptoms of depression. Overall, the goal of nutritional psychiatry is to restore a person’s emotional well-being through nutrition and micronutrients.

What foods affect well-being?

The nutritionist notes: such foods do exist. Among them:

• plant products: red cabbage, grapefruit, lettuce, beets, turnips, Brussels sprouts, pumpkin, bell peppers, spinach, kale, cilantro, mustard, basil, parsley, broccoli, kohlrabi, cauliflower, pumpkin;
• animal products: salmon, tuna, pollock, herring, seafood, red and black caviar, liver, poultry giblets;
• foods containing tryptophan (from it the body synthesizes serotonin – the hormone of happiness): hard cheeses (such as Dutch cheese), peanuts, almonds, walnuts and pine nuts, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, turkey and chicken meat, beef, beans, husk peas, Atlantic herring, cod, cod, pollock, carp, porcini mushrooms, cottage cheese, chicken eggs, dark chocolate.

But even if you include the above products in the diet, you can not guarantee that it will help to cope with diseases. It is impossible to achieve a sufficient amount of vitamins and minerals through nutrition. To do this, you need to eat almost a mountain of products. Therefore, you can not do without medication either.

The most important thing in food psychiatry is a healthy microflora. It is closely connected with the nervous system of a person and can significantly affect his psychological state.

Paul: You can eat a lot of foods with tryptophan for the sake of the coveted serotonin. But the problem is that more than 90% of it is synthesized by healthy bacteria in the gut. The same goes for dopamine and gamma-aminobutyric acid, both of which reduce stress. Restoring your own microflora is about restoring the gut-brain axis. It is important not to forget about prebiotics – nutrition for healthy bacteria, with which they gain an advantage over harmful ones. Prebiotics include insoluble fiber (cereals) and soluble fiber (fruits and vegetables).