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FElice Jacka's work, which shows that junk food reduces the brain, was motivated by personal experience. Growing up in Melbourne, Australia, Jacka had problems with anxiety and panic disorders. at the time of her enrollment in the art school, she was also used to episodes of depression, leaving her "devoid of happy feelings and unable to feel pleasure".
But in his late twenties, Jacka managed to recover and stay healthy by focusing on diet, exercise and sleep. The effect was so marked that it inspired him to put his artist's life on hold to devote himself to studying the effects of diet on mental health.
She is currently Director of the Food and Mood Center at Deakin University in Australia and President of the International Society of Nutritional Psychiatry, a relatively new area of research that applies a rare scientific rigor to the link between diet and mental health. For her PhD thesis in 2010, Jacka found that women whose diets were richer in vegetables, fruits, fish and whole grains, with a moderate amount of red meat, were less likely to suffer from depression or Anxiety disorders than those consuming a typical Western diet consisting of processed products. food, pizza, fries, hamburgers, white bread and sugary drinks.
His study was on the cover of the American Journal of Psychiatry; soon after, studies in Spain and the United Kingdom revealed similar trends. Today, Jacka is at the forefront of nutritional psychiatry and is studying large population samples to determine the impact of a complete diet (and not individual ingredients) on health. mental. Correlations can not prove causality, but by reproducing the results repeatedly, risk factors can be identified and studied further. His new book, Brain Changer, is a simple, evidence-based antidote (containing recipe ideas for good mental health) for bloggers and diet experts who have "discredited nutrition research."
"When I started, people were terribly skeptical. They thought it was crap, "says Jacka. "In psychiatry, people are trained to think of certain brain molecules that can be targeted by certain drugs and they have lost sight of the whole picture – the body as a whole, a complex system."
More than 150 peer-reviewed scientific papers later, Jacka collected evidence from around the world that "what we stick in our mouths is important to our mental health."
For his so-called Smiles trial, published in 2017, Jacka recruited 67 people suffering from moderate to severe depression and having an unhealthy diet. Half received seven sessions with a clinical dietician, while the others received "social support", involving a friendly conversation. After 12 weeks, one-third of those who had received nutritional support were in remission, compared with 8% of those who had received social support. Scientistically speaking, says Jacka, "the difference was big enough".
She is keen on breaking imaginative ideas about miracle solutions and culinary tendencies disguised as panacea – success is not about "healthy eating" or coconut oil, but about following the usual tips for a healthy and balanced diet. As a bonus, participants spent a little less on food than on their original diet – and probably also had a bigger brain. In a 2015 study of 250 older Australians, Jacka found that the less healthy their diet was, the smaller their left hippocampus was (brain area related to emotional regulation and mental health); the discovery was more recently replicated in the Netherlands with 4,000 elderly people.
Overall, Jacka found that just following a healthier diet – without other lifestyle modifications, such as exercise, but considering factors such as education, income, weight and other healthy behaviors – leads to a 30% reduction in the risk of depression.
This healthier diet can vary from country to country, but research has shown that no matter where you live, eat closer to a rich pre-industrial diet. Transformed foods and pleasurable snacks reduces your risk of depression. It could be the Mediterranean diet or Japanese cuisine rich in fish, seaweed, green tea and tofu, writes Jacka: "There is not just one healthy way to eat.
One of the unexpected discoveries of his doctoral thesis, for example, is that the suppression of red meat has led to a deterioration in the mental health of the 1,000 participants. "We found in our data a very clear pattern: too few or too many problems," she says. "A small amount – three or four portions the size of a palm [65-100g] a week – was badociated with about half the likelihood of having depressive or anxiety disorder. I guess people's needs probably vary from person to person. The need is probably greater for young women who have their period, says Jacka (who does not eat red meat "for ethical reasons").
Cereal fed beef (common in the United States) is also less healthy than grbad fed beef, which is richer in fatty acids that have been badociated with improved mental health.
In the case of fish, eating it about three times a week is one of many healthy diets – but it's unlikely that eating more will provide additional benefits, writes Jacka. Fish oil supplements can be helpful for some people with severe clinical depression, "but it's certainly not a panacea for the entire population," she says. "Have sardines on your toast, mackerel, mussels or, if you can afford it, oysters."
Jacka is the first to admit that we may never understand how the individual ingredients of our diet combine to influence the brain: "The complexity of the human body is staggering." And because even the most beige Western diet includes countless chemicals in invisible interaction. with each other, "we can not even begin to measure all their effects".
Cottage cheese, for example, is often used to stimulate the mood because it is rich in tryptophan, essential to the creation of serotonin, the "happiness hormone." If only nutrition was so simple. Scientists have found no evidence that consumption of tryptophan-rich foods (or supplements) affects mental health, the other amino acids contained in foods restricting the pbadage from the stomach to the brain .
These are billions of microorganisms such as bacteria and yeasts that live in our bowels that help convert tryptophan into serotonin. They can be encouraged by eating fermented foods such as sauerkraut, kimchi and kefir, as well as fiber from many plant sources. Most importantly, eating well is not enough: you need to consume all the nutrients and fiber your body needs – and avoid eating refined, highly processed foods. "People eat all these toxic substances that affect the health of their brains," says Jacka. One reason to avoid high sugar diets, for example, is that they lead to an increase in the same markers of inflammation as those that are high in people with depression.
The intestinal microbiome is also essential for regulating inflammation. Recent animal studies have shown that depression can be transmitted through a fecal microbe transplant ("poop in a pill or" craps "); Jacka is currently studying whether good mental health can be transmitted in the same way.
Be that as it may, she is convinced of the need to remedy what she sees as the current "disaster" in mental health. Unlike most risk factors for depression (including genes, poverty, trauma and abuse), we can change the diet – yet about 10% of the population eats enough, Jacka said. "The fact that we have something under our noses that could potentially treat a lot of the burden of depression is really important."
The elephant in the room is the world food industry. "Big Food has completely changed the food environment, so unhealthy foods are the cheapest, most popular and most marketed foods. [most] difficult to resist and socially acceptable – as a result, the [world’s] health has deteriorated. "
The lack of political will to remedy this reflects the size of the companies involved. "It's so powerful and influential, bigger than the tobacco industry," she says.
Is Jacka pretending to be Erin Brockovich? "It would be the dream of my life."
While half of mental disorders occur before the age of 14, the importance of nutrition is particularly important for young people – but, as in the United Kingdom and the United States, Australian adolescents eat every day. is not an occasional biccie with your tea.
Messages about obesity and health issues in the distant, abstract future do not seem to influence people's eating behaviors, but they could act knowing that these same foods could make them unhappy, says Jacka. "It's a lot more on your face:" it'll touch me now. & # 39;"
Brain Changer: The Right Mental Health Diet of Professor Felice Jacka is posted by Pan Macmillan, Australia
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