Much attention is currently being paid to the growing crisis of obesity. Throughout the industrialised world and, increasingly, in non industrialised countries people are eating too much unhealthy food and exercising too little. The result is a staggering rise in the number of individuals, many of them children, whose weight far exceeds what is healthy. In turn, as has been well documented, unhealthy lifestyles are contributing to the increase in diseases such as diabetes and diet-related cancers.

Exercise is an important factor, but recent changes in the amount and types of food eaten are root causes of these sudden and dramatic changes in patterns of disease.

At the same time, the world is also facing another less visible health crisis this one in the realm of mental health. Like obesity, mental and behavioural disorders are of increasing and serious public health concern. However, unlike obesity, mental health receives very little public attention. There is also very little awareness of the growing evidence that the same factors responsible for obesity, (i.e. too much and the wrong kinds of food), may also be partly responsible for this increase in mental and behavioural problems.

Disorders affecting mental health are very common and affect all societies and all ages. Worldwide, 450 million people suffer from mental or neurological disorders or from psychological problems related to alcohol or drug abuse. These conditions include depressive disorders, bipolar affective disorder (“manic depression”), schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease and obsessive compulsive disorder.

Representing four of the leading ten causes of disability worldwide, mental health problems affect more than 25 per cent of all people at some point in their lives. At any one time, about 10 per cent of the adult population is suffering from a mental or behavioural disorder. It is also estimated that one family in four is affected by a member with a mental or behavioural problem.

Like obesity, the problem is increasing. Presently, mental health problems account for 12 per cent of the global burden of disease, with depression being the leading cause of disability worldwide. Five other mental health conditions figure in the top 20 causes of disability in the world. At current rates, it is predicted that depression will become the second highest cause of the global disease burden within the next 15 years.

One way to measure the impact of diseases is to use the DALY system – one Disability Adjusted Life Year is one lost year of “healthy” life. This measure is used by bodies such as the World Health Organisation to assess the impact not only of early deaths, but also of lost working years among adult populations – both on human health and on economic health, especially in poorer countries. In 1990, mental and neurological disorders (these include epilepsy) accounted for 10.5 per cent of the total DALYs lost due to all diseases and injuries. In 2000, this had risen to 12.3 per cent and projections indicate that, by 2020, it will rise to 15 per cent.

Contents

Changing Diets, Changing Minds: how food affects mental well being and behaviour
Acknowledgements
An important note on the nature of this report
Foreword
Summary
Introduction

The cost of mental illness
The role of food?
Resistance to the link
The purpose of this report

The science of nutrition and the brain

What do we need to eat?

Proteins
Dietary fats
Carbohydrates
Micronutrients - vitamins and minerals
How the nutrients are used

How do nutrients physically affect the brain?

How the brain works
How the brain is made
Essential nutrients for the brain
Nutrients and neurotransmitters
Serotonin
Catecholamines
Acetlycholine
Nutrients and neurons
Essential fatty acids
Micronutrients, oxidation and other factors

Conclusion

Diet, brain development and mental well being throughout the lifecycle

Nutrition in prenatal, postnatal and early life stages

Birth weight
Preconception
Low birth weight
Folic acid

Maternal nutrition and foetal development

Essential fatty acids
Micronutrients
Toxic substances

Infants and early childhood

Breastfeeding and infant formula
Cognitive advantages of breastfeeding
Pre-term infants
General malnutrition
Anaemia

Childhood and Adolescence

Academic attainment
Anti-social behaviour

Adults

Meals and foods
Macronutrients
Tryptophan and tyrosine
Micronutrients

Older people

Micronutrients
Fats and vegetables
Parkinson's disease
Nutrients
Pesticides

Conclusion

The role of diet in specific mental health conditions

ADHD

Food additives
Dietary epidemiological evidence
Relevant physiology in those with ADHD
Research trials
Few foods diets
Nutrients
Polyunsaturated fatty acids
Micronutrients
Sugar
Summary

Depression

Dietary epidemiological evidence
Relevant physiology in those with depression
Neurotransmitter precursors
Micronutrients
Polyunsaturated fatty acids
Oxidation

Research trials

Neurotransmitter precursors
Vitamins
Polyunsaturated fatty acids
Summary

Schizophrenia

Dietary epidemiological evidence
Breastfeeding and prenatal nutrition
Coeliac disease
Relevant physiology in those with schizophrenia
Research trials
Polyunsaturated fatty acids
Antioxidants
Tardive dykinesia
Summary

Dementia, particularly Alzheimer's disease

Dietary epidemiological evidence
Relevant physiology in those with Alzheimer's
Research trials
Summary

Conclusion

Changing diets and the implications for our mental health

An historical perspective

Diet and evolution
Agricultural revolution
The Industrial Revolution
Upheaval in the 20th century

What are we eating now?

Processed food
Food additives
Industrialised farming
Animal fat
Pesticides

And the results?

Conclusion and recommendations

Fish stocks: No more food for thought?
What policy makers could do now

Organisations to contact for more information
References

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