In 1847,
A Physician By The Name Of Semesters,
Advised That All Physicians Wash Their Hands
Before Touching A Pregnant Woman,
In Order To Prevent Child bed Fever.
His Research Showed That You Could Reduce The Mortality Rates From Septicemia,
From 18% Down To 2%,
Simply By Washing Your Hands With Chlorinated Lime.
His Medical Colleagues Refused To Accept
That They Themselves Were Responsible For Spreading Infection.
Semesters, Was Ridiculed By His Peers, Dismissed,
And The Criticism And Backlash Broke Him. He Died In An Asylum, Two Weeks Later, From Septicemia,
At The Age Of 47.
What I'm Going To Talk About Today May Sound As Radical
As Hand-washing Sounded To A Mid-19th-century Doctor,
And Yet It Is Equally Scientific.
It Is A Simple Idea
That Optimizing Nutrition Is A Safe And Viable Way
To Avoid, Treat, Or Lessen Mental Illness.
Nutrition Matters.
Poor Nutrition Is A Significant And Modifiable Risk Factor
For The Development Of Mental Illness.
According To The 2013 New Zealand Health Survey,
The Rates Of Psychiatric Illnesses In Children
Doubled Over The Last Five Years.
Internationally, There's Been A 3-fold Increase In ADHD,
A 20-fold Increase In Autism,
And A 40-fold Increase In Bipolar Disorder In Children.
And This Graph Here Shows There's Been A 4-fold Increase
In The Number Of People Who Are On Disability
As A Direct Consequence Of An Underlying Psychiatric Illness.
The Rates Of Mental Illness Are On The Rise,
So, How Are We Dealing With This Problem?
Currently, Our Healthcare System Operates Within A Medical Model.
Now, This Means That You Would Typically Be Offered Psychiatric Medication First,
Followed By Psychological Therapies,
And Other Forms Of Support.
Our Reliance On Medications As A Front-line Form Of Treatment
It, Is Evident From The Increasing Rates Of Prescriptions.
For Example, In 2012,
Half A Million New Zealand-that's One-eighth Of Us -
Had Been Prescribed An Antidepressant;
That's 38% Higher Than Five Years Ago, The Rates Of Prescriptions For Antipsychotics Doubled,
From 2006 To 2011.
Given That This Medical Model
It, Is Fairly Universal Across All Western Societies, We Would Rightfully Expect That It Was Working Well.
And Indeed, In Some Cases, These Treatments Save Lives.
And I'm Not Here To Dismiss It Altogether.
However, If Treatment Is Truly Effective,
Then Shouldn't The Rates Of Disorder
And Disability As A Direct Consequence Of That Illness
Be Decreasing Rather Than Increasing?
That's Why We Need To Consider The Role That Medications Might Be Playing
In Some Of These Outcomes.
If We Take Any Class Of Medication: Antipsychotics, Anti-anxiety Medications,
Antidepressants;
The Pattern Is The Same.
In The Short Term,
These Treatments Are Often Very Effective, But In The Long Term, They Aren't.
And In Some Cases, They're Making Life Worse.
If We Look At, For Example, Studies
What Are Being Done On ADHD,
Children Treated With Stimulants Or Ritalin,
In. Term,
They Are Better, And Responding -
Better Responders Than Any Other Form Of Treatment,
But, In The Long Term,
They Are Better Children Who Have Never Been Prescribed These Medications.
Another Study Showed That, Despite Our Ever-increasing Reliance On Antidepressants,
The Recovery Rates And Relapse Rates
Are No Better Now Than They Were 50 Years Ago,
Prior To The Advent Of These Medications.
And Children With Depression
Who Were Treated With Antidepressants
Are Three Times More Likely To Convert To Bipolar Disorder
The Children Who Were Never Given These Medications.
And People Who Were Randomized
To Stay On Their Dose Of Antipsychotic Medications
Are Less Likely To Recover From Schizophrenia In The Long Term Than People Who Had Been Randomized
To A Dose Reduction Or Complete Elimination Of The Drug.
And I Can Show You More And More Studies
All Highlighting The Same Bleak Picture.
So,
Is There Another Way? Forward?
Almost Two Decades Ago,
My Ph.D., Supervisor At The Time, Professor Bonnie Kaplan,
Told Me About Some Families
Who Were Treating Themselves With Nutrients,
In Southern Alberta, Canada.
Now, They Had Bipolar Disorder, Psychosis, And Depression.
These Are Serious Conditions And My Education In Clinical Psychology
Taught Me That Nutrition And Diet Were Of Trivial Significance For Mental Health
And That Only Drugs Or Psychotherapy Could Treat These Serious Conditions.
But She And Others Were Publishing Preliminary Data
In The Earlier Part Of This Century,
Showing People Getting Well And Staying Well.
And So, I Decided To Study Nutrients,
And. That's What I've Done For The Last Decade.
In 2009, I Received Some Funding To Run A Randomized Placebo-controlled Trial,
Using Minerals And Vitamins, Also Known Collectively As Micronutrients,
For The Treatment Of ADHD, In Adults.
And This Study Was Published In The British Journal Of Psychiatry
In April Of This Year,
And Here's What We Found.
Within Just A
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