The journal occasionally publishes a series of articles on a topic of cutting-edge research that will advance our understanding of mental health and illness. The goal is to feature diverse models, methods, disciplines, approaches, and domains of research that might transcend any particular disorder. We are keenly interested in critical topics that are at once fundamental to understanding psychopathology and are not extensively or sufficiently brought to the attention of readers in core areas of psychopathology research. This series on nutrition and mental health not only meets the criteria I have mentioned but is of broad interest for a variety of reasons.
First, nutrition and health in general are ever present in the daily news. Invariably a particular food is encouraged or discouraged because of its correlation with some untoward physical health consequence that no one seems to want. These are gross main-effect types of recommendations—one food is likely to increase or decrease the risk of a particular disorder and the usual qualifiers (e.g., dose, moderators) are not included. In addition, all sorts of nonscientifically based diets are fed to us through the media. In part because of the obesity epidemic and pressures to be fashionably thin even if one is not obese or even overweight, all sorts of new diets are proposed to help us lose weight. Invariably each one has “clinical evidence” and a dazzling before-and-after photo with someone who can now fit a fully inflated beach ball in an article of clothing that just three weeks ago was way too tight. These faddish and media-promoted diets are not to be confused with the recommendations that emerge from various scientific panels that sort through the evidence, weigh that against other social and political issues, and make and provide dietary guidelines. Among the more familiar are the Mediterranean Diet, food pyramid, and now food plate (e.g., U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2015). The influences I have mentioned here make nutrition and health salient in our everyday experience. The influences are at once a strength by bringing nutrition and health to the public but have a liability too by promoting all sorts of unchecked and unsupported views and recommendations about etiology and intervention.
My brief comments highlight the broad context for the topic but are quite different from the basic scientific research on nutrition and its role in mental health. From a scientific perspective, we can expect that nutrition would play a significant role in mental health, even in advance of considering the specific studies devoted precisely to that topic. We begin with the well-established general statements that nutrition plays a role in physical health, and mental health and physical health often go together in many different ways. Also established is that individuals with physical illness are more likely to have a coexisting mental disorder and that individuals with a mental disorder die at a much younger age than samples without a disorder. A large set of influences are directly implicated in the etiology, onset, or course of many physical and mental disorders. Some of the more familiar culprits include inflammation and stress. Others may be less familiar, such as air pollutants and particulates (e.g., Bakian et al., 2015; Lim et al., 2012), breastfeeding practices (e.g., Krol, Rajhans, Missana, & Grossmann, 2014; Oddy et al., 2010), microbiota in our guts (e.g., Kleiman et al., 2015; Nowakowski et al., 2016), and mitochondrial abnormalities (Rezin, Amboni, Zugno, Quevedo, & Streck, 2009; Rossignol & Frye, 2015). From these considerations alone, nutrition can be expected to play a critical role in both mental and physical health, because well-nourished human and nonhuman animals are more resilient to inflammation and stress and because good nutrition helps to correct gut dysbiosis and mitochondrial dysfunction.
Yet what is the scientific basis for the role of nutrition in mental health? There is an extensive base. Our journal has sampled this larger literature (Kaplan, Rucklidge, Romijn, & McLeod, 2015; Rechenberg, 2016). What we learn is that there is a basic science literature that focuses on micronutrients and how they interact and influence fundamental structures, functions, and cellular and neurobiological processes (e.g., DNA, oxidative stress, mitochondria, enzymes, metabolism). And there are also controlled clinical trials showing that psychiatric symptoms and disorders respond to micronutrient intervention. All of this work is at a very different level from what one may associate with the information on “nutrition and health” as it is fed to us in everyday life.
With that in mind, I am delighted to have a Special Series to convey some of the work in nutrition and mental health. Two leading researchers and scholars graciously agreed to guest edit the series. Their own work has had remarkable impact, and the journal was fortunate to persuade them to share their expertise in a separate publication I already mentioned. Nutrition is not mainstream within the sciences that study mental health and illness. Standard coursework in training and exposure to the scientific literature in the traditional mental health professions omit even a morsel. A single series of papers cannot redress that. Yet we can make salient key questions and convey there are answers. “What can nutrition offer in relation to understanding psychopathology in terms of basic processes and mechanisms?” and “Can any of that research be used to develop interventions that are shown in controlled studies to be effective?” are empirical questions that already have many empirical answers. The series provides a sample of a much larger literature.
