Earlier this year, Canadian researcher Bonnie Kaplan and New Zealand researcher Julia Rucklidge wrote an article for Mad in America about the connection between dietary patterns and mental health.
The study of dietary patterns is different from the study of nutrient intake (amounts of various nutrients) and the study of nutrient status (serum assays of individual nutrients). Dietary pattern research takes a more holistic approach, exploring eating styles rather than specific vitamins or minerals in a single food.
This area of research is sometimes called nutritional epidemiology, and it’s a recent, emerging field, with much of the research being under 10 years old.
An example of nutritional epidemiology is the growing body of research that has studied the effect of diet on mental health, often comparing whole food diets and diets rich with junk or processed foods. Most of the studies have found that eating a whole foods diet may help subjects attain lower depression and anxiety scores.
The research has a far way to go, but the preliminary results are encouraging.