W
hen Professor
Felice Jacka first
began studying
the effects of
diet on mental health back in
2005, people thought she was,
well, a bit mad.
“Suggesting what we eat might
influence how we feel was, to
many, the domain of a ‘trippy
hippy’, non-evidence based belief
rather than real medicine,” says
Felice. “Many seemed to have a
disdain for the idea that diet might
be of relevance to mental health.
Back then there simply wasn’t
much in the way of scientific
evidence linking food and mood.”
Felice, one of the world’s
top researchers in nutritional
psychiatry, became interested
in her field due to personal
experience. She developed
an anxiety disorder as a child,
then suffered panic attacks and
bouts of depression as a teenager
growing up in Melbourne,
Australia. But she focused on her
exercise, diet and sleep, and by
her late twenties had recovered.
Having previously attended
art school, Felice decided to
return to university to study
psychology, completing a PhD
that made such significant
findings that it appeared on
the cover of the American
Journal Of Psychiatry.
Its biggest revelation was
that women who consume
vegetables, fruit, unprocessed
red meat, fish and wholegrains
were less likely to suffer with
depression or anxiety disordersthan their counterparts who ate
more typically “Western” diets
packed with processed food,
such as meat pies, burgers,
pizza, chips, white bread and
soft drinks.
Perhaps more surprising,
however, was it demonstrated
those whose diets revolve around
fish, tofu, beans, nuts, yoghurt
and red wine also suffered more
depression. This turned out to
be due to a lack of red meat. And,
contrary to all her predictions,
further research carried out by
Felice revealed that women who
ate the recommended amount of
red meat were 20 to 30 per cent
less likely to have a history of
depressive anxiety disorder.
Felice, who is now directorof the Food & Mood Centre at
Deakin University in Australia,
and founder and president of
the International Society for
Nutritional Psychiatry Research,
said, “When I investigated, I
saw a very clear relationship
between red meat consumption
and mental health, but not in the
direction I expected.”
Her research clearly
demonstrated that “compared
to women consuming the
recommended amount of red
meat (65-100g three to four
times a week), those eating
either less or more than that
were roughly twice as likely tohave a clinical depression or
anxiety disorder”.LIFE-CHANGING STUDY
Since that first research paper,
Felice has published more than
150 peer-reviewed scientific
papers, which have changed
popular opinion on the causes
of mental ill health.
In 2015, for example, she
discovered that, in essence, junk
food shrinks our brain, or at least
the left hippocampus (which, in
part, regulates emotion, memory
and mental health). “We found
not getting enough of the good
stuff and too much of the bad stuff
was problematic,” she says.
But it was her SMILES study
(Supporting The Modification Of
Lifestyle In Lowered Emotional
States) published in 2017 that
could prove life-changing for
anyone with mental health issues.
For the trial, men and women
with clinical depression were
assigned either a dietary support
WORDS: Amy Packer PHOTOS: Getty group or social support.
COULD THIS DIET
CURE YOUR
DEPRESSION
?
We investigate how the
food you eat can affect
your risk of anxiety
and low mood
Too much or
too little meat
caused issuesFish should be part
of your weekly diet