Nutrition, Mental Health & ADHD
Nutrition is the foundation of mental health, not just physical health.
Dr. Bonnie Kaplan and Dr. Julia Rucklidge are the co-authors of “The Better Brain: Overcome Anxiety, Combat Depression, and Reduce ADHD and Stress with Nutrition”. Here’s what we learned from their work about the starring role of nutrition in mental health and ADHD specifically.
The authors share how the eating habits of North Americans are impacting their mental health. Less than 20% of North Americans are meeting the targets for fruit and vegetable goals and 50% of their caloric intake is from ultra-processed foods. People are simply not eating foods that are nutrient-dense and there’s a big impact on mental health that’s largely misunderstood or underappreciated.
The authors state simply that people need to eliminate their consumption of ultra-processed foods. They even suggest that we stop calling “ultra-processed foods” foods at all because they do not build and maintain human beings; they’re not “food” in that sense but rather a harmful detractor to health.
Kaplan and Rucklidge go on to say that nutrition is the foundation for physical and mental resilience. When a person is at their highest moment of stress, the “triage” or remedying effect of nutrients can be significant. What happens when we are in fight or flight is that our body and brain’s store of nutrients is drawn from. If a person is in constant stress, their nutrient levels get depleted and their bodies respond as though they are “starving”. This is bad news for the body and terrible news for the brain, which leads to our mental health.
Nutrition is to mental health what environment is to physical health. A foundation in nutrition is the essential building block so that the brain can function in a balanced way, much in the way that environmental stressors can negatively impact a person’s physical ability to cope with stress. Nutrition and environment build a person’s resilience, meaning that person’s ability to recover from stressors quickly and effectively.
Nutrition and its role in mental health is misunderstood because there is such poor education in the United States and largely throughout the world about vitamins and nutrients. People are taught that eating a balanced diet mostly or primarily supports healthy bones and muscles. When in fact, eating a balanced diet is essential for the brain to work in the way it is intended.
The authors go on to challenge how we even understand the term “balanced diet” in our society. The term “balanced diet” is too often limited to fats, carbs, and proteins. Not enough attention is given to nutrients and vitamins, which have the biggest impact on the brain and mental health. The media portrays vitamins as impotent or potentially even harmful; when in fact, vitamins and nutrients are essential for mental health.
On the topic of supplements versus food as a source of nutrients, the authors share their opinions, which are that supplements can provide a convenient, easier starting place to modifying nutrition behavior than changing diet or modifying the types and quantities of some foods. They offer the perspective that the top priority ought to be getting the nutrients and the format - food versus supplement - is a secondary concern.
At Recoop, we’re mindful that not all supplements are created equally. Recoop is a premium multi-vitamin for people who use stimulants because it contains both the highest potency formats of nutrients in supplement form, as well as ingredients, such as Black Pepper, that improve the bioavailability of those nutrients.
Kaplan and Rucklidge offer a perspective on the role of medication in treating ADHD and other mental health disorders alongside nutrition. They believe there is a role for both, saying “Nutrition should be the medication. Medication should be the supplement.”
Supplementing nutrients as part of any stimulant routine is essential to replenish what gets naturally lost as part of that process. Recoop makes it easy to address nutrition while taking stimulants.
