Fish oil supplements in New Zealand
Are NZ fish oil supplements safe, true to label and can they provide a health benefit?
I recently co-authored an article in the New Zealand...
Is there any evidence for using micronutrients for the treatment of mental illness?
The notion that good nutrition is good for the brain is not a new idea. What is relatively new is that, until recently, there...
Eating well under high stress
When we are under high stress, we can often reach for foods
that are “comforting” (like biscuits, donuts, cake, pastries, and chocolate
bars), but these foods...
Can mineral-vitamin treatment change the microbiome? Yes it can!
Do people who suffer from specific psychiatric symptoms, like those associated with ADHD, have a different bacterial microbiome than those who don't have these symptoms? Are our bugs making us impulsive? Therefore, what if we changed out these bugs? What's the role nutrition plays? Professsor Julia Rucklidge explores some exciting connections.
Preventing suicide: identifying risk and protective factors
Over the past four years, New Zealand’s suicide statistics have continued to increase. In 2018, New Zealand's suicide rate was at its highest at...
Can nutrients help people quit smoking?
The idea that there might be a link between smoking and nutrition is one that is probably not thought about very often. We do...
Pleading for accuracy in trial reporting
Last week, Mariska Bot and colleagues published a clinical trial in JAMA whereby they randomized overweight or obese adults with subsyndromal depressive symptoms to...
Nutrition as part of the solution to the mental health crisis
There has been a small explosion in research using nutrients for the treatment of mental illness over the last decade. The general premise is...
Gut gardening to improve mental health
The human gut is home to trillions of microorganisms, and research is finding that this microbiome has important impacts on our health and wellbeing. However, what do you do when you feel that your gut microbiome needs a boost? It is possible to change your microbiome, for both better and worse?
University of Canterbury MSc Psychology student Jessica Heaton outlines interesting ways to improve our gut microbiome's bacterial diversity, and how this can impact our physical and mental health.
Micronutrients as a Treatment for Antenatal Depression: Results from “NUTRIMUM”, an RCT using vitamins and minerals to treat depressive symptoms during pregnancy
Dr Hayley Bradley
Researchers from Te Puna Toiora (Mental Health and Nutrition Research Lab) have published a new study investigating whether broad-spectrum micronutrients (vitamins and...
