How does diet impact anxiety? Proud to share my newest publication!
In addition to my clinical practice, I am also a researcher in the field of nutritional psychiatry – the study of the impact of food and nutrition on mental health. I am very proud to share that the study that I led, the EASe-GAD trial, is now published! While numerous studies have shown that dietary counselling can improve symptoms of depression, this study is the world’s first to measure the impact of dietary counselling plus omega-3 supplementation on the symptoms of anxiety among people with generalized anxiety disorder. I was first inspired to conduct this research by a patient that I worked with close to 10 years ago. It was a young woman with GAD. We improved the quality of her diet and her anxiety symptoms dramatically improved. But when I looked at the scientific evidence to see what was known about diet and anxiety, I found almost nothing. This put me on a mission. Well actually, two. First, to measure the impact of diet change on anxiety, in a highly rigorous and scientific way. And secondly, to get the word out about it. I am so happy to share today, a huge step towards that first mission.
In the EASe-GAD study (which stands for Eating and Supplementation for Generalized Anxiety Disorder), we recruited 50 participants and delivered 7 sessions of dietary counselling in combination with omega-3 supplementation. In addition to confirming that this treatment approach was acceptable to the participants, we observed that the anxiety symptom severity score decreased by 55% among the participants receiving the treatment, compared with 9% among the participants on the waitlist for the same period of time.
These results are incredibly important. We know that 9% of Canadians will experience GAD in their lifetime and not all benefit from the available treatment options for a wide variety of reasons. There is a need for additional approaches. In the past 8 years, 5 clinical trials have demonstrated that dietary counselling can improve symptoms of depression among people with depressive disorders. Our study is the first to suggest that this treatment approach might also be helpful for people with anxiety. Because this is only one, preliminary study, additional, larger studies are needed to confirm the effect; however, it is worth noting that the findings are consistent with the results of the studies on diet and depression. It is also important to highlight that many of the participants were receiving other treatments like medication and psychotherapy prior to beginning the study, but were still experiencing high levels of anxiety symptoms. The nutrition intervention was provided to these individuals as an add-on treatment, suggesting that patients don’t have to decide between different treatments but can instead combine different approaches to create a plan that suites them and best addresses their mental health concerns.
Overall, these findings suggest that more research on nutrition and mental health is warranted and that nutritional professionals like Naturopathic Doctors and dieticians have a role to play in supporting Canadians experiencing anxiety and mood disorders.
Read the full publication here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1028415X.2024.2403901
National Post article: https://nationalpost.com/sponsored/new-study-looks-at-whether-improving-your-nutrition-can-impact-anxiety