By May 2024, Ebony Dupas knew she had a problem. She had started to feel a mild anxiety about her sense of direction and purpose in life earlier that year, but within a couple months, that had spiraled into a paranoia that she could neither shake nor explain.<\/p>\n
Referred by her doctor, Dupas began consulting with different psychiatrists, all of whom considered diagnosing her with generalized anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia. Most wanted to put her on medication right away. But one psychiatrist first ordered bloodwork to see if something else might be going on. \u201cI was mostly depleted of magnesium,\u201d Dupas says.<\/p>\n
Most people being treated for mental health conditions such as anxiety or depression typically use a mix of just two strategies: medication (usually an SSRI) and psychotherapy. But there\u2019s increasing interest in the connection between food and the brain, and especially how nutrition could affect psychiatric conditions. Researchers have not only found a connection between the gut microbiome<\/a> and mental health, but also connections between deficiencies in certain micronutrients, including magnesium<\/a> or choline<\/a>, and conditions like anxiety and depression.<\/p>\n What\u2019s less clear is how supplementation could alleviate certain symptoms. We don\u2019t have robust clinical trial data showing how micronutrients affect people\u2019s mental health, and the role of supplements in mental health is understudied, particularly because the research can be so challenging. Most supplements also don\u2019t require approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to go to market, meaning there\u2019s an abundance of different options, most of which have different formulas that aren\u2019t robustly studied.<\/p>\n While researchers have long understood that nutrition is important for brain health, people don\u2019t typically look to their diets as a way to improve their mental health, and doctors don\u2019t always think to connect mental health with diet. The link between food and the brain \u201cis overlooked by most people,\u201d says Uma Naidoo<\/a>, director of nutritional and lifestyle psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital and author of the 2023 book Calm Your Mind With Food<\/a>. Future research to clarify the link between micronutrients \u2014 through either food or supplements \u2014 and mental health outcomes could help us stop underestimating that link.<\/p>\n How diet is linked to mental health<\/p>\n The connection between diet and the brain seems counterintuitive, but it\u2019s actually linked to basic biology. \u201cThe same environment where food is being digested is also the environment where neurotransmitters are produced,\u201d Naidoo says. The gut produces most of the body\u2019s serotonin, as well as a good portion of the neurotransmitter GABA. Drugs used to alter levels of serotonin are frequently used to treat depression and anxiety. The most common group are known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).<\/p>\n One of the best understood links between nutrition and mental health involves how food affects the gut microbiome. Researchers have known for years now that gut inflammation<\/a> and changes in the gut microbiome are linked to mental conditions like anxiety and depression<\/a>, and possibly other psychiatric disorders<\/a>. But there\u2019s also a growing and ongoing interest in how specific vitamins and minerals affect the brain.<\/p>\n \u201cThe brain and mental health are no longer just \u2018above the neck\u2019 problems.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014 Uma Naidoo, director of nutritional and lifestyle psychiatry at Mass General<\/p>\n Deficiencies in several different micronutrients, including magnesium, B vitamins<\/a>, vitamin D<\/a>, omega-3s<\/a>, choline<\/a>, and L-theanine<\/a> have been shown to affect mental health conditions. Researchers can induce anxiety in mice<\/a>, for example, by manipulating and lowering their magnesium levels. The extent to which supplementation affects mental health in humans is less well-established.<\/p>\n The research so far is a little sparse and mixed. A 2024 review<\/a> found that \u201csupplemental magnesium is likely useful in the treatment of mild anxiety and insomnia,\u201d especially in people with already low magnesium. But across studies, results showing how much magnesium supplements can help people with mental health conditions like anxiety or depression are often inconsistent, likely because there are so many different forms these supplements can take.<\/p>\n Magnesium, for example, can be taken as a supplement in the forms of magnesium citrate, magnesium malate, magnesium glycinate, magnesium oxide, magnesium chloride, and more. How well the body can make use of magnesium in these different forms, and how good these different forms are at delivering magnesium to the brain still needs to be better studied, says Alexander Rawji, a psychiatrist in Long Island, New York, and the lead author of the paper. Similar challenges exist for other micronutrients.<\/p>\n As you may have learned in high school biology, eating varied foods rich in certain vitamins and minerals is crucial because your body cannot make its own supply and yet relies on them to perform critical functions. And research suggests that most Americans don\u2019t get nearly enough of many micronutrients. Previous national survey data<\/a> said that as much as 94 percent of the US population does not get adequate daily vitamin D, 52 percent don\u2019t get enough magnesium, and 92 percent don\u2019t get enough choline.<\/p>\n