It's Simple. Better Diet Equals Better Mental Health.

In a new and burgeoning area of research, two new studies show that diet quality can have a significant effect on mental health outcomes and may potentially have a role in preventing and treating such common illnesses as depression and anxiety.

In PLoS One, researchers found that better diet quality was associated with better mental health in adolescents cross-sectionally and over time. Importantly, these findings suggest it may be possible to prevent teenage depression by ensuring adolescent diets are sufficiently nutritious, and improving diet quality may help treat depressive symptoms in this population.

Three quarters of lifetime psychiatric disorders emerge in adolescence or early adulthood, and a recent survey showed more than 22% of adolescents aged 13 to 18 years had already experienced a clinically significant mental health problem.

A healthy diet was defined as one that included fruit and vegetables as "core food groups" and included both 2 or more servings of fruit per day and 4 or more servings of vegetables, as well as general avoidance of processed foods including chips, fried foods, chocolate, sweets, and ice cream. An unhealthy diet was high in snack and processed foods. The investigators found that higher healthy diet scores at baseline predicted higher (better) Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory scores at follow-up, whereas higher "unhealthy" baseline scores predicted poorer mental health. Adolescents who improved the quality of their diets also experienced improved mental health. In contrast, those whose dietary quality deteriorated experience a worsening of their mental health status. During the 2-year study period, adolescents who improved the quality of their diets also experienced improved mental health. In contrast, those whose dietary quality deteriorated experience a worsening of the

These findings come directly on the heels of another study by the same researchers in Psychosomatic Medicine, revealing a significant link between better-quality diets and improved mental health outcomes, and specifically depression and anxiety, in a cohort of adult men and women. Individuals with better quality diets were less likely to be depressed, whereas a higher intake of processed and unhealthy foods was associated with increased anxiety.