If you have ever spoken publicly about battles with depression and anxiety, you’ve probably heard lots of advice about how to ‘fix’ it by taking supplements, getting more exercise, getting more sunshine, or trying a variety of other tips that folks insist will save you.
If your teens are battling depression or anxiety, they’re likely encountering many of the same messages. The question is, how much is supported by science? Can your child really have better mental health by taking the right vitamins and supplements?
The latest meta-analysis examines 19 different studies and their outcomes to draw conclusions about the link between teen diet and mental health, and the answer is that it’s much more complicated than picking the right supplement and adding it to your child’s diet.
Can You Supplement Away Mental Health Disorders?
It’s probably more accurate to say that diet can be linked to mental health symptoms, rather than to the disorder. Broadly, there’s evidence that when your body doesn’t get what it needs, it can result in negative effects, both physical and mental.
That said, nobody should be suggesting that if you just take the right supplement or get more of a certain nutrient, your mental health diagnoses or symptoms will disappear. In fact, the latest meta-analysis, published in the journal Nutrients, shows that the effects of dietary changes are mixed, and results involving specific individual supplements (compared to overall dietary change) are even less supported by evidence. As the researchers explained in their conclusion:
“Current evidence suggests a possible link between adolescent diet and mental health, albeit with certainty constrained by methodological inconsistency. The most consistent finding across both randomised trials and prospective cohorts is that associations are more reliably observed for whole-diet quality and pattern adherence than for isolated nutrient supplementation.”
In short, if your body’s nutritional needs are met, your overall health, including mental health, is likely to be better than if those needs aren’t met — but that doesn’t mean getting your teen to eat more fruit and vegetables will end their depression.
What About Supplementing The Specific Nutrients?
The researchers noted that small sample sizes, potential biases in studies, and study methodologies (such as grouping by diagnosis rather than symptom, or limiting the scope to specific symptoms) make it more difficult to determine exactly how much benefit supplements provide to overall mental health.
That said, by examining the overall mass of data, they do conclude that there is some evidence that better nutrition may result in fewer symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress, and academic struggles.
However, this evidence is less clear regarding the addition of a single specific supplement.
For instance, just adding Vitamin D supplementation shows some slight reduction of depression symptoms in one study, but not in others. Studies on Omega-3 supplements showed even smaller demonstrable effects, but are complicated by the fact that participants in the largest trial examined had low compliance and missed many doses by the end.
To further complicate matters, these trials often didn’t consider participants’ sex or socioeconomic status, which can have a significant effect.
What About Dietary Changes?
Most studies examining the effects of diet on mental health focus on specific diets or additions.
Specifically, this meta-analysis examined three trials that followed the Mediterranean diet, which is high in whole grains, fruits, and vegetables.
One suggested better academic performance on this diet, but didn’t measure mental health symptoms. Another found no solid link (there was a slight improvement, but better correlated to other lifestyle choices such as nicotine consumption), and a third found that emotional symptoms resulted in less compliance with the diet, making it hard to see any potential improvements.
Another study showed slight positive effects in adolescents with higher levels of Magnesium in their diets and a weaker connection with Zinc, but it should be noted that these were in the diet, not as supplements, and that the study relied on self-reporting. Another showed that higher levels of D3 (by blood sample) were associated with lower depression symptoms, but the meaning of this study, too, is limited, since it was a single blood draw at around ages 9-10, and since D3 also might be an indicator not of diet but of more time playing outside.
What About Removing Sodas From The Diet?
Removing certain foods or additives from the diet is often recommended to parents whose children have behavioral difficulties, anxiety, or other mental health struggles. Sodas hit high on the list.
Researchers examined one study on soda consumption and its potential effects on behavior and mental health. In this study, kids between the ages of 11 and 16 were asked, at three different points, about their soda consumption in the past week, and about symptoms of depression and aggression.
Notably, the link between aggression and soda intake was bidirectional: higher soft drink intake correlated with more aggressive symptoms, and higher aggression at age 13 also predicted higher soda consumption at age 16.
As for depression, the link, if any, was the opposite of what might have been predicted: higher soda intake at 13 was associated with slightly lower depressive symptoms at 16. (This shouldn’t be taken as an endorsement of soda as a cure for depression, though!)
What’s The Overall Takeaway For Parents & Teens?
Healthier diets, in which your child receives all the vitamins and nutrients needed for their growing body and developing brain, show some effect in reducing symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress.
However, they aren’t a complete answer. Children (and adults) whose mental health symptoms are strong enough to disrupt enjoyment of life should speak to their doctor or a mental health professional, and dietary changes are not a substitute for assessment, support, and treatment.
Instead, providing adequate nutrients may offer some protection in the long run, but even those outcomes may rely in part on other factors. (For instance, socioeconomic status has effects both on mental health and on diet.)
Mental health also affects diet, with emotions influencing what foods are desirable and compliance with diet or supplement regimens.
The best information science has for us at this time, then, is that parents should make an effort to provide healthy foods that meet kids’ nutritional needs, knowing that this may improve mental health, but that it is only a fraction of the whole picture.
