Welcome to the Mad in America podcast, your source for science, psychiatry, and social justice.

Welcome to the Mad and the Family podcast. I'm Miranda Spencer, parent resources editor at Mad in America.

Today we're going to be talking about the links between nutrition and mental health

and the science that's showing that diet may help improve or even prevent mental health issues in children and adults.

Our guest is Julia Rucledge, Ph.D.

Julia is a professor of clinical psychology at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand,

where she leads the Mental Health and Nutrition Research Group.

Originally from Toronto, Canada, Julia completed her undergraduate degree in neurobiology at McGill

University and received her PhD in clinical psychology

at the University of Calgary, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Hospital for Sick

Children in Toronto. She currently serves on the Executive Committee for the International Society

of Nutritional Psychiatry Research.

Julia's interest in nutrition and mental illness grew out of her own research, showing

poor outcomes for children with psychiatric illness despite conventional treatments.

In the last decade, her mental health and nutrition research group has been running

clinical trials investigating the

role of broad spectrum micronutrients in the expression of issues such as ADHD, mood disorders,

anxiety and stress associated with traumatic events such as earthquakes and mass shootings.

Julia has over 130 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters, has been frequently

featured in the media, and has given invited talks all over the world on her work on

nutrition and mental health. Her TEDx talk, the surprisingly dramatic role of nutrition

in mental health, has been viewed nearly two million times. With her colleague Bonnie Kaplan PhD, she is the author of a new

...