• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

everywomanover29

Food, Mood and Women's Health – Be your healthiest, look and feel great!

  • Blog
  • About
  • Services
  • Store
  • Resources
  • Testimonials
  • Media
  • The Book
  • Contact

ERs

More kids are showing up in ERs with anxiety, depression and other common mental health problems: why isn’t nutritional psychiatry part of the discussion?

November 16, 2018 By Trudy Scott 23 Comments

This article on NBC news, More kids are showing up in ERs (Emergency Rooms) with mental health crises, reports large increases across the country.

Dr. Anna Abrams, a pediatrician and researcher at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, finds the numbers both shocking and disheartening.

In the 5-year period from 2012 to 2016, when looking at ER mental health admissions in 45 children’s hospitals, they found the following increases:

  • 48 % in white children
  • 64% in non-Hispanic black children
  • 77% increase in Hispanic children

with about a 55 % increase overall.

Dr. Abrams and her colleagues presented these findings at the American Academy of Pediatrics conference in earlier this month.

Other than the very large increases, there is something else to be concerned about: the researchers say they aren’t sure why we are seeing these increases, speculating it “could be due to the scarcity of mental health professionals who can help children” and “People are also talking more openly about depression, anxiety and other common mental health problems and that may make parents feel more comfortable about seeking help for their children.”

While these are very valid reasons, we really do need to be incorporating nutritional psychiatry (a term coined in 2015) and functional medicine (Dr. Mark Hyman is one of the leaders in functional medicine) into these discussions, studies and conferences. Other than poor diets and nutritional deficiencies we need to be considering stress, exposure to toxins, poor gut health and increasing Wifi exposure, to name a few.

If we look at diet alone, there is so much recent research supporting the connection between diet and mental health. Here are two of many new studies:

  • Is there an association between diet and depression in children and adolescents? A systematic review

Despite some contradictory results, overall there was support for an association between healthy dietary patterns or consumption of a high-quality diet and lower levels of depression or better mental health. Similarly, there was a relationship between unhealthy diet and consumption of low-quality diet and depression or poor mental health.

  • A Pro-Inflammatory Diet Is Associated With an Increased Odds of Depression Symptoms Among Iranian Female Adolescents: A Cross-Sectional Study

These data suggest that Iranian adolescent females eating a pro-inflammatory diet…had greater odds of having at least moderate depressive symptoms.

And here are just a few other factors to consider:

  • Integrative Medicine Approach to Pediatric Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Anxiety – in this case study gluten removal was a big factor
  • GABA for children: ADHD, focus issues, irritability, anxiety and tantrums With this pre-teen young girl, her mom reports that “She’s almost like different child. GABA has truly changed our life.“

How do we get this nutritional psychiatry research and case studies into the hands of those who can change actually policy and the way mental health is addressed? I believe it has to be a grass-roots effort from the bottom up and I have these suggestions:

  • share this blog and the research with your doctor and/or allied health practitioner
  • reach out to study authors, journalists and legislators and share research and success stories like the above, and your own personal results
  • if you’re a practitioner, write blogs like this sharing the good results you see with your clients and patients – with researchers, journalists and legislators
  • share in forums and on social media, and with your neighbors, friends and family
  • comment on blogs like this – with success stories in your family or with clients – so more people get to see what really is working

Every little bit helps! I’d love to hear your ideas too.

Filed Under: Children, Mental health Tagged With: adolescents, anxiety, children, depression, diet, ERs, GABA, gluten, kids, mental health, nutrition, nutritional psychiatry

Primary Sidebar

anxeity summit season 5
Online
November 11 - 17, 2019

FREE REPORT:
9 Great Questions Women Ask about Food, Mood and their Health

You'll also receive a complimentary subscription to my ezine "Food, Mood and Gal Stuff"

Connect with me

Recent Posts

  • Recommended gut-brain books as holiday gifts for you or a loved one
  • Parasites, Anxiety and TUDCA for Your Liver with Dr. Jay Davidson: The Anxiety Summit 5
  • Spore-based Probiotics for Serotonin and GABA with Kiran Krishnan: The Anxiety Summit 5
  • Sage, gluten, CBD and gut-brain axis: highlights from The Anxiety Summit 5
  • Vagus Nerve Activation to Reduce Anxiety with Dr. Navaz Habib: The Anxiety Summit 5

Categories

  • AB575
  • Addiction
  • Adrenals
  • Alzheimer's disease
  • Amino Acids
  • Antianxiety
  • Antianxiety Food Solution
  • Antidepressants
  • Anxiety
  • Anxiety and panic
  • Anxiety Summit 5
  • Autism
  • Autoimmunity
  • benzodiazapines
  • Bipolar disorder
  • Books
  • Caffeine
  • Cancer
  • Candida
  • Children
  • Cooking equipment
  • Depression
  • Detoxification
  • Diabetes
  • Diet
  • Drugs
  • EMF
  • EMFs
  • Emotional Eating
  • Environment
  • Essential oils
  • Events
  • Exercise
  • Fear of public speaking
  • Fertility and Pregnancy
  • Fish
  • Food
  • Food and mood
  • Functional neurology
  • GABA
  • Gene polymorphisms
  • General Health
  • Giving
  • Giving back
  • Glutamine
  • Gluten
  • GMOs
  • Gratitude
  • Gut health
  • Heart health
  • Histamine
  • Hormone
  • Inflammation
  • Insomnia
  • Inspiration
  • Introversion
  • Joy and happiness
  • Ketogenic diet
  • Looking awesome
  • Lyme disease and co-infections
  • Mental health
  • Mercury
  • Migraine
  • Mold
  • Movie
  • MTHFR
  • Music
  • NANP
  • Nature
  • Nutritional Psychiatry
  • OCD
  • Oxytocin
  • Pain
  • Paleo
  • Parasites
  • People
  • Postpartum
  • PTSD
  • Pyroluria
  • Questionnaires
  • Real whole food
  • Recipes
  • Research
  • serotonin
  • SIBO
  • Sleep
  • Special diets
  • Stress
  • Sugar addiction
  • Sugar and mood
  • Supplements
  • Teens
  • Testimonials
  • Testing
  • The Anxiety Summit
  • The Anxiety Summit 2
  • The Anxiety Summit 3
  • The Anxiety Summit 4
  • Thyroid
  • Thyroid health
  • Toxins
  • Tryptophan
  • Uncategorized
  • Vegan/vegetarian
  • Women's health
  • Yoga

Archives

  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • July 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • November 2009

Copyright © 2019 · Trudy Scott. All Rights Reserved.