Ep. 29: Dr. Julia Rucklidge β€” Can Nutrition Prevent Depression and Promote Resilience?

by Seth Gillihan

Psychologist Julia Rucklidge was disturbed by two trends she observed:

Psychological conditions like depression and anxiety were becoming more and more common.

At the same time, rates of prescription medication use for anxiety and depression were extraordinarily high.

Something didn’t add upβ€”if drugs were helping, why did the rates of illness keep increasing? Clearly current treatment approaches were failing countless individuals.

In this week’s episode I spoke with Julia about the need for more effective treatments for common psychological conditions. We focused on her area of specialty, the cutting edge of nutritional psychiatry. We discussed many important topics in this area, including:

  • The lack of average long-term improvement associated with medication use
  • The impact of stigma on treatment development for psychiatric conditions
  • The need for more widely available treatments
  • The effect of habitual diet on depression
  • Benefits of the Mediterranean Diet on mental health
  • Problems with the Standard American Diet (SAD)
  • The SMILES trial in Australia, showing that better diet can help significantly with depression
  • Replication of the SMILES findingsΒ by Parletta and colleagues
  • Lack of training in the role of nutrition in mental health
  • The effects of micronutrients on stress resilience
  • Benefits of micronutrients on insomnia
  • The limitations of recommended daily allowances (RDAs) for vitamins and minerals
  • The importance of researcher independence in clinical trials
  • Possible ways that micronutrients have their beneficial effects
  • The role of nutrients in turning genes on and off
  • Possible effects of nutrients on the microbiome (bacteria in the gut) and inflammation
  • Resistance to the possible role of nutrition in mental health
  • The pioneering work of Dr. Bonnie Kaplan
  • Difficulty in getting funding for nutritional psychiatry research, and difficulty publishing
  • Single nutrient vs. broad spectrum studies
  • The frontier of nutritional psychiatry
  • Potential advantages of more personalized treatment approaches

If you’re curious about the contents of the supplements used in Julia’s studies, I’ve included a label showing the ingredients for EMPowerplus, which is one of the formulations the researchers have used. Please note, as Julia did, that she isΒ not paid by the supplement manufacturers (nor am I)β€”it’s essential that she remain an independent agent, not beholden to her funding sources in a way that could compromise the science. I include this information here only to let you know what was used in the research studies.

For more on Julia’s research, check out her Google Scholar page with links to her many studies.

Julia maintains theΒ Mental Health and Nutrition page on Facebook, where you can follow the latest developments in her field.

You can also follow Julia on TwitterΒ and read her blog posts onΒ Mad in America.


Julia Rucklidge, PhD, is a Professor of Clinical Psychology in the Department of Psychology at the University of Canterbury (New Zealand) and the Director of the Mental Health and Nutrition Research Lab. She completed her PhD at the University of Calgary in clinical psychology followed by a two year post-doctoral Fellowship at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.Β Originally from Toronto, Julia immigrated to New Zealand in 2000.

Julia’s interests in nutrition and mental illness grew out of research showing poor outcomes for individuals with significant psychiatric illness despite receiving conventional treatments for their conditions. In the last decade, she and her lab have been running clinical trials investigating the role of broad-spectrum micronutrients (vitamins, minerals, amino acids) in the treatment of mental illness, specifically mood disorders, anxiety, stress, and ADHD.

Julia has over 100 peer-reviewed publications, has given invited talks all over the world on her work on nutrition and mental health, and is frequently featured in the media on her work. As you’ll hear in our discussion, she is most proud of the studies conducted within the context of the Christchurch earthquakes that highlighted the importance of nutrients in recovery.

Julia has been the recipient of many awards, including the Ballin Award from the NZ Psychologist Society, an award that recognizes notabe contributions to the development or enhancement of clinical psychology in New Zealand; a Braveheart award for her contribution to making Christchurch a better place to live; and being named in the Top 100 Most Influential Women in New Zealand in 2018. Her 2014 TEDx talk has been viewed over a million times.

Having witnessed personally and professionally current conventional treatments fail so many people, Julia is passionate about helping people find alternative treatments for their psychiatric symptoms and being a voice for those who have been let down by the current public healthcare system.