Felice Jacka is a leading researcher of nutritional psychiatry, a relatively new field of study that considers the role of diet in mental and brain health. She is also the co-director of the Food & Mood Centre at Deakin University, Australia, and president of the International Society for Nutritional Psychiatry Research. She spoke to the Observer about her discoveries into the links between ultra-processed foods and the health of our brains.
We usually think of food as having an effect on us from the mouth down. Why study its impact on our brain?
Our gut microbiome affects virtually every aspect of health. It affects our metabolism, our blood glucose, our body weight. It affects the way genes turn on and off, and the amount of serotonin in our brain by altering the way the gut breaks down tryptophan [from protein] in our diet. It influences the stress response system. It affects the way the [energy-producing] mitochondria in our cells work, and it very profoundly influences our immune system.
