Nutritional psychiatry: connecting depression and heart failure with the science of nutrition

Nutritional Psychiatry is a term used to describe a field of research, and a way of approaching the prevention and treatment of mental illness, which focuses on diet and nutrition. Among the complexity of the determinants of Mental Health problems, the emerging evidence from Nutrition shows relevant factors in the high prevalence of mental disorders, suggesting that diet is as important for Psychiatry as for Cardiology and Endocrinology. Studies of the relationship between diet quality (and potential nutritional deficiencies) and mental health disorders, as well as the use of nutrients to treat deficiencies, are increasing. Nutritional psychiatry has been promoting the interaction between the cardiologist-nutricionist-neuroscientist, which has been recommended in the nutritional care of patients with chronic diseases, among them: heart failure. Certainly, this new area of nutritional psychiatry will allow us to broaden our look under the conception of future research that evaluates intervention in multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach.