1 Oct 2022

Prof Neville Blampied: the role of nutrients in trauma

From Saturday Morning, 10:40 am on 1 October 2022

Nutritional supplements proven to lower the risk of PTSD should be part of our public health response to disasters such as the Christchurch mosque attacks, says the University of Canterbury psychology professor Neville Blampied.

Last month he received the NZ Psychological Society's top accolade - the Hunter Award.

Professor Neville Blampied

Professor Neville Blampied Photo: University of Canterbury

When a terrorist attacked two Christchurch mosques in 2019, Professor Blampied and his research team knew what might help people cope.

Eight years earlier, when the city was devastated by an earthquake, young adults taking nutritional supplements as part of a University of Canterbury trial had significantly lower rates of anxiety than those participants who didnt.

After some strategic thinking and thanks to postgrad students who had connections to the local Muslim community, Blampied's team were able to make these nutritional supplements available to people affected by the mosque attacks.

The group of Cantabrians who participated in the 2011 trial – which was designed to test the effects of nutritional supplements on ADHD and led by the University of Canterbury's Dr Julia Rucklidge– had been psychologically assessed before the earthquakes, Blampied says.

In the aftermath, those taking the supplements, which contain a range of vitamins and easily absorbed minerals, were shown to be at significantly less risk of developing PTSD.

"The analysis of the data showed there was a very real [psychological] benefit in the first two weeks after the earthquake of being on that supplement.

"In the people who weren't taking the supplement, there was this compulsive anxiety which wasn't present in the people who were on the supplement."

The human microbiome is immensely complicated, Blampied says, and some brains are more vulnerable to the effects of poor nutrition, he says.

"When people experience a catastrophic and stressful event they often switch their diet. And they may not be able to get particularly good food anyway. Through choice or necessity, they're not getting a nutrient-rich diet.

"But also it's probably the case that when you're dealing with highly stressful events your body automatically shifts your metabolism towards prioritising your fight or flight response … so other parts of the neuro-regulatory system don't have quite the same amount of nutritional support they otherwise would get."

When a terrorist attacked Christchurch, Blampied knew his team were sitting on knowledge that might help people likely to experience PTSD and they wanted to make use of it.

Sharing the information in the form of a research project would require ethics approval that takes months, he says, so the scientists decide to put the knowledge from the former research trial another way.

By sharing the information as a piece of "translational science" – and seeing almost the same reduction in anxiety and PTSD risk as the 2011 trial – the researchers set a useful precedent, he says.

Yet getting information about the PTSD reduction benefits of nutrition to at-risk New Zealanders on a larger scale would require action by politicians, Blampied says.

"[In New Zealand] we're not terribly good at public health in the mental health field, I have to say."

Civil defence personnel would be good distributors of both nutritional information and supplies, he says.

"When Civil Defence goes door to door to check on people's welfare they could potentially provide information and they could even give them a month's worth of nutritional supplementation, which would be a kind of public health response to the disaster."

The cost of the nutritional supplements is approximately US$45 per month, Blampied says, or much cheaper if the government bought them in bulk.

"That's a pretty cheap intervention and it doesn't require highly skilled people. You don't have to fly psychological therapists in to deal with post-traumatic stress. You can do it through an existing mechanism."

In 2014, Professor Blampied founded The Good Nights programme, which looks at helping to improve the sleep of children with autism, which in turn can improve their mood and behaviour.

"As children's sleep improves, their autism symptoms seem to diminish in severity – not dramatically but in a positive direction. We've also observed that other aspects of their behaviour problems tend to diminish as well. It's not a dramatic effect but its' a positive effect."

Research suggests children on the autism spectrum may be more prone to disturbances in their circadian rhythms, which need to be in synch with their lifestyle to enable good sleep.

"[For a child with autism] you need to have a really good clear consistent bedtime routine. The brain as it makes the transition from waking to sleep needs to be told where it is in the process."

Related:

How food affects your mood - To combat rising mental health issues, Dr Bonnie Kaplan and Dr Julia Rucklidge who want us to rethink our food choices.

Nutrition during times of stress and trauma - Dr Julia Rucklidge talks about how our dietary patterns affect our mental health