Nutrition & Mental Health Fund Turning Donations into Long-Awaited Research

The generosity of people donating to both the U.S.-based and the Canadian Nutrition and Mental Health Funds is heartwarming. Both funds were established to support activities (especially research) in the area of nutrition and mental health.

I’m so pleased to announce the following: 

Added together as if U.S. and Canadian dollars were equal (which they are not), we have raised $560,359. This consists of $231,478 CAD and $328,881 USD

These funds are being awarded to clinical scientists conducting trials of micronutrient treatment in New Zealand, Canada, and the US. The trials involve children with ADHD and mood dysregulation, and adults with bipolar disorder. Most of these trials are beginning recruitment this fall.

By September, all of the existing funds will have been distributed, but we are nowhere near finished with the work!

The following are projects still requiring funds:

• In some of the currently funded projects, biological samples will be drawn from stool (for microbiome analyses) and blood (epigenetic markers, nutrient levels). These assays are very expensive and I am searching for about $150,000 for them.
• There are also two salaries that need support. One would be a study coordinator in a very busy laboratory in New Zealand, and the other is for an American scientist trying to devote her career to this topic.
• There are several other clinical trials emerging: one would be in a hospital emergency room, allocating children in mental health crisis to receive either micronutrients or medication; another would be in adolescents who are displaying self-harm. Etc, etc. Every time I speak to a group, another possible study emerges.

So THANK YOU to all who have supported these efforts** and please email me if you know of future possible donations.

Make a tax-deductible donation in the U.S.

Make a tax-deductible donation in Canada.

**I have been able to personally thank everyone who has donated to the American fund, but the Canadian foundation that manages my fund here has a very different style of protecting the anonymity of donors. If you donated to the Canadian fund and I did not thank you, it is because I do not know that you donated!

Dr. Bonnie Kaplan, PhD is the fund advisor of the Nutrition & Mental Health Research Fund and a member of the new International Society for Nutritional Psychiatry Research (ISNPR). For many years, she studied developmental disorders in children, especially ADHD and reading disabilities (dyslexia). Dr. Kaplan was part of a team from University of Calgary and University of British Columbia which helped in the search for genes that predispose children to dyslexia. Also, with her students, she investigated the characteristics of adults with ADHD. Such work led her to further investigations of the role of nutrition. Another interest has been the mood symptoms that accompany ADHD and learning difficulties, and the role of micronutrient treatment of mood, aggression and explosive rage. This progression of topics has resulted in a research program focused on the role of nutrition in brain development and in brain function, especially the use of broad spectrum micronutrient treatment for mental disorders.

Dr. Kaplan’s latest published research: A randomised trial of nutrient supplements to minimise psychological stress after a natural disaster. PsychiatryResearch(2015).