Abstract
Introduction Dietary supplements are very widely used in the general population and there is a
growing market for them, which is against the recommendations of the German Society
for Nutrition. There is some evidence that dietary supplements are useful additions
in the treatment of psychiatric disorders. This review is an overview of available
practical knowledge regarding the use of supplements in psychiatric treatment. In
particular, the review focused on the diagnosis of depression and anxiety in terms
of supplement treatment.
Methods This is a narrative review of the evidence regarding supplements for treating anxiety
and depression. We searched PubMed to 2018. Two reviewers screened the citations and
abstracted the data. Phytopharmaceutical attends and animal-based data were excluded.
Results There are strong indications regarding the impact of supplements on the selected
psychiatric disorders, but at this time, there only a few randomized clinical studies
available, so evidence for these findings is quite low. However, it must be noted
that there are strong hints for a relationship between vitamin D level and depression.
Furthermore, various supplements have got potentially an influence on the characteristics
of depression.
Discussion This review summarizes the current knowledge about supplements when used for some
psychiatric conditions, but the data does not provide compelling evidence in any direction.
There are only indications that there is an influence of supplements on psychiatric
diseases. In support of this, there is further need for high-quality studies in this
field. Reviews on other diagnoses, such as schizophrenia and dementia, will be part
of further work.
Key words
supplements - depression - anxiety
