A European psychiatry paper puts diet first and never mentions the gut
- The document is a viewpoint by the European Psychiatric Association (EPA) task force on Whole Person Health, published in European Psychiatry on 18 November 2025. It opens from the gap that people with severe mental illness have a life expectancy approximately 15 to 20 years shorter than the general population, and it outlines the task force agenda within the EPA Presidential Action Plan 2025–2027.
- EPA launched six task forces. The one on lifestyle, multimorbidity and premature mortality was renamed Whole Person Health. Its list of priority areas of greatest unmet need starts with nutrition, followed by physical activity, sleep, substance use, and social connectedness with stress management.
- On nutrition the authors describe a poor diet in people with severe mental disorders, characterized by high-fat and processed food intake, and link it to obesity and cardiovascular diseases. They write that nutritional support must be extended to both patients and families.
- They state that coaching in the practical sides of maintaining a healthy diet, such as cooking nutritious meals and affordable shopping for nutritious foods, should be emphasized over education on the physiological or biological effects of dietary nutrients. The text contains no mention of the gut, microbiome or probiotics.
The European Psychiatric Association has published a viewpoint from its Whole Person Health task force, one of six set up under the Presidential Action Plan 2025–2027. It is a statement of programme, not a guideline or a consensus, and it concerns anyone who treats or refers people with severe mental illness.
What the paper says about food
Nutrition comes first among the priority areas. The authors describe a diet marked by high-fat and processed food, with little water, fresh fruit, vegetables, fish or unprocessed meat, and tie it to obesity and cardiovascular disease. Support, they write, must reach both patients and families. Their one concrete instruction concerns method: coaching in the practical sides of keeping a healthy diet, meaning cooking and affordable shopping, should come before teaching what nutrients do in the body. The document cites 20 sources in all, and the nutrition paragraph is a few sentences long.
A diet paper without the gut
Search the text for gut, microbiome, probiotic or supplement and nothing turns up. The paper is about groceries, kitchens and families.
My reading, as the author of this note and not the EPA's position: that is useful precisely because so much current talk about nutrition in psychiatry runs through microbiome products. The paper sets out what a clinician can start now, with no product and no test: ask what the client eats, who cooks, what the household can afford, and include the family. A psychobiotic is a different kind of intervention with its own evidence, and this document says nothing about it either way. With a client who asks about probiotics, I would settle the plain diet first and treat the capsule as a separate question.
Nutritional support must be extended to both patients and families.
This is a viewpoint by a task force, not a study, guideline or consensus statement, and it reports no new data. The nutrition section is short and is not specific about which foods or amounts. The sentence on the shortened life expectancy is cited to earlier work, and the paper is not a systematic review.