Usually, in people with schizophrenia or chronic mental illness, the prime suspect is the diet. Poor and unhealthy eating habits may often result in severe health disorders, which can aggravate the risk of heart diseases and diabetes. Experts believe that certain dietary changes can come in handy. So, here we will provide you with some diet and nutrition tips for schizophrenia patients. Let us address them one by one.  

1. Eat More Fruits
Studies suggest that an essential nutrition tip for schizophrenia patients is consuming a good amount of fiber in their diet. For this, you need to eat a lot of fruits, such as apples, pears, raspberries, and others. These foods stimulate digestion and lower your chance of developing health problems linked to schizophrenia, such as diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. Fruits contain healthy vitamins too. 

2. Eat More Vegetables
Vegetables have a low calorific and fat content. They are packed with vitamins and do not contain any heart-heavy cholesterol. Thus, vegetables are a perfect dietary inclusion in people with schizophrenia. Vegetables contain potassium, which can keep your blood sugar levels in check. People with schizophrenia can add sweet potatoes, kidney beans, and lima beans to their diet.  

3. Consume More Spinach
Spinach is the healthiest green leafy vegetable, and it is rich in folate that helps ease schizophrenia symptoms. In addition to spinach, you can include black-eyed peas and asparagus to your diet.

4. Avoid Gluten
Present in barley, wheat, and rye, gluten can be quite hard to digest. Gluten by-products are related to inappropriate brain functioning and can result in psychological symptoms such as hallucinations  and brain fog. This happens because communication between the brain’s neurotransmitters is disrupted. Further, people who consume gluten regularly tend to get addicted to it. This addiction can result in an uncontrolled urge, making the patient eat more gluten-containing foods and worsen the condition. 

5. Avoid Artificial Sweeteners
Often to avoid natural sugars, people seek refuge in artificially sweetened products. The problem with them is they can trigger depression. Moreover, these products do not have any redeeming nutritional value and increase your sugar craving. At times, the sweeteners are also more addictive. Completely removing such foods from your diet is the best tip when it comes to nutrition for schizophrenia patients. 

6. Avoid Processed Foods
There should be a higher content of omega-3 fatty acid and lower content of omega-6 fatty acid in your diet to maintain good mental health. Unfortunately, the modern diet that we consume has higher omega-6 and lower omega-3 fatty acids fats in them. This imbalance can lead to mental health problems, such as psychosis and depression. However, it is not enough to merely add omega-3 supplements to your diet. To restore the balance, you also need to avoid the vital omega-6 violators such as processed foods and vegetable oils.