Nutrición y psique con referencia especial a la psicodietética experimental

Abstract

Our attention has been focussed on experimental investigations of the impact of food on behavior in man with a brief reference to animal studies. Selected illustrative studies were reviewed, with particular reference to the effects of the variations in the intake of calories and two classes of special nutrients, the vitamins and the amino acids, specifically nutrients, the vitamins and the amino acids, specifically the glutamic acid

Beneficial psychological effects of the supplementation of a good "average" diet of "normal" individuals with any nutrient still remains to be demonstrated satisfactorily. At the same time, there is not doubt that dietary deficiencies affect profoundly man's willingness and capacity for work, and later his personality. As a rule,these alterations in attitude and behavior simulate psychoneurosis although in some instances faulty diet may bring about psychotic changes, associated with profound disorders of the central nervous system (some patients with pellagra, encephalopathy in acute nicotinic acid deficiency, the Wernicke syndrome in the alcholics). In the U.S. the vitamin enrichment of flour and bread, begun in 1941, seems to have markedly reduced the incidence of these symptoms of avitaminosis. Wilder noted also the decline of severe mental disturbances, on adding thiamine to the glucose administered in cases of pernicious vomiting in pregnancy or after some ...(AU)

Publicado en inglés en Voeding, mar. 1955