What is it about?
Macronutrients (for example, fats and proteins), micronutrients (for example, minerals and vitamins), but also non-nutrients (for example, nutraceuticals and alcohol) are topics of interest in neuropsychiatry. Recently, the nutritional side effects of drugs (for example, alteration of orexigenic/anorexigenic signals) and drug-nutraceutical interactions revealed new insights into the understanding of the interdisciplinary approach of nutritional neuroscience. From now on, psychobiotics, different animal foods, fruits, edible plants, roots, and botanicals will be seen as natural sources of neurotransmitters.
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Why is it important?
If dietary NTs proved to be a central nervous system effect in thorough clinical/behavioral studies, foods and botanicals would be beneficial for subjects suffering from Alzheimer’s disease or dementia (for example, an ACh diet), epilepsy or migraines (for example, a glutamate-free diet), anxiety or insomnia (for example, a GABA diet), Parkinson’s disease (that is, a dopamine diet), depressive disorders (that is, a serotonin diet), and vascular headaches (that is, a histamine-free diet). Pragmatic approaches may be used for either augmented perceptions of stress or reduced mental outlook conditions as part of the nutritional psychiatry field. Certainly, knowledge of these food sources could be a valuable starting point for anyone who seeks to investigate their potential effects on mental health, thus, being a possible hazard to fragile individuals or during prenatal and early childhood development. A pragmatic approach to neuropsychiatric patients is necessary, possibly focusing on the implementation of CAMs in conventional treatments.
Perspectives
The significance of dietary NTs intake needs to be further investigated, as there are no significant data about their bioavailability or clinical implications. It is not unlikely that an adult nervous system can manage homeostatic alterations induced by dietary NTs. As molecular and neurobiological research progressively explains the etiopathogenesis of brain disorders, new studies should consider if these dietary NTs can escape gut microbiota metabolism, act on peripheral receptors, be transported across enterocytes, escape splanchnic metabolism, be transported across the blood-brain barriers (that is, capillary endothelium and choroid plexus epithelium) or exert central nervous system effects through circumventricular organs. In order to reasonably investigate the ability of dietary NTs to pass across the blood-brain barrier, both in vitro models and in vivo investigation should be performed to take into account the role of neuronal cells and the brain’s microvasculature.
Dr. M. Briguglio
IRCCS Ospedale Galeazzi - Sant'Ambrogio
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Dietary Neurotransmitters: A Narrative Review on Current Knowledge, Nutrients, May 2018, MDPI AG,
DOI: 10.3390/nu10050591.
You can read the full text:
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Original study article
This is the paper that reported the original published article.
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