Amino Acid Hypotheses for Mental Diseases

"Mental Illnesses are brain diseases." Wilhelm Griesinger (19th century)

Introduction

  Unfortunately whenever I write an article about food it tends to make me hungry. This article was no exception. Amino acids are in the food that we eat.

Serine

  Serine is in dairy products, meat, peanuts, soy, and wheat gluten.

Hepatic Porphyria

  Tryptophan is abnormal in acute hepatic porphyria. According to Litman & Correia (1985), porphyria is caused by heme depletion. It seems that the enzyme tryptophan pyrrolase rquires heme and is impaired in porphyria.

  Neuropsychiatric symptoms are seen. The authors felt that these were caused by elvated brain tryptophan. Neurological symptoms including hypertension and tachycardia are also seen. Hypertension is also seen when a patient is in pain or under stress.

Brune & Pflughaupt (1975)

  These scientists have noted nervous symptoms in a variety of diseases with abnormal tryptophan metabolism including Wilson's disease, Hartup disease, phenylketonuria, and acute intermittent porphyria. Their article, entitled "Tryptophan metabolism in nervous disease", was published in Acta Vitaminol. Enzymol. in 1975; 29(1-6): 184-9.

Protein

  Plant proteins include beans, peas, nuts, bread, and cereals. Peanut butter and rice asre also sources. Soybeans are the richest plant food source according to the website World's Healthiest Foods at whfoods.org. This is an excellent website which provides a plethora of nutritional information. I often use it for a source for my articles.

Kidney Disease

  In kidney disease protein can be a problem. The kidneys are important in protein metabolism.

Tryptophan

   Tryptophan is in red meat, dairy products, nuts, seeds, banana, soybeans and soy products, tuna, shellfish, turkey, etc. Soy sauce, also called "tamari", is high in salt. Do not use soy sauce if you want to lower your blood pressure and prevent bloating. On the other hand, other soy foods are thought to prevent cardiovascular disease and cancer, the two highest killers. The third highest cause of death is diabetes.

  According to SupplementNews.org, tryptophan toxicities have been seen. These include gastrointestinal distress, headache, anxiety, daytime drowsiness, nausea, etc. I got a headache from it.

  The fact that many of theses symptoms are seen in schizophrenia has made me very suspicous of tryptophan. My theory is that there may be an excess of tryptophan in the brain in schizophrenia, possibily due to an error in the blood-brain barrier.

A Low Protein Diet

  A low protein diet is low in tryptophan. Animal products are to be avoided except for butter, which is mostly fat. Certain plant foods high in protein need to be avoided. These include tamari (soy sauce), mustard greens, spinach, romaine lettuce, cmushrooms, asparagus, broccoli, tofu, soybeans, Swiss chard, tempeh, collard greens, cauliflower, lentils, split peas, kidney beans, kale, lima beans, etc. In general legumes are high in protein for a plant food.

Neuropathology Data

  Dr. Mesa Castillo of Cuba has studied schizophrenia. He found "structural alterations in schizophrenic brains". These were in the limbic system. The havana scientist used the electron microscope.

  He discovered a biological test for schizophrenia. In this test there were "alterations in the morphology of platelets". He considered these to be a "boiological marker for schizophrenia".

  He demonstrated an unknown toxic factor in the cerebrospinal fluid of schizophrenics using chicken embryos as an assay.

Abnormal Platelets

  Giant platelets were seen with vacuoles. Glycogen deposits were seen in the platelets. This suggests that glucose metabolism is slow.

Conclusions

  My theory is that the toxic factor caused the platelets to overeat some macronutrients. But could one of those macronutrients be tryptophan? Future research will have to answer this question.

References

1. www.associatedcontent.com/article/1281818/the_biochemistry_of_mental_diseases.html

2. www.associatedcontent.com/article/1282022/fight_diseases_with_food.html

3. www.associatedcontent.com/article/1292397/in_defense_of_the_medical_model_for.html

4. www.associatedcontent.com/article/1288595/new_hope_for_the_terrible_diseases.html

5. www.associatedcontent.com/article/1273355/amino_acids_and_the_brain.html

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