# You Are What You Eat: Nutrition & Personality



## emerald sea (Jun 4, 2011)

Myriad connections exist between our emotional/psychiatric state and the adequacy of our diet. In some respects, our nutritional sufficiency or deficiency is determinative of how we behave.

Share your insights here...silly or serious.


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## android654 (Jan 19, 2010)

I don't think there's really a correlation between the two, especially if you make an effort at controlling either your diet, emotions or both. My diet would be considered strict by some, but it's not really affected by my emotional state since I'm a temperamental person nor by my psychological profile since I'm rather scatterbrained. Both of those components should render my eating habits a mess, but it hasn't.


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## Thalassa (Jun 10, 2010)

Nutritional deficiencies can make you literally insane. For example, people who genuinely suffer from bipolar disorder may have a depletion of lithium salts - eggs and lemons are examples of natural sources of lithium. Some people also speculate that people are less emotionally healthy now not just because of stressful schedules but because our soil is so over-farmed that we aren't even getting as much nutrients in our fruits and vegetables anymore.

Sugar clearly makes people high and crash in excessive amounts.

I noticed that taking L-Lysine (an amino acid) I feel an overall sense of well-being. People with low lysine can suffer from irritability.

In fact, a lot of doctors recommend that people with all sorts of mood or mental health issues take B vitamins, for example. Orthomolecular therapy of schizophrenia includes taking large doses of B vitamins, supplemented by one single psychiatric medication (such as clozapine) instead of sedating or doing further damage to schizophrenic people.

So does what you eat affect your brain and nerve health? Absolutely, there's even something that exists in the legal field called the Twinkie Defense, which means a person can become moody, erratic and unstable if poorly nourished. 

Anyone who argues otherwise is a jack ass, in my opinion. These kinds of people in large groups are fully responsible for telling depressed people to "get over it" or treating mentally ill people like outcasts for conditions which are physically and organically based.

For example, being hypoglycemic (low blood sugar) makes people irritable and snappish, before they pass out, and can eventually die. 

Does it determine your life interests, though? No way. It does not determine if you are introverted or extroverted, a sensor or a feeler, if that's what you're getting at, either.


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## Tad Cooper (Apr 10, 2010)

fourtines said:


> Nutritional deficiencies can make you literally insane. For example, people who genuinely suffer from bipolar disorder may have a depletion of lithium salts - eggs and lemons are examples of natural sources of lithium. Some people also speculate that people are less emotionally healthy now not just because of stressful schedules but because our soil is so over-farmed that we aren't even getting as much nutrients in our fruits and vegetables anymore.
> 
> Sugar clearly makes people high and crash in excessive amounts.
> 
> ...


This is all very true! There was a study done on starvation and it caused a lot of mental health issues, as well as physical!
Minnesota Starvation Experiment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I find caffine and sugar make me anxious and stressed (I can't concentrate, feel paranoid and want to run everywhere). This isn't the same for my friend who gets really sleepy when she has caffine and sugar, so I'm guessing it's how your body functions and the effects of the food on it as an individual.


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## Dope Amine (Feb 16, 2012)

Food is drugs y'all.


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## SocioApathetic (May 20, 2012)




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## Lesley Drakken (Aug 17, 2012)

There's a bit of an underground theory that Autism spectrum disorders are caused by nutritional deficiencies. (This is NOT the wheat gluten thing; putting children on gluten free diets is practically starvation and shouldn't be allowed; trust me I'm around severely handicapped people on those diets every day and they're practically skin and bones and grab for every morsel of normal food they can. Gluten free food is also disgusting.)

Rather I feel like I take in a lot of fish, and have intense cravings for fish and meat. After eating a large seafood based meal I feel a lot more content and chemically balanced, and while trying fish oil pills I felt generally much happier. I know seafood is a love-it-or-hate-it thing, but I've always said I could live on fish, tea and green vegetables.


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## Ntuitive (Jan 6, 2012)

I strongly believe that there is some sort of correlation. For instance, I have a fast metabolism, but that doesn't mean I eat a bunch of junk food all the time. Actually what I eat really effects my mood because I'm sensitive to what I eat. So I'd say it does effect my behavior to an extent.


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## R22 (Aug 16, 2009)

I believe there is a correlation between the 2. This can be especially true for people who are walking around with undiagnosed food allergies & intolerances. Interesting, some studies show that close to 60% of people diagnosed with schizophrenia also have an intolerance to gluten. I purchased this book for work, and found the info in it to be invaluable :

Amazon.com: Natural Healing for Schizophrenia And Other Common Mental Disorders (9780965097673): Eva Edelman: Books


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## Azure Bass (Sep 6, 2010)

There are effects behind different vitamins and ingredients that do help or hurt us depending on our intake or deficiency. For example, breakfast foods (Eggs, OJ and Yogurt in particular) have properties that combat depression.


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## DustyDrill (May 20, 2011)

Lesley Drakken said:


> There's a bit of an underground theory that Autism spectrum disorders are caused by nutritional deficiencies. (This is NOT the wheat gluten thing; putting children on gluten free diets is practically starvation and shouldn't be allowed; trust me I'm around severely handicapped people on those diets every day and they're practically skin and bones and grab for every morsel of normal food they can. Gluten free food is also disgusting.)
> 
> Rather I feel like I take in a lot of fish, and have intense cravings for fish and meat. After eating a large seafood based meal I feel a lot more content and chemically balanced, and while trying fish oil pills I felt generally much happier. I know seafood is a love-it-or-hate-it thing, but I've always said I could live on fish, tea and green vegetables.


I don't eat gluten, but I eat a whole lot of delicious fat (excluding trans). I would fully endorse a high fat, gluten free diet for a kid. As it'd remove most processed crap from their diet.

Since I've gone high fat (other than shedding fat with ease) I've felt very "even". No mood swings, no bouts of anger or hopelessness. Just kind of chilling, taking the bad shit with stride and celebrating the good. What changed other than eating more fat? I stopped eating grains and sugar. Replaced them with vegetables.

Anecdotal? Yea.
Worth trying? Fuck yea.


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## emerald sea (Jun 4, 2011)

a person's degree of muscle relaxation and ability to tolerate that which gets on their nerves - without snapping at people or getting irritable and staying high-strung - is sometimes directly correlated to their magnesium intake. magnesium_ may_ help those with PTSD or the inability to relax, in providing some relief of anxious tension. magnesium should be taken with calcium so that the body does not just excrete it (since the body tries to maintain the two minerals in certain proportions to one another).

calcium and magnesium are nature's tranquilizers because of their effects on the nervous system. magnesium has a bit of a muscle relaxant effect and both may aid in helping people sleep.

coffee causes your body to excrete calcium and magnesium (among other things). migraine sufferers may be deficient in magnesium. 

this post is not medical advice, just sharing of information. and no one should use calcium or magnesium without first checking with their doctor, since - depending on one's medical state or current medications - supplementation is not safe for everyone.


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## SilentScream (Mar 31, 2011)

emerald sea said:


> a person's degree of muscle relaxation and ability to tolerate that which gets on their nerves - without snapping at people or getting irritable and staying high-strung - is sometimes directly correlated to their magnesium intake. magnesium_ may_ help those with PTSD or the inability to relax, in providing some relief of anxious tension. magnesium should be taken with calcium so that the body does not just excrete it (since the body tries to maintain the two minerals in certain proportions to one another).
> 
> calcium and magnesium are nature's tranquilizers because of their effects on the nervous system. magnesium has a bit of a muscle relaxant effect and both may aid in helping people sleep.
> 
> ...


How does one know whether they have magnesium deficiency or not?


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## emerald sea (Jun 4, 2011)

Tortured said:


> How does one know whether they have magnesium deficiency or not?


_severe_ deficiency is rare, but mild to moderate deficiency (low, less than optimal levels, upset of the body's magnesium balance) occurs far more often.

it may be hard for a doctor to tell if you are mild or moderately deficient because the standard test that doctors use may not reveal it. there is a laboratory serum magnesium test, but it won't necessarily tell you everything you need to know. the problem is that the test doesn't measure how much magnesium your body is actually storing in your bones and tissues. your blood level (measured by the test) can be normal even in the early stages of deficiency, because your body releases stored magnesium into the blood to maintain a certain level within the blood at all times. so you could have a mild to moderate deficiency of stored magnesium and it not show up on the test, since there is still enough in the body to maintain a certain blood level. it depends on the lab where you go, because scales of measurement can vary from lab to lab - but one standard normal blood-level-of-magnesium range is 1.7 to 2.2 mg/dL.

doctors are more likely to administer the test when there are problems like uncontrolled diabetes or kidney disorders or any sort of malnutrition (even from malabsorption), since those conditions make a person more prone to _severe_ deficiency (which _can_ be detected by the test). 

but people taking diuretics (or using a lot of anything with a diuretic effect, such as drinking a significant amount of coffee), or those with large intake of refined sugar or salt or alcohol, are prone to mild to moderate deficiency, especially if their diet can't make up for the loss. those with heavy menstrual periods, those with hyperthyroidism, fibromyalgia, PTSD, those who sweat excessively can get low in it. also, those who have recently had some sort of stomach "flu"/intestinal virus with significant diarrhea or vomiting, can lose a lot of magnesium, as can those with inflammatory bowel disorders. 

and, surprisingly, even prolonged excessive stress can deplete your body of needed magnesium...

your muscles and nerves can't function properly without adequate magnesium. it's worth consulting a doctor about calcium-magnesium if you [not you specifically, but anyone] can't get your muscles to relax and experience muscle cramping, weakness, or twitching; if you get a lot of migraine headaches or suffer from severe asthma; if you are perpetually emotionally high-strung and finding everything irritating or it's hard to emotionally relax, and find it near-impossible to deal with stress; if any of the situations in the paragraph above this one (that make you more prone to mild to moderate deficiency) are true of you; or if you have some of the standard signs of low magnesium:

agitation and anxiety, restless leg syndrome (RLS), sleep disorders, irritability, nausea and vomiting, abnormal heart rhythms, low blood pressure, confusion, muscle spasm and weakness, hyperventilation, insomnia, poor nail growth, and even seizures.

this isn't complete, just gives you a general idea...ask me if there's anything specific you want more information about


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## SilentScream (Mar 31, 2011)

@emerald sea - Hmm .. not that I'm convinced .. but I don't mind looking into and at least getting it checked. 

Will be going to see a doctor about this. 

This reminds me to get back in touch with my dietitian as well.


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## emerald sea (Jun 4, 2011)

Tortured said:


> @_emerald sea_ - Hmm .. not that I'm convinced .. but I don't mind looking into and at least getting it checked.
> 
> Will be going to see a doctor about this.
> 
> This reminds me to get back in touch with my dietitian as well.


 @_Tortured_ ~  i'm glad, anything that might help is worth looking into.

yes, your doctor and dietitian will know best; i'm not a doctor so ~ please don't anyone make medical decisions based on what i wrote! 

i believe in having a good dose of healthy skepticism when it comes to "natural cures." the source needs to be reliable, with trustworthy empirical proof. if you want some of the research i've looked at on the topic - here are two abstracts recorded on the US government register of medical research (PubMed ~ for U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health):


*PubMed*

US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health 




Magnes Trace Elem. 1991-1992;10(2-4):287-301.
*Magnesium, stress and neuropsychiatric disorders.*

Galland L.
*Source*

Great Smokies Diagnostic Laboratory, Asheville, N.C.

*Abstract*

Magnesium has a profound effect on neural excitability; the most characteristic signs and symptoms of Mg deficiency are produced by neural and neuromuscular hyperexcitability. These create a constellation of clinical findings termed tetany syndrome (TS). TS symptoms include muscle spasms, cramps and hyperarousal, hyperventilation and asthenia. Physical signs (Chvostek's, Trousseau's or von Bonsdorff's) and abnormalities of the electromyogram or electroencephalogram can usually be elicited. Signs and symptoms of TS are frequently encountered in clinical practice, especially among patients with functional or stress-related disorders. The role of Mg deficit in TS is suggested by relatively low levels of serum or erythrocyte Mg and by the clinical response to oral Mg salts, which has been demonstrated in controlled studies. Among the more serious neurologic sequelae of TS are migraine attacks, transient ischemic attacks, sensorineural hearing loss and convulsions. Mg deficiency may predispose to hyperventilation and may sensitize the cerebral vasculature to the effects of hypocarbia. Mg deficiency increases susceptibility to the physiologic damage produced by stress, and Mg administration has a protective effect; studies on noise stress and noise-induced hearing loss are taken as an example. In addition, the adrenergic effects of psychological stress induce a shift of Mg from the intracellular to the extracellular space, increasing urinary excretion and eventually depleting body stores. Drugs used in neurology and psychiatry may affect Mg levels in blood and may diminish signs of tetany, making assessment of Mg status more difficult. Pharmacologic use of Mg can decrease neurologic deficit in experimental head trauma, possibly by blockade of N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors. In conjunction with high doses of pyridoxine, Mg salts benefit 40% of patients with autism, possibly by an effect on dopamine metabolism.

PMID:1844561 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] ( web source: Magnesium, stress and neuropsychiatri... [Magnes Trace Elem. 1991-1992] - PubMed - NCBI )


another one, correlating pathological anxiety with magnesium deficiency:

Neuropharmacology. 2012 Jan;62(1):304-12. Epub 2011 Aug 4.
*Magnesium deficiency induces anxiety and HPA axis dysregulation: modulation by therapeutic drug treatment.*

Sartori SB, Whittle N, Hetzenauer A, Singewald N.
*Source*

Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Institute of Pharmacy, and Centre for Molecular Biosciences Innsbruck (CMBI), University of Innsbruck, Peter-Mayr-Strasse 1, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria. [email protected]

*Abstract*

Preclinical and some clinical studies suggest a relationship between perturbation in magnesium (Mg(2+)) homeostasis and pathological anxiety, although the underlying mechanisms remain largely unknown. Since there is evidence that Mg(2+) modulates the hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis, we tested whether enhanced anxiety-like behaviour can be reliably elicited by dietary Mg(2+) deficiency and whether Mg(2+) deficiency is associated with altered HPA axis function. Compared with controls, Mg(2+) deficient mice did indeed display enhanced anxiety-related behaviour in a battery of established anxiety tests. The enhanced anxiety-related behaviour of Mg(2+) deficient mice was sensitive to chronic desipramine treatment in the hyponeophagia test and to acute diazepam treatment in the open arm exposure test. Mg(2+) deficiency caused an increase in the transcription of the corticotropin releasing hormone in the paraventricular hypothalamic nucleus (PVN), and elevated ACTH plasma levels, pointing to an enhanced set-point of the HPA axis. Chronic treatment with desipramine reversed the identified abnormalities of the stress axis. Functional mapping of neuronal activity using c-Fos revealed hyper-excitability in the PVN of anxious Mg(2+) deficient mice and its normalisation through diazepam treatment. Overall, the present findings demonstrate the robustness and validity of the Mg(2+) deficiency model as a mouse model of enhanced anxiety, showing sensitivity to treatment with anxiolytics and antidepressants. It is further suggested that dysregulations in the HPA axis may contribute to the hyper-emotionality in response to dietary induced hypomagnesaemia. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled 'Anxiety and Depression'.
Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.


(web source: Magnesium deficiency induces anxiety and H... [Neuropharmacology. 2012] - PubMed - NCBI )

these are two out of many research study reports about magnesium deficiency. you can search this topic on PubMed and find them...


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## FiddleheadFern (Aug 20, 2012)

I'm a stark raving b*tch when I eat lots of gluten and sugar. There's absolutely a connection for me. When I'm eating "clean", with plenty of veg and protein, I'm level-headed, calm and really patient. It took me a while to figure that out, but that's helped my mood stability more than anything, absolutely.


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## apteryx (Sep 16, 2012)

Thanks, emerald sea, for all the excellent information about magnesium. I'm planning to ask my doctor to help me experiment with magnesium. Do you know of any practical information on how to go about increasing one's magnesium levels?

I've had extreme fatigue and difficulty concentrating (extremely distractible) for the past few years. I've been diagnosed ADHD, but the medications don't do much. Magnesium seems like a promising candidate. I asked my doctor if a dietary deficiency might be an important factor. He said that there is "no scientific basis" for that. I asked what that meant, since "no scientific basis" can mean either "no one has looked" or "it's been tried and definitively failed". He said the latter, with one exception. Various dietary interventions have been tried, and none worked. The exception is that having three meals a day is supposed to help.

I did a little googling, though, and found two studies where hyperactive children were given magnesium, and indeed their symptoms reduced significantly (I think both clinical and statistical significance, but the writing is poor, and I can find only the abstract of one of the studies).

"The effects of magnesium physiological supplementation on hyperactivity in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Positive response to magnesium oral loading test." Starobrat-Hermelin B, Kozielec T. _Magnesium Research_,1997 Jun;10(2):149-56.

"Magnesium VitB6 Intake Reduces Central Nervous System Hyperexcitability in Children." Marianne Mousain-Bosc, et al. _Journal of the American College of Nutrition,_ October 2004, vol. 23 no. 5 545S-548S

Before I talk again with my doctor, I'd like to have a plan of how to do this so I'm not just taking a shot in the dark. As you said, the body usually maintains the blood serum concentration of magnesium within narrow limits regardless of how much magnesium is inside cells, so it's hard to measure with a blood test. I've also read that people don't necessarily absorb that much magnesium from various sources. In fact, difficulty absorbing magnesium might even be the problem. And then again, for all I know, I don't have a magnesium deficiency, so extra magnesium might all just go out in my urine or maybe even cause new problems (assuming I absorb it).

I've looked over a number of web pages by "natural cure" folks and looked at a couple books, but so far, I haven't found much information on how, practically, to mess with one's magnesium levels. Regarding diagnosis, the main things I've found are that doing a proper measurement requires special, expensive equipment normally available only to researchers, and that measuring the amount of magnesium in red blood cells (not in the serum) is easily done by most clinical labs and sometimes gives a better representation of magnesium throughout the body, but even this measurement can be misleading. Regarding treatment without diagnosis, I've found recommendations against magnesium oxide and for the various compounds that end in -ate (such as magnesium citrate), a caution that magnesium supplements often produce diarrhea and aren't absorbed by the body, a caution that magnesium absorbed through the skin tends to get excreted rather than used by the body, and recommendations to get your magnesium through diet, not supplements.

Can you recommend or direct me to any practical information about this?


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## Death Persuades (Feb 17, 2012)

I behave like bread  I'm such a loaf.


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## emerald sea (Jun 4, 2011)

apteryx said:


> Thanks, emerald sea, for all the excellent information about magnesium. I'm planning to ask my doctor to help me experiment with magnesium. Do you know of any practical information on how to go about increasing one's magnesium levels?
> 
> I've had extreme fatigue and difficulty concentrating (extremely distractible) for the past few years. I've been diagnosed ADHD, but the medications don't do much. Magnesium seems like a promising candidate. I asked my doctor if a dietary deficiency might be an important factor. He said that there is "no scientific basis" for that. I asked what that meant, since "no scientific basis" can mean either "no one has looked" or "it's been tried and definitively failed". He said the latter, with one exception. Various dietary interventions have been tried, and none worked. The exception is that having three meals a day is supposed to help.
> 
> ...


there's an ongoing civil war in the medical community between the traditionalists and the alternative practitioners. the traditionalists speak very skeptically of anything resembling alternative medicine, and they often lump nutrition in with that, although it is a standard course of study in school for every general practitioner (thus very much a part of traditional medicine, conventional, and widely accepted by all the custodians of medical knowledge)....when i believe the reality is just that they have not educated themselves thoroughly in it. so i'm not surprised that your doctor spoke with skepticism about magnesium. and he's going by study results. studies show level of efficacy by _comparison_ to the placebo. 

however, there can be the placebo effect in which people's thinking affects how they physically feel, which can bias the study results so that people truly believe and feel better when in essence it's all in their head. and it is studies - that can have these imprecisions from placebo effects - that most people rely on for their information about nutritive or alternative therapies (because they are the only "scientific" data source based in experimentation). this is particularly true when research studies are conducted on non-measurable emotional disorders. 

by contrast to organized research studies, personal reports (of the efficacy or failure of whatever therapy they have tried) are considered "unscientific" because all the other influencing factors are undefined and unregulated. however, when it comes to creating side effect listings for prescription medications, the primary source of data are these supposedly-"unscientific" personal reports. and when it comes to study results, sometimes their results are based on these "unscientific" personal reports, that is, in cases of disorders that are not measurable in a laboratory/test or via physical examination. 

so the traditional medical community is schizophrenic in its attitude towards "personal reports," in some cases denying them as believable, and in other cases including them in (inherently-believable because they are considered "scientific") reports. i realize that there need to be constraints and ways of testing accuracy before believing such personal reports. but i don't think the medical community should discount them as often as they do. if people (who are sane, clear-headed, unbiased/honest, and not trying to market an alternative therapy) are reporting that an alternative therapy works for them, outside of the context of a research study, i think it's worth taking that into account. 

i'm not a doctor, so i can't diagnose or prescribe anything to you; and i'm not an expert, so please trust the experts over what i say; i'm not very conventional but more of an independent thinker, so take that into account in analyzing what i have to say. i have just done some research out of personal fascination with the field of medicine.

if your digestive system isn't limited in its ability to absorb magnesium, it's probably preferable to increase your magnesium intake through your diet rather than taking supplements.

Johns Hopkins oncology center lists some food sources of magnesium:

Adding Magnesium to Your Diet: Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center

here is the National Institute of Health's RDA listing of magnesium content in foods:

Magnesium — Health Professional Fact Sheet

here are two USDA listings of the magnesium content of various foods/beverages:

http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/Data/SR17/wtrank/sr17a304.pdf
http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/Data/SR17/wtrank/sr17w304.pdf

is this what you were looking for?


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## Donkey D Kong (Feb 14, 2011)

If you are what you eat, then everything I say must be cheesy...


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