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Home » Browse All Summaries » The Food-Mood Solution by Jack Challem
The Food-Mood Solution: All-Natural Ways to Banish Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Stress, Overeating, and Alcohol and Drug Problems -- and Feel Good AgainBy Jack ChallemSummarized with permission of Wiley (www.wiley.com). All rights reserved.
Although Jack Challem was originally trained to be a sociologist, with a strong emphasis on social and psychological behavior, he has spent more than thirty years writing about nutrition and health. He is fascinated by the interplay of society, behavior, eating habits, and health -- including mental health. As he looked back at his own experiences, he realized that his moods and behavior were often close to the edge and occasionally erupted in anger.
A turning point came one afternoon as he sat with a friend by a gentle stream in a desert canyon. At first, he was anxious about not being able to check his e-mail that morning, and adding to his initial distress, his cell phone LCD read "No Service." But then he began to relax. By the time he got home, he felt renewed as a human being. The experience reminded him of how important it is to occasionally disconnect from the demands and pressures of life. Meanwhile, as he looked at the world around, he became dismayed by the increasing polarization in politics and religion. He believes these negative changes in the larger world reflect the increase in bad moods and behavior experienced in personal encounters. He started to think about how the national mood had deteriorated, along with society's eating habits. Over the years, he has spoken with many researchers and psychiatrists who have a keen understanding of how nutritional deficiencies or imbalances affect mood, perceptions, and behavior. He started to pay more attention to scientific and medical journal articles that explored the relationship between nutrition, biochemistry, mood and behavior. At the same time, he was frustrated by advice in self-help and nutrition books that often discussed behavior or nutrition but not both. He saw that there was a need for a straightforward book that integrated practical nutrition and lifestyle tips to reduce stress and improve moods and behavior. Over the last thirty years, numerous books have been written and published about food and mood. Most of these books have focused on using diets, vitamins and herbs to treat depression. While depression is a common problem that can be addressed through safe alternative therapies, people suffer from many other mood and behavioral problems that make life difficult for them and the people in their lives. This book can help people improve their moods and deal with the inevitable stresses of life. Neuronutrients: Nutrition, Health, and MoodMoods are affected by many nutritional factors. Neuronutrients are vitamins, minerals and related nutrients that are needed to control mood. When people don't eat enough high-quality neuronutrients -- literally, "brain nutrients" -- the body cannot make adequate amounts of mood-enhancing neurotransmitters, the biological building blocks for brain chemicals. Neurotransmitters, chemical messengers used by brain and nerve cells to communicate with one another, affect how people think and feel. When people work too hard and don't eat on time, their mood and energy levels suffer. All neurotransmitters are influenced by what people eat. When people don't eat enough of the nutritional building blocks, they reduce their brain's ability to make and properly use neurotransmitters. To produce adequate amounts of mood-enhancing neurotransmitters, the body depends on receiving the following essential nutrients:
Psychiatrists often prescribe medications to alter neurotransmitter levels in the brain and to improve mood and behavior. Serotonin is the best known mood-stabilizing neurotransmitter. It is the therapeutic focus of several widely advertised antidepressant drugs. Serotonin is often low in people who exhibit depression, anxiety and aggressive behavior. Prozac, Zoloft and several other drugs are frequently prescribed to help the brain maintain higher serotonin levels. Although Prozac and Zoloft have helped people, they may produce the following side effects:
These drugs modify symptoms of a mood or a behavior problem, but fail to correct the underlying cause. That cause is usually nutritional, but can be due to a combination of nutritional imbalances and genetics. Because these drugs are not normal constituents of brain chemistry, they can often strain the biochemical pathways involved in neurotransmitter production.
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