Opinion

Nutrition, Diet and Mental Functions

Siamak Khodarahimi*

Nursing department, Eghlid Branch, Islamic Azad University

Submission: September 16, 2017;Published: September 20, 2017

*Corresponding author: Siamak Khodarahimi, Nursing department, Eghlid Branch, Islamic Azad University, Iran.

How to cite this article: Siamak Khodarahimi. Nutrition, Diet and Mental Functions. Theranostics Brain Spine Neuro Disord. 2017; 2(2): 555582. DOI: 10.19080/TBSND.2017.02.555582

Opinion

Nutrition is essential for human beings. Since the human survival and his/her functioning is dependent on a good nutrition status. Anyway the meaning of nutrition is changed over the human history because of many reasons such as limited food resources and diet supplements, the significance of body shape and weight, the importance of bodily beauty, poverty, and socioeconomic boundaries. Historically, there are a lot of perspectives and theories about human nutrition but there are not a few elaborated psychological frameworks about nutrition and its impact on human mental processes, cognitive functions and dysfunctions, and mental disorders. It seems that nutrition is a fundamental element for human mental functioning and it has a potential influence on emergence of cognitive dysfunctions and mental disorders. However, research and investigation on nutrition and psychological functioning is a relatively new field in behavioral sciences; and any scientific inquiry in this area should be considered in the light of both experimental and non-experimental designs. Thereby, the simplest way is to investigate the effect of self-perceived nutrition and diet status on mental functioning among individuals in different age cohorts. I suggest such speculations about nutrition and mental functioning in field studies can provide the background for experimental essays on nutrition and mental functioning such as higher cognitive functions, the executive cognitive functioning, metacognition, and cognitive flexibility and vulnerability. The main hypothesis is that a good nutrition can facilitate good mental functioning such as executive functions and it can decrease the rate of cognitive vulnerability toward a few mental disorders like depression. Of course; such investigations can help to prompt a good or healthy nutrition among people, particularly in elderly. Thus, study on nutrition and cognitive functions not only can enhance mental health among people in society but also this trend is important for researchers who interested in human rights and welfare around the world. Because many people are suffering from poverty and hungry around the world while many individuals have maladaptive eating problems like obesity, overweight and bulimia. Finally, we can talk about “brain foods”, “mental foods”, and “psych foods” when investigate the role of nutrition on mental functioning. This approach would be beneficial to explore the possible influence of foods and diets on the healthy mind. This perspective is useful for understanding the role of nutrition and foods on prevention and treatment of psychopathology and mental disorders. This field should be continued with more legislations and higher motivation among scholars around the universe. Finally the field of nutrition and mental functioning is a promising area for positive psychology around the globe.