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Nutrition, nutritional deficiencies, and schizophrenia: An association worthy of constant reassessment
Schizophrenia is a mental health disorder that is prevalent across the world regardless of culture, socioeconomic conditions, or geography. Understanding the neurochemical baseline of schizophrenia, disease contributors, and potential treatments are avenues of current research. However, it has become increasingly apparent that utilizing the neurochemical discrepancies demonstrated in individuals suffering from schizophrenia has not yielded entirely satisfactory outcomes. Therefore, the potential of utilizing non-pharmacological interventions in the management of schizophrenia presents a worthwhile novel approach. Recently, nutrition has been shown to play a significant part in schizophrenia, with influence on disease onset, course and treatment. In this review, Onaolapo and Onaolapo (2021) investigated existing scientific literature looking at potential links between nutrition and schizophrenia to, firstly, understand the influence of diet and nutritional discrepancies on the etiology, course, treatment and sequelae of schizophrenia, and secondly, to study the impact nutritional supplements may have on the prevention of schizophrenia, as a solitary intervention or as therapeutic aids. The authors conclude that in spite of what we know and what we can assume on the relationship between nutrition and schizophrenia, the bigger obstacles remain in fashioning precise nutrition interventions as a trusted modality for prevention of schizophrenia and as a daily management strategy. [NPID: Brain, diet, mental health, nutritional psychiatry, psychosis, schizophrenia spectrum disorders]
Year: 2021
