A Review Of The Relevance Of Diet And Seven Emotions Based On Literature Analysis

[Objective]The main objective for this literature review-based paper is to further clarify and understand the relationship that exists between diet and emotions,and be able to apply the diet and emotional relevance to treat clinical problems using dietary therapy.[Methods]In this study,literature research methods were used to search and analyze any articles related to diet and emotions.The Chinese references mainly came from the Chinese Academic Journals Full-text Database(CNKI),while the English references were derived mainly from foreign databases,including Google Scholar and PubMed.The timeline of the references ranged between January 1,1997 and December 31,2016,giving a span of 20 years.Keywords including "diet","emotions/mood",and "health" were used.The accepting standards incorporated all articles,clinical research,current existing surveys,specialists' expertise,etc.regarding diet and emotions.The eliminating standards mainly consisted of getting rid of references related to diseases(ex.Coronary diseases,gastro-intestinal diseases,neurological diseases,etc.),as well as any references that did not include how food influences emotions or how emotions were influenced by food.The software NoteExpress3.2 was used to merge all references to compare and ensure there were no overlapping articles,read the title and abstracts,and remove all unqualified references.[Results]1.The Chinese and English references came from databases such as CNKI and Pubmed,and accepted all references pertaining to diet and emotions.In total,there were 36 Chinese references and 39 English references.The software NoteExpress3.2 was used to merge all references to compare and make sure there were no overlapping articles,read the title and abstracts,and remove all unqualified references.2.According to TCM theory,each of the five organs pertains to a flavor and emotion.When the five organs are in disarray,it will cause an emotional imbalance,thus anger harms the liver,joy harms the heart,worrying harms the lungs,overthinking harms the spleen,and fear harms the kidneys.The five flavors pertain to sour,bitter,sweet,acrid and salty.Since the body should be viewed holistically,the five organs,five flavors and emotions are all closely related.The heart pertains to bitter,and also joy;the liver pertains to sour and anger;kidneys pertain to salty and fear;spleen pertains to sweet and thinking,and lungs pertain to acrid as well as worry.3.From a TCM perspective,the five flavors are able to balance out the functions of the five organs.Foods are divided into five flavors,and are able to affect emotions.Sour flavored foods,such as sour plum,enters the liver meridian and pertains to anger,which gives birth to liver fire symptoms.So,foods such as sour plum are able to treat symptoms that over anger causes.Salty foods,such as sea cucumbers,enter the kidney meridian so is able to treat kidney problems.Sea cucumber's efficacies are tonifying the kidney and replenishing the essence,nourishing blood and moistening dryness,stop bleeding to cease fire,and harmonizing the stomach to quench thirst.The kidney houses fear,and fear harms the kidneys,so any symptoms pertaining to kidney qi or kidney essence problems caused by fear are able to use salty foods to treat such symptoms.4.Neurotransmitters,such as serotonin,can help to adjust emotions on top of many other uses.If there is a lack of TRP,then one's overall mood will be reduced.Vagal nerve stimulation and intestinal hormones also have an impact on emotions.In some experiments which used rats as the animal model,some neurotropic neurotransmitters,such as the vagus nerve,were able to stimulate an increase of brain-derived neurotropic factor(BDNF)and norepinephrine levels in the brain hippocampus and cerebral cortex.Intestinal hormones which can affect brain function,such as leptin,can increase BDNF.In turn,BDNF can mediate the effects of leptin on food intake and energy homeostasis.Various types of nutrients can also affect one's emotions.For example,carbohydrates stimulate insulin secretion,which is easily able to pass through the blood-brain-barrier,which results in an elevated mood.Compared with other large neural amino acids(LNAAs)such as carbohydrates,protein-rich diets contain relatively smaller amounts of TRP,which has less of a positive impact on one's emotions.5.Neurotransmitters,such as serotonin,play an important role in controlling food intake as well as regulating the emotions.If there is a lack of TRP,the mood will be reduced.Vagal nerve stimulation and intestinal hormones are also able to affect emotions.Vagal nerve stimulation increases the BDNF and norepinephrine levels of rats' hippocampus and cerebral cortex.BDNF and norepinephrine are associated with a role in antidepressant medications,so these findings suggest new insights into how intestinal signals can affect emotions.BDNF is closely involved in energy metabolism and the plasticity of neurons,further demonstrating a close relationship between dietary intake and brain function.Intestinal honnones,such as leptin,are able to increase BDNF,so BDNF in turn mediates leptin on food intake and energy homeostasis.6.Different nutrients are also able to effect emotions.Lipids stimulate the release of cholecystokinin(CKK),which stimulates the pancreas to contract the gallbladder and increase sedative effects.High energy density fats are able to improve emotions and relieve stress via brain opioid and dopaminergic neurotransmission.In addition to its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities,polyphenols are also associated with the expression of BDNF,which helps to reverse neural atrophy and behavior defects.Polyphenols include curcumin and EGCG.Curcumin plays a role in preventing neural degeneration,and EGCG contains high antioxidant activity,which helps to relieve stress and resistant to depression.Compared to other large neural amino acids(LNAAs),protein-rich diets contain less TRPs that compete with TRP for the same carrier molecules to transport them through the blood brain barrier,and thus there is less TRP availability.Reduced TRP lowers people's emotions.Carbohydrates stimulate the secretion of insulin to increase the amount of amino acids,so that more TRP can enter the brain.In comparison to protein,carbohydrates can be used to help boost emotions.[Conclusion]1.Food has a definite influence over emotions.2.Since emotions and food are closely related,we can influence the emotions by adjusting the diet.3.Emotions are very important to health,so by adjusting the diet to influence the emotions,we can therefore achieve a healthy lifestyle.