Research
Early Diagnosis and Nutritional Treatment Stabilizes Neuropsychiatric Disorders
The reliable diagnostic identification of neuropsychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disease, and depression has been associated with some biological markers (genomics, proteomics, metabolomics) but to date, these markers do not have the sensitivity/specificity of a diagnostic test. Biomarker tests that are relevant to global chronic disease are now applicable to neuropsychiatric diseases to prevent autoimmune disease, endoplasmic reticulum stress associated mitophagy with relevance to neuron apoptosis. Metabolic abnormalities has been linked to neuropsychiatric disorder with the careful nutritional assessment of patients reported in many published studies. Early interventions with genomic medicine now assist in the prevention of autoimmune disease associated with global chronic disease and neuropsychiatric disorders. Functional foods that contain appropriate doses of activators will allow modulation of neuropsychiatric diseases at the nuclear receptor level with the maintenance of neuron endoplasmic reticulum stress and the prevention of mitophagy associated with accelerated neurodegeneration.
Early Diagnosis of Neuron Mitochondrial Dysfunction May Reverse Global Metabolic and Neurodegenerative Disease
The rise in obesity and diabetes in various countries have reached epidemic proportions [1]with the inability of the brain to regulate body weight and energy balance in the early part of life and related to neurodegenerative disease in these countries. Neurons in the brain become sensitive to Western diets with alterations in neurons that lead to brain circuitry disorders or feeding signals [2]. In insulin resistance and neurodegenerative diseases the astrocyte-neuron interaction is defective in the brain [3] and consumption of a Western diet does not allow neurons to metabolize glucose and fatty acids but instead leads to mitochondrial apoptosis and programmed neuron death. In the periphery in global communities liver steatosis can be reversible with hepatocyte mitochondria still able to metabolize fatty acids and glucose after consumption of a healthy low calorie diet but in the brain neuron mitochondria may not continue with mitochondrial biogenesis but continue to undergo apoptosis with neuron death. Networks between various brain cells involve membrane and nuclear lipid signals with diets involved in the regulation, transmission and communication between various brain cells. The three main types of glial cells are the astrocytes, oligodendrocytes and microglia with astrocytes involved with the maintenance of endothelial cells in brain capillaries and the blood brain barrier (BBB) to prevent toxic substances and their entry into the brain with the prevention of mitochondrial apoptosis in neurons. Astrocytes have been shown to be important to neuron lifespan and survival [4,5] with diets and lifestyle involved with epigenetic modification that disrupt astrocyte signalling [3] involved in the maintenance of neurons in individuals in global populations. Nutritional diets that prevent epigenetic alterations include DNA methylation, covalent histone modification and non-coding RNAs that are involved in gene activation and repression with chromatin structure modifica
Diabetes and Organ Dysfunction in the Developing and Developed World
Induction of global organ disease has become important with the events related to diabetes in both the developed and developing world. Type 2 diabetes and peripheral organ disease are connected to Type 3 diabetes that involves the brain early in life associated with brain diseases (stroke, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease).The incidence of diabetes has been predicted to increase to 21% by 2050. In various continents the rise in the global diabetes epidemic has been associated with diseases of various organ diseases related to obesity, diabetes and neurodegenerative diseases (Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease). Nutritional therapy has become of central importance as early nutritional therapy may delay organ disease and aging
