The activity of the PAM enzyme [necessary for releasing oxytocin fromthe neuron] system is dependent upon vitamin C (ascorbate), which is a necessary vitamin cofactor.
I.e. if you don’t have enough vitamin C, your neurons can’t release oxytocin. Common sensically, this should lead to some psychological/neurological problems, maybe with empathy/bonding/social cognition?
Quick googling “scurvy mental problems” or “vitamin C deficiency mental symptoms” doesn’t return much on that. This meta-analysis finds some association of sub-scurvy vitamin C deficiency with depression, mood problems, worse cognitive functioning and some other psychiatric conditions but no mention of what I’d suspect from lack of oxytocin. Possibly oxytocin is produced in low enough levels that this doesn’t really matter because you need very little vit C? But on the other hand (Wikipedia again)
By chance, sodium ascorbate by itself was found to stimulate the production of oxytocin from ovarian tissue over a range of concentrations in a dose-dependent manner.
So either this (i.e. disturbed social cognition) is not how we should expect oxytocin deficiencies to manifest or vitamin C deficiency manifests in so many ways in the brain that you don’t even bother with “they have worse theory of mind than when they ate one apple a day”.
Googling for “scurvy low mood”, I find plenty of sources that indicate that scurvy is accompanied by “mood swings — often irritability and depression”. IIRC, this has remarked upon for at least two hundred years.
That’s also what this meta-analysis found but I was mostly wondering about social cognition deficits (though looking back I see it’s not clear in the original shortform)
Does severe vitamin C deficiency (i.e. scurvy) lead to oxytocin depletion?
According to Wikipedia
I.e. if you don’t have enough vitamin C, your neurons can’t release oxytocin. Common sensically, this should lead to some psychological/neurological problems, maybe with empathy/bonding/social cognition?
Quick googling “scurvy mental problems” or “vitamin C deficiency mental symptoms” doesn’t return much on that. This meta-analysis finds some association of sub-scurvy vitamin C deficiency with depression, mood problems, worse cognitive functioning and some other psychiatric conditions but no mention of what I’d suspect from lack of oxytocin. Possibly oxytocin is produced in low enough levels that this doesn’t really matter because you need very little vit C? But on the other hand (Wikipedia again)
So either this (i.e. disturbed social cognition) is not how we should expect oxytocin deficiencies to manifest or vitamin C deficiency manifests in so many ways in the brain that you don’t even bother with “they have worse theory of mind than when they ate one apple a day”.
Just a detail, but shouldn’t this be one orange a day? Apples do not contain much vitamin C.
Huh, you’re right. I thought most fruits have enough to cover daily requirements.
Googling for “scurvy low mood”, I find plenty of sources that indicate that scurvy is accompanied by “mood swings — often irritability and depression”. IIRC, this has remarked upon for at least two hundred years.
That’s also what this meta-analysis found but I was mostly wondering about social cognition deficits (though looking back I see it’s not clear in the original shortform)