Chocolate = Phenylethylamine (PEA) = anger/agression

[Guest guest]

Anyone else noticed anger/agression in your child after eating chocolate. We

don't give our son chocolate anymore if we are going somewhere. He can get

really uncooperative. A doctor told me that is was PEA in chocolate that does

that, so I found this article below that links it to migraines which my son

seems to have problems with as well. Last night my husband gave my son

chocolate ice cream before bed and he wouldn't go to sleep and complained about

his head hurting.

Gen Pharmacol. 1983;14(4):385-90.

Phenylethylamine in neuropsychiatric disorders.

Wolf ME, Mosnaim AD.

Abstract

Phenylethylamine is an endogenous neuroamine conceptualized as the body's

natural amphetamine. PEA has been suggested to play a role in the etiology of

several neuropsychiatric disorders. Increased PEA turnover in phenylketonuria

contributes to the pathophysiology of this condition. Depressed and chronic

paranoid schizophrenic patients show decreased and increased PEA urinary

excretion, respectively. Parkinsonian patients show decreased urinary PEA

excretion. In animals, drugs that relieve or produce depression and parkinson

result in increased or decreased brain PEA levels, respectively. PEA has been

postulated to play a role in the etiology of migraine headache and aggression.