Vitactions: vitamins for the brain

Abstract

A novel concept has been recently put forward in the mind/body interface (https://doi.org/10.37349/ent.2024.00074). The new concept has led to a new word: vitaction. Vitactions offer benefits to the brain and mind comparable to the advantages vitamins provide for the body’s overall health. The field of vitactions is as it was the vitamin field one century ago, i.e., without tools to make a complete classification. I propose to classify vitactions into five categories according to the behaviours necessary to maintain balanced brain functionality. A deficit of vitactions would contribute to the enormous prevalence in developed countries of diseases ranging from type 2 diabetes to neuropsychiatric diseases. The concept should help to identify which vitactions are deficient and to outline how they can be progressively implemented to improve the quality of life. The parallelism vitactions/vitamins also extends to overdosing; both hypervitaminosis and hypervitactinosis may be detrimental. This perspective article argues that vitactions should be considered at the practical and the scientific research levels, and that a balanced vitamin and vitaction supply is essential for a better life. In addition, reasons for proposing a synonym, “vitactin”, are given.