[The search for lost places. Help for the mental patient made possible through his life history]. / Em busca de lugares perdidos: assistência ao doente mental revelada através de histórias de vida.

This study aims at knowing mental patients life history by freeing their hopes, projects and possibilities either indoors or away from the psychiatric institution and based on the people knowledge of life, pondering over assistance to mental patients. By reading speeches reports, we have been revealed their quality of life BEFORE, DURING and AFTER the maddening process, considering that for AFTER, the reports presented another meaning, even when the place was materially the same place of before becoming ill. Due to the lack of choice and of meaning, they succeeded in living looking backwards to the past, which, in most cases, was also plenty of difficulties; however they had the essential: the role they played was socially accepted, they shared the social group and anticipated the time-to-come. The subject of this study exposed the use of astuteness and smartness to dribble the rules to which they are submitted. They reinvindicate the liberation of the identity, the relational, they wish to share life with the others and participate in the administration of their destiny, somehow. They also state that the non-place, is not only the psychiatric hospital but also the existing culture of mad-houses in the families, out-patient units, daily hospitals and hospital psychiatric wards. Undoing the mad-house, it will be necessary to revise culture or mental mad-house, in other words, to free our minds from rationality of jail. This is not only a process within Psychiatry; it crosses different dimensions: politics, law, social organizations, rules, disciplinary institutions, the collective imaginary.

The nutritive value of Brazilian soy products tested in malnourished children.

The nutritive value of a soya milk and soya protein isolate available in Brazil was tested in formulas fed to 30 malnourished children during a period of 25 days. The chemical composition of all formulas was similar, including their energy and protein content. The protein (1.5 g/100 ml) was supplied by either cow's milk, unfortified soy milk, unfortified soy protein isolate, and methionine-enriched soy milk or methionine-enriched soy isolate. Methionine was added at the level of 1.5 g/100 g of protein. The trials included clinical, biochemical and nitrogen balance studies, and results indicated that these soy products formulas did not have the same nutritive value of cow's milk. However, the nutritional quality of soy milk was improved by methionine supplementation, but the soy protein isolate was not affected by the addition of the same amino acid. Average nitrogen retention as percent of intake ranged from 31.8 to 34.7 in the children fed cow's milk. Those that received soy milk retained 10.5 to 15.3%, and when methionine was added the average retention increased from 17.2 to 24.8%. When the isolated soy protein was fed, the average retention values were 14.7 to 16.5% without methionine, and 11.0% when the methionine-supplemented formula was used. Factors that could influence the results and the importance of the subject are discussed.

[Nitrogen balance in adults and experimental study in rats fed with rice, beans and manioc flour supplemented with proteins]. / Balanco nitrogenado em pessoas adultas e estudo experimental em ratos alimentados com arroz, feijão e farinha de mandioca suplementada com proteinas.

Rice, beans and manioc flour are foods eaten daily in Northeast Brazil. Manioc flour is a source of energy, having a low protein content. There has been a great interest to supplement manioc flour with proteins. The present study was planned to show the nutritive value of a basic diet including rice, beans, manioc flour and other local foods, supplemented with different sources of proteins. The experiment was carried out in humans and rats. The supplements used were casein (Ca), isolated soy protein (PS) and a dry residue of a soymilk preparation (RSLS). Through nitrogen balance studies in adults it was shown that the diets with casein or isolated soy protein had a good absorption and retention of nitrogen. The addition of the soymilk residue resulted in a poor acceptance of the experimental diet; negative nitrogen retention was observed in the three persons who accepted the food and completed the balances studies. The same diets offered to humans, with the same protein supplements, were fed to rats. The nutritive value measured in the animals were similar, in all diets with all supplements, including the one with the dry residue of soymilk. The present results call the attention to the problems of transfering animal results to humans. It was also discussed the possibility of adding casein or isolated soy protein as an eventual protein supplement to manioc flour for human feeding.