mood swings Archives - Amazing Health Advances

Study: Premenstrual Mood Symptoms Represent a Key Public Health Issue Globally

AHA Publisher — Fri, 09 Sep 2022 07:00:28 +0000

University of Virginia Health System via News-Medical – Premenstrual mood swings and anxiety are so common – experienced by more than 64% of women – that they represent a “key public health issue globally,” according to a new UVA Health study. The UVA Health study found that most women have premenstrual symptoms every menstrual cycle, and those symptoms regularly affect their day-to-day lives. One of the most common symptoms, regardless of age, is mood swings or anxiety, the researchers found. At least 61% of women in all age groups surveyed reported mood-related symptoms every menstrual cycle, which the researchers say suggests “that premenstrual mood symptoms are a key public health issue globally.” “Our study demonstrates that premenstrual mood symptoms are incredibly common worldwide. More important, a majority of women reported that their premenstrual symptoms interfered with their everyday life at least some of the time.” Jennifer L. Payne, MD, study’s senior author and director of the Reproductive Psychiatry Research Program at the University of Virginia School of Medicine Better Understanding Premenstrual Symptoms To better understand the type of premenstrual symptoms women experience and how those symptoms affect their daily lives, the researchers analyzed more than 238,000 survey responses from women ages 18-55 from 140 countries on the Flo app, which helps women track their menstrual cycle or track their mood or physical symptoms during and after pregnancy. The most common symptoms reported were food cravings, experienced by 85.28% of the women surveyed, followed by mood swings or anxiety (64.18%) and fatigue (57.3%), according to researchers from the UVA School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University and Flo Health. Among the study respondents, 28.61% said their premenstrual symptoms interfered with their everyday life during every menstrual cycle, while an additional 34.84% said their premenstrual symptoms interfered with their everyday life sometimes. “The incidence of reported premenstrual mood and anxiety symptoms varied significantly by country from a low of 35.1% in Congo to a high of 68.6% in Egypt,” Payne said. “Understanding whether differences in biology or culture underlie the country level rates will be an important future research direction.” A group of symptoms – absentmindedness, low libido, sleep changes, gastrointestinal symptoms, weight gain, headaches, sweating or hot flashes, fatigue, hair changes, rashes and swelling – was significantly more frequent among older survey respondents, the researchers found. The increase in physical symptoms among older survey respondents “makes sense,” the researchers said, as many of these symptoms are associated with perimenopause, a transition period to menopause marked by irregular menstrual cycles. Payne is hopeful that this survey data will help women get better care by making healthcare providers more aware of how frequently these symptoms – especially anxiety and mood-related symptoms – occur. “There are a number of treatment strategies that are available to treat premenstrual symptoms that interfere with a woman’s every day functioning,” she said. “Increasing awareness of how common these symptoms are, and that if they impact functioning that there are treatments available, will help women improve their quality of life.” Findings Published The researchers have published their findings in the Archives of Women’s Mental Health. The research team included Liisa Hantsoo, Shivani Rangasawmy, Kristin Voegtline, Rodion Salimgaraev, Liudmila Zhaunova and Payne. Payne holds a patent titled “Epigenetic Biomarkers of Postpartum Depression.” To read the original article click here.

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What Are the Consequences of Sleep Deprivation?

AHA Publisher — Mon, 01 Nov 2021 07:00:57 +0000

Walla! via The Jerusalem Post – Many doctors have recently shared difficult and disturbing stories about mistakes they made due to lack of sleep. We asked Dr. Liora Berzag-Peru to explain why this happens and what the long-term consequences are of continuous sleep deprivation. The Health Ministry recently made breakthrough changes to shorten the shifts of hospital residents, after some 2,590 of them submitted their resignations over their 36-hour shifts. The challenge, they had said, is that it is almost impossible to work or function effectively without sleep. As part of this struggle, many doctors shared their experiences of sleep deprivation, but it seems that the most disturbing story of all was the director of Alyn Hospital, Dr. Morit Beri, who explained what happened to her in a publicly shared Facebook post. After a long shift, while she was sleeping, she answered a phone call from a nurse in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Through her fog, the doctor said that the preterm infant’s breathing tube could be taken out. When she woke up and went to the NICU, she was horrified to see the little baby without breathing assistance, and didn’t remember the phone call. Fortunately, the baby was fine, but this story certainly raises questions: Would you like a doctor who is sleep deprived to make life and death decisions for you or your child? To better understand this story and others, and how sleep deprivation affects our body and brain, we asked Dr. Liora Bergaz-Peru what happens to our bodies when we don’t sleep enough, and how dangerous it is. Here are her answers. How Long Does a Person Need Sleep to Function? This is a question that is difficult to answer, since the need is individual. One approach claims that a person will need sleep until spontaneously awakening. Another approach examines a person’s ‘awake state’ after being woken up after a variable number of hours of sleep. Let’s factor in that the need for sleep also changes with age. Questionnaire-based studies have indicated that most people will feel rested after seven to nine hours of sleep a night. What Is Sleep Deprivation? Sleep deprivation occurs when sleep is insufficient to feel fully awake, to function normally and to be healthy, whether due to short sleep time (quantitative decline) or due to disturbances during sleep (qualitative decline). Like any disease, sleep deprivation can be acute – for one to two days – or chronic, a condition in which the body is deprived of sleep for a long time. Has the Effect of Sleep Deprivation Been Researched? Many studies have been done on sleep deprivation in hospitals, especially on behalf of patients who suffer not only from the disease but often also from the hospitalization itself, noises around them, medications, too many bright lights and even being in an unfamiliar environment. There are many ways sleep deprivation can harm patients. What Happens When Doctors and Other Hospital Personnel Are Deprived of Sleep? Studies of medical residents have shown that numerous doctors misdiagnose patients after performing a shift of 24 hours or more compared to a regular working day of the same doctor. One interesting study indicated fewer correct diagnoses on colonoscopy results when the same doctor was suddenly awakened the night before. These are mistakes that happen when the deprivation is acute, but of course increase over a longer period of sleep deprivation. Chronic sleep deprivation can lead to fatal accidents, even at work, in the case of diagnoses being made by these doctors, but also in the personal lives of the people who have not slept, both on the psychological and physiological level. Does Sleep Deprivation Also Affect the Health of Doctors? Yes. In a state of chronic deficiency, there is continuous damage to neurons, which of course leads to many other damages, from mood swings to brain dysfunction, heart disease, hormonal changes and more. To read the original article click here.

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Study Pinpoints Specific Areas of the Brain Where Serotonin Promotes Patience

AHA Publisher — Mon, 07 Dec 2020 08:00:01 +0000

Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) Graduate University via News-Medical Net – We’ve all been there. Whether we’re stuck in traffic at the end of a long day, or eagerly anticipating the release of a new book, film or album, there are times when we need to be patient. Learning to suppress the impulse for instant gratification is often vital for future success, but how patience is regulated in the brain remains poorly understood. Now, in a study on mice conducted by the Neural Computation Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST), the authors, Dr. Katsuhiko Miyazaki and Dr. Kayoko Miyazaki, pinpoint specific areas of the brain that individually promote patience through the action of serotonin. Their findings were published 27thNovember in Science Advances. Serotonin is one of the most famous neuromodulators of behavior, helping to regulate mood, sleep-wake cycles and appetite. Our research shows that release of this chemical messenger also plays a crucial role in promoting patience, increasing the time that mice are willing to wait for a food reward.” Dr. Katsuhiko Miyazaki, Author Their most recent work draws heavily on previous research, where the unit used a powerful technique called optogenetics – using light to stimulate specific neurons in the brain – to establish a causal link between serotonin and patience. The scientists bred genetically engineered mice which had serotonin-releasing neurons that expressed a light-sensitive protein. This meant that the researchers could stimulate these neurons to release serotonin at precise times by shining light, using an optical fiber implanted in the brain. The researchers found that stimulating these neurons while the mice were waiting for food increased their waiting time, with the maximum effect seen when the probability of receiving a reward was high but when the timing of the reward was uncertain. “In other words, for the serotonin to promote patience, the mice had to be confident that a reward would come but uncertain about when it would arrive,” said Dr. Miyazaki. In the previous study, the scientists focused on an area of the brain called the dorsal raphe nucleus – the central hub of serotonin-releasing neurons. Neurons from the dorsal raphe nucleus reach out into other areas of the forebrain and in their most recent study, the scientists explored specifically which of these other brain areas contributed to regulating patience. The team focused on three brain areas that had been shown to increase impulsive behaviors when they were damaged – a deep brain structure called the nucleus accumbens, and two parts of the frontal lobe called the orbitofrontal cortex and the medial prefrontal cortex. “Impulse behaviors are intrinsically linked to patience – the more impulsive an individual is, the less patient – so these brain areas were prime candidates,” explained Dr. Miyazaki. Good things come to those who wait (or not…) In the study, the scientists implanted optical fibers into the dorsal raphe nucleus and also one of either the nucleus accumbens, the orbitofrontal cortex, or the medial prefrontal cortex. The researchers trained mice to perform a waiting task where the mice held with their nose inside a hole, called a “nose poke”, until a food pellet was delivered. The scientists rewarded the mice in 75% of trials. In some test conditions, the timing of the reward was fixed at six or ten seconds after the mice started the nose poke and in other test conditions, the timing of the reward varied. In the remaining 25% of trials, called the omission trials, the scientists did not provide a food reward to the mice. They measured how long the mice continued performing the nose poke during omission trials – in other words, how patient they were – when serotonin-releasing neurons were and were not stimulated. When the researchers stimulated serotonin-releasing neural fibers that reached into the nucleus accumbens, they found no increase in waiting time, suggesting that serotonin in this area of the brain has no role in regulating patience. But when the scientists stimulated serotonin release in the orbitofrontal cortex and the medial prefrontal cortex while the mice were holding the nose poke, they found the mice waited longer, with a few crucial differences. In the orbitofrontal cortex, release of serotonin promoted patience as effectively as serotonin activation in the dorsal raphe nucleus; both when reward timing was fixed and when reward timing was uncertain, with stronger effects in the latter. But in the medial prefrontal cortex, the scientists only saw an increase in patience when the timing of the reward was varied, with no effect observed when the timing was fixed. “The differences seen in how each area of the brain responded to serotonin suggests that each brain area contributes to the overall waiting behavior of the mice in separate ways,” said Dr. Miyazaki. Modeling patience To investigate this further, the scientists constructed a computational model to explain the waiting behavior of the mice. The model assumes that the mice have an internal model of the timing of reward delivery and keep estimating the probability that a reward will be delivered. They can therefore judge over time whether they are in a reward or non-reward trial and decide whether or not to keep waiting. The model also assumes that the orbitofrontal cortex and the medial prefrontal cortex use different internal models of reward timing, with the latter being more sensitive to variations in timing, to calculate reward probabilities individually. The researchers found that the model best fitted the experimental data of waiting time by increasing the expected reward probability from 75% to 94% under serotonin stimulation. Put more simply, serotonin increased the mice’s belief that they were in a reward trial, and so they waited longer. Importantly, the model showed that stimulation of the dorsal raphe nucleus increased the probability from 75% to 94% in both the orbital frontal cortex and the medial prefrontal cortex, whereas stimulation of the brain areas separately only increased the probability in that particular area. “This confirmed the idea that these two brain areas are calculating the probability of a reward independently from each other, and that these independent calculations are then combined to ultimately determine how long the mice will wait,” explained Dr. Miyazaki. “This sort of complementary system allows animals to behave more flexibly to changing environments.” Ultimately, increasing our knowledge of how different areas of the brain are more or less affected by serotonin could have vital implications in future development of drugs. For example, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are drugs that boost levels of serotonin in the brain and are used to treat depression. “This is an area we are keen to explore in the future, by using depression models of mice,” said Dr. Miyazaki. “We may find under certain genetic or environmental conditions that some of these identified brain areas have altered functions. By pinning down these regions, this could open avenues to provide more targeted treatments that act on specific areas of the brain, rather than the whole brain.” To read the original article click here.

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The Mental & Physical Health Benefits of Circadian Fasting + Simple Schedule Tweaks That Can Boost Your Mood & Reduce Stress

AHA Publisher — Tue, 24 Nov 2020 08:00:15 +0000

Dr. Caroline Leaf – I am sure by now you have heard of the benefits of intermittent fasting. But can skipping meals or only eating during certain time periods really improve our health? In this podcast (episode #228) and blog, I speak with intermittent fasting expert Dr. Amy Shah about how fasting can greatly improve your mental and physical wellbeing, the different types of fasting, why Dr. Amy prefers circadian fasting, how women can fast safely, common fasting mistakes, how to get started, if fasting is safe for people with eating disorders, and more! When it comes to our health, what we eat, how we eat and our other lifestyle choices can have a dramatic impact on our gut health, which, in turn, can impact the brain and body. The gut-brain connection is incredibly powerful. If your gut is inflamed and you fix that, your brain will feel better, and vice versa. Even though we are learning more and more about the gut-brain connection, our overall health and immunity, many people are not told about this when they are feeling ill or battling with their health. Yes, Western medicine is good for many things, but it doesn’t know everything! One of the best ways to harness the power of the gut-brain connection to improve our mental and physical health is through intermittent fasting. Yet, before you just stop eating for several hours, it is important to understand that fasting impacts men and women differently. Unfortunately, most of the research is done on male animals—we are only now starting to study the different impact certain types of fasting have on women. There are many differences between the male and female body, including our hormones and how we process stressors, which need to be considered when we study fasting and how it impacts our overall health. There are also differences between each individual. When it comes when we eat and when we don’t eat, there is no “one size fits all”! Women are impacted more by stressors like long-term dieting, excessive exercise and aggressive, long-term fasting, which will disturb your hormones and health. That is not to say that women cannot benefit from intermittent fasting, but they need to be aware the risks of aggressive, long-term fasting on the brain and body. GnRH is the master hormone that is linked to our circadian rhythm—it pulses in accordance with this rhythm, telling the pituitary gland to release its hormones, which signals to the ovaries and adrenal glands to release hormones like estrogen in a feedback loop. In women, this system is very sensitive to external stressors. If we fast, exercise or diet aggressively, it affects the pulsing of the GnRH, which has repercussions throughout the brain and body. Some signs of this are: feeling fatigued, bloated or anxious, sudden mood changes, weight fluctuations, and upset sleeping patterns. For most women, aggressive fasting can dramatically impact their hormones and affect their health in the short and long term, especially when they start fasting or do longer fasting intervals on a regular basis. We need to be very careful about listening to what we hear on the media or from the wellness industry! Long-term fasting is not for everyone, just like an Iron Man challenge or ultra-marathon is not for everyone. If you do decide to go this route, train for it, and monitor its effects on your health with the help of a medical professional. We cannot escape the fact that how we live our lives affects our wellbeing. As Amy notes, our hormonal pulses and circadian rhythms are completely intertwined. Every cell in our body has a “clock” that follows these 24-hour rhythms. In fact, 80% of our genes are based on our circadian rhythm! Our bodies are meant to have a rhythm—we are not made to do everything at once. When our circadian rhythm is out of whack, we can suffer from many kinds of health issues, including mood disorders, brain health problems, diabetes, heart disease and so on. On the other hand, if we tweak our schedule just a little bit and let our brain and body know when it is day and when it is night, we can improve our overall wellbeing by improving our sleeping patterns, metabolism, mood and so on. Circadian fasting is one great way to tap into these natural rhythms and create an environment that boosts our mental and physical resilience. If we stop eating 2 to 3 hours before bed, this will prepare our body, telling it that it is nighttime and it should go into “gut repair mode” and deep clean the cells. This can only be done when we do not have more glucose from food entering our bodies. If we eat late at night or before bed, however, the body does not go into this deep clean mode, which can affect our health. Circadian fasting also helps our body harness the power of the metabolic switch. The body generally uses sugar as fuel—this is its preferred source of energy. When we have used up all this glucose and the body needs energy, it switches fuel sources and uses stored fat (fatty acids). This is known as the metabolic switch, which turns on when we are hungry or fasting. When the body does this, it can have many downstream health benefits, such as suppressing excess inflammation, increasing stress resilience and improving cognitive function and emotional health. Circadian fasting essentially trains your body to switch fuel sources. Yes, at the beginning this can be tough and we can feel a little off, but our body will get used to this shift over time. It is a type of good stress—circadian fasting gives the body a little push to get stronger, like a good workout. And it is a lot easier to do than many other fasting regimens because it can be incorporated into a busy schedule. If you have battled with fasting in the past and are not sure how to make the process easier or effective, Amy has some great tips to help you harness the power of circadian fasting: Don’t start too extreme, as changing your eating schedule can be challenging, especially if you are used to eating late at night! Start from 7pm-7am, and slowly increase the number of hours you fast at night over time. Give your body time to adjust! You can also alternate the number of hours you fast for during the week—listen to what your body needs and find out what works for you. Expose yourself to daylight first thing in the morning before 10 am for around 20 minutes, even if it is cloudy outside, which will help balance your circadian rhythm and boost your metabolic switch. Do a fasted workout/movement early in the morning. Get moving before you eat breakfast! But don’t push yourself too hard too quickly—find out what works for you and start there. Try get 7 to 8 hours of sleep at night. This doesn’t have to happen every night, but we should aim for good sleeping patterns around 5 times a week. Our peak eating times is between 12 and 5 pm, so you want to eat your main meals during this time. Eat a smaller meal before noon or after 5 pm if desired, and stop eating 2 to 4 hours before bed. Eat lots of plant fibers, which help improve our gut health by feeding the good bacteria in the gut that are essential for brain health, immunity and hormone function. Around 2 to 3 hours before bed, turn off your artificial light devices, such as your smart phones or TV. It is also a good idea to switch the light bulbs in the bedroom to yellow light or use candle light. Research has shown that just one bout of bright light at night can delay your melatonin for up to 90 minutes! Avoid these common fasting mistakes: Fasting too long. Eating too much sugar in your eating window, which will make it harder for your body to turn on its metabolic switch, and, when your sugar levels fall, you will experience hunger cravings and jitters that will affect your ability to avoid eating and experience all the benefits of intermittent fasting. Thinking that fasting is a shortcut or magic bullet that will take away all our issues. It is an important part of a healthy lifestyle, not a quick-fix solution. It is also important to remember that fasting may not be for everyone, especially someone with a history of disordered eating. Fasting is not generally good for someone who has a history of eating issues, especially if they cannot do it in a safe way, as it can trigger a restrictive eating response. In a situation like this, it is better to focus on what the person is eating, and how they can cut out processed and refined foods and improve their diet. To read the original article click here. For more articles from Dr. Leaf click here.

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