neurological disease Archives - Amazing Health Advances

Study Expands Link Between Childhood Stress and Chronic MS Symptoms

The AHA! Team — Fri, 30 Aug 2024 08:46:29 +0000

Duke Health – DURHAM, N.C. – Childhood stress may predict pain, fatigue, and mental illness in adults with multiple sclerosis, according to a study led by a Duke Health researcher. The findings, appeared online in the journal PLOS ONE, support efforts to integrate trauma-informed care and screenings for stressors into clinical practice. Childhood stress and adversity has been linked to numerous adult health outcomes This could help providers better conceptualize patient backgrounds and potential disease trajectories to create personalized approaches to patient care. “Since the original Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) study in the late 90’s, childhood stress and adversity has been linked to numerous adult health outcomes, including many of the leading causes of mortality in the U.S.,” said lead author Carri Polick, Ph.D., a clinical associate in the Duke University School of Nursing. “This is, in part, due to the physiological stress response and how it sets the tone for how people experience stress and cope over their lifetime.” Researchers analyzed data from 719 adults with MS who responded to an online self-report survey deployed by the National MS Society. Researchers analyzed data from 719 adults with MS Stressors were categorized into emotional stressors, physical stressors, and environmental stressors. They were then analyzed with hierarchical modeling to show accumulation while retaining insight into specific types of stressors. This study is unique in that it moves beyond stressors that are traditionally measured, such as abuse and neglect, to capture environmental factors such as housing instability, discrimination, and the impact of living in an unsafe neighborhood. This is also the first study to include nuanced stressor data like duration and severity of exposures within the context of clinical symptoms of MS. The study found childhood emotional and physical stressors were significantly associated with the presence and severity of both fatigue and pain in adulthood. Environmental, emotional, and physical stressors were significantly associated with mental health challenges including depression, anxiety, PTSD, and other psychiatric disorders. Environmental, emotional, and physical stressors were significantly associated with mental health challenges “From a preventative perspective, teasing out which stressors are potentially most impactful during childhood is important to help inform intervention and policy efforts to decrease the stress experience and promote healthy trajectories from childhood into adulthood,” Polick said. Additional authors of the study include Robert Ploutz-Snyder, Tiffany Braley, Cathleen Connell, and Sarah Stoddard. The study received funding support from the National Institutes of Health (T32NR016914). To read the original article click here.

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Debunking the Myth of the Chemical Imbalance with Dr. Joanna Moncrieff

AHA Publisher — Wed, 15 Jun 2022 08:01:21 +0000

Dr. Caroline Leaf – In this podcast (episode #383) and blog, I talk to psychiatrist, researcher, professor and best-selling author Dr. Joanna Moncrieff about critical psychiatry, the difference between a drug-centered and disease-centered approach in the field of mental health, the history of psychiatry, withdrawal from psychotropic drugs, the dangers of medicalizing misery, the myth of chemical imbalance, the potential downsides of using psychedelics to treat mental health, and so much more! Joanna calls herself a critical psychiatrist. This means that she doesn’t sign on to the mainstream view of psychiatry, which claims that all mental disorders are the same as brain diseases that need to be treated with drugs, ECT and other interventions that focus on physiological or biochemical symptoms. Human beings come in all shapes and sizes—we are all different. This means we have a huge range of assets, but also a huge range of problems and difficulties. It is not helpful to just call these issues a disease or think of them in solely medical terms, unless we are convinced, by a good body of evidence, that there are specific abnormal brain issues present. Everything we do is reflected in our brains. We need to distinguish brain activity that goes along with everything we do from a neurological disease like a brain tumor. But we are also more than just our biology; everyone’s mental health issue is unique to them on a social, spiritual, biological, psychological and spiritual level. We are also more than just our biology Of course, saying a mental health issue is not a neurological disease doesn’t mean that there is nothing happening in the brain. It also doesn’t mean that we do not influence what happens in the brain by both what we do and how we live and, sometimes, by taking certain drugs. Joanna discusses this difference in depth in her book The Myth of the Chemical Cure: A Critique of Psychiatric Drug Treatment. As Joanna points out, the current disease-centered approach claims that symptoms of depression are caused by a brain chemical abnormality, and psychotropics like anti-depressants help rectify this abnormality and improve mental health symptoms. This hypothesis currently dominates the field of mental health, yet we have no evidence that it is the best way to understand mental issues. First, there is no strong evidence that depression, for example, is associated with any particular biochemical abnormality. Moreover, we do not know if the drugs we use work in this way, i.e. correcting biochemical imbalances. This is due to the fact that the mental health drugs we use are psychoactive. They cross the blood-brain barrier and change the normal state of the brain, which means they can change our feelings, thoughts, perceptions and even behaviors, just in the same way a substance like alcohol can. Joanna takes a different approach—what she calls the “drug-centered” model. This centers around understanding what prescribed psychiatric medication is doing in the brain and body, and how it is changing the state of the brain like a substance such as alcohol does. We need to understand the kind of alterations these drugs make and factor them out of the equation—we cannot simply say that they are targeting and “correcting” a hypothetical biochemical imbalance. For example, benzodiazepines are currently used to treat anxiety. These drugs, when given to someone in a high state of arousal, can help calm down the brain and body. Yet they also do the same for someone who is not anxious—they alter the brain by reducing brain activity. There is no strong evidence that these psychoactive drugs are “curing” anxiety. To understand psychoactive drugs and their use in mental healthcare, we first need to understand their general effects in people, including individuals who do not have anxiety or symptoms of another mental issue. Yes, some people may see these mind-altering effects as an improvement, but not everyone. It is also important to consider the negative outcomes that often occur when a person comes off these drugs—withdrawal symptoms can be incredibly traumatic and last for a long period of time. Unfortunately, even though there is very little specific biological evidence that distinguishes the brains of people diagnosed with mental disorders and people that are not; much of current mental healthcare research and treatments are biased in the direction of the disease-centered approach. For instance, research done on brain abnormalities in people diagnosed with schizophrenia has often been used to “prove” that schizophrenia “shrinks” people’s brains. Yet it has been shown that the antipsychotic drugs individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia take to treat also affect brain volume and function. Based on this new research, we now think that this reduction in brain volume is significantly (if not wholly) due to the effects these drugs have as they cross the blood-brain barrier, not just the fact that these individuals have been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Additionally, it is important to point out that the trials that supposedly establish the “fact” that psychiatric drugs are effective acute treatments are placebo-controlled trials. This means that psychoactive drugs are compared to an inert placebo tablet that doesn’t have any noticeable mind or brain effects. Researchers are not distinguishing whether the drug hypothetically “cures” the purported underlying basis of the disorder or is having specific mind-altering and brain-altering effects (the drug-centered model mentioned above). These trials show the psychoactive drug does something different to the placebo, a feeling which can be enhanced when people in the trials realize they are taking a psychoactive drug. People’s expectations of what treatment they get can have a powerful effect on their outcomes, which is something we do not often consider when it comes to psychiatric medications. These placebo trials are not properly double-blinded, and as such we should not be placing so much trust in the interpretations of the results and any healthcare treatments based on these interpretations. In fact, even when these trials show a positive effect when the drug is taken, this is not significant in the long term. In a large 2018 meta analysis, for example, the difference between taking an anti-depressant and placebo was incredibly small, and of doubtful clinical value. There are also many issues surrounding the research on psychiatric drug withdrawal, as Joanna discusses in detail in her book A Straight Talking Introduction to Psychiatric Drugs: The truth about how they work and how to come off them. People usually don’t take these psychoactive drugs for a few days or weeks. They generally take them for months or years, often based on research done on the long-term effects of psychiatric drugs like anti-depressants, called “relapse prevention trials”. These trials look as if they are examining the benefits of long-term treatment, but what they are actually doing is enrolling people that have already been using these drugs for years, then randomizing them to either continue the treatment or be weaned off (usually very quickly) onto the placebo. The latter group often experience intense withdrawal effects, since these drugs alter brain function and chemistry. However, in the trials, these withdrawal effects are often assumed to be because of the “brain disease”. This can make someone feel terrible or believe that there is something intrinsically wrong with them, even though what these research studies are actually studying is not the benefit of long-term treatment but the adverse effects of withdrawing from these psychoactive medications quickly. Very few studies try to wean people off these drugs gradually, and even these still have a risk of significant withdrawal effects that bias the clinical data. The longer someone is on these drugs, the greater chance that their withdrawal effects will be more significant and last longer. In Joanna’s blogs, she points out that this is why it is so important to understand how these drugs affect the mind and brain, so that you are more empowered to know what choice will be best for you and your unique circumstances. Some people may find these drugs very beneficial in the short term; however, it is important to understand how these drugs can be dependence-forming in the long term. There are ways to withdraw from psychiatric drugs, although this is best done under the guidance of an appropriate medical professional. You can reduce higher doses a lot quicker than lower doses; for lower levels, people often use tapering strips or liquids to reduce the drug by very small amounts over time. It is important to take a flexible approach, and avoid switching between certain drugs, especially anti-depressants, as much as possible. (Anti-depressants are often quite different from each other.) Joanna uses these methods in her London clinic, which she is hoping to expand into other areas of the UK and perhaps the world. Joanna and her team also want to try to set up a peer-support group to help other people trying to withdraw and find hope. Thankfully, there are also great sites like Mad in America, Rxisk, ISEPP and other patient-run websites that seek to provide people with helpful information and address all parts of the human experience, not just our biology. To read the original article click here.

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Slash Your Risk of Cognitive Decline with This Simple Dietary Intervention

AHA Publisher — Tue, 15 Jun 2021 07:00:46 +0000

Lori Alton via NaturalHealth365 – Mushrooms are prized by chefs for their meaty, smoky taste – and their ability to enhance recipes with the savory, rich quality known as “umami.” Nutritionists say mushrooms’ ability to evoke umami is due to their high content of an amino acid known as glutamate, which is also responsible for much of the flavor in meats, cheeses, simmering soups, and fish. But, there is a lot more to these edible fungi than their umami. In a recent cross-sectional, community-based Chinese study, researchers discovered that eating mushrooms can help reduce the risk of cognitive decline by slashing the odds of developing mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which affects 15 to 20 percent of people aged 65 and older. Let’s take a closer look at the groundbreaking study and the remarkable benefits of mushrooms. Warning: MCI Is Often a Precursor to an Even More Severe and Deadly Disease Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) involves slight but noticeable memory loss or forgetfulness, along with mild deficits in thinking skills, language, attention, and spatial abilities. Unlike more serious forms of dementia, MCI is not disabling, and people with the condition can still carry out normal daily activities. However, the affected person is usually aware of a decline in cognitive abilities, which is often observed by family members and close friends as well. While not all people with MCI go on to develop Alzheimer’s disease, the Alzheimer’s Association reports that MCI increases the risk. In fact, many physicians view MCI as a transition between the decline of normal aging and the more serious impairments of dementia. Here Is What to Eat to Cut the Odds of MCI by 50 Percent But, there’s good news. In a six-year study involving over 600 adults over 60 and published in the highly regarded Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, a team from the Departments of Psychological Medicine and Biochemistry at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at the National University of Singapore investigated the effects of mushroom consumption on cognition. The scientists were careful to adjust for other factors that can influence MCI, including age, gender, education, cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption, hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, physical activities, and social life. The study results were eye-opening. The team found that older adults who consumed more than two portions of mushrooms a week reduced their odds of mild cognitive impairment by an astonishing 50 percent. (A portion was defined as about three-quarters of a cup of cooked mushrooms). Intriguingly, even smaller amounts of mushrooms – such as a single weekly serving – conferred benefits as well. Lead author Lei Feng, an Assistant Professor at NUS Department of Psychological Medicine, called the results “surprising and encouraging” and the mushrooms’ effect on cognitive decline “dramatic.” By the way, the researchers found that it didn’t seem to matter which type of mushrooms were consumed. Golden, oyster, shiitake, and white “button” mushrooms – as well as assorted canned and dried varieties – all appeared to have the same effect. Researchers: Cognitive Benefits of Mushrooms May Be Due to Unique Compound Researchers credited ergothioneine, an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory compound found in mushrooms, for the beneficial cognitive effects. In fact, the study was inspired by earlier research showing that ergothioneine deficiency could be a risk factor for neurodegenerative diseases. And ergothioneine isn’t the only beneficial compound found in mushrooms. Scientists say that other constituents – including such tongue-twisting substances as hericenones, erinacines, scabronines, and dictyophorines – may help cut odds of cognitive impairment as well. And, another key to mushrooms’ ability to cause plunging odds of MCI is their choline content, an essential nutrient vital to learning and memory. The team noted that further studies on the cognitive benefits of mushrooms would include randomized, controlled trials on ergothioneine. Trials are also ongoing to explore the effects of other neuroprotective nutrients, include L-theanineand catechins from tea leaves. The Humble Mushroom Packs a Powerful Nutritional Punch Mushrooms are rich in protein, vitamins, minerals, fiber, and disease-fighting polyphenols and carotenoids – yet low in calories and fat. They also contain potent antioxidants – including immune-boosting vitamin C and the mineral selenium– and B vitamins, such as folate, riboflavin, thiamin, and vitamin B12. (Since vitamin B12 is found almost exclusively in animal products, this makes mushrooms a particularly valuable addition to the diets of vegans and vegetarians). In addition, mushrooms are the only vegan, non-fortified source of vitamin D on the planet – although the content may vary depending on how much light is used in the growing process. Some producers expose mushrooms to ultraviolet light to enhance vitamin D levels – and often feature this fact on the label. The minerals copper, iron, potassium, and phosphorous are also found in mushrooms. In addition to their beneficial micronutrients, mushrooms contain up to a gram of dietary fiber per cup. Coupled with their satisfying, chewy consistency, the fiber in mushrooms may help create a sense of satiety or fullness that can help protect against binge eating and food cravings. And, at a minimal 20 calories per cup – about a quarter of the calories in a small apple – mushrooms won’t break the daily caloric “bank.” Incidentally, in addition to protecting against cognitive decline, the benefits of mushrooms include cardioprotective and cancer-fighting properties. According to researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, beta-glucans in mushrooms may help to lower harmful LDL cholesterol. The scientists also credit mushrooms with stimulating the activity of immune cells and macrophages that can stop the spread of tumor cells. Mushrooms have long been used for both culinary and therapeutic purposes, with medicinal mushrooms revered as a staple of Traditional Chinese Medicine. But, the Singapore study suggests that a mere two servings a week of ordinary, garden-variety mushrooms might be stronger “medicine” than anyone ever suspected. Sources for this article include: ScienceDaily.com Iospress.com MedicalNewsToday.com AlzheimersAssociation.org Harvard.edu To read the original article click here. For more articles from NaturalHealth365 click here.

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Scientists Believe Constipation Can Be An Early Sign of Parkinson’s Disease

AHA Publisher — Fri, 19 Mar 2021 07:00:05 +0000

Brian Blum via Israel21c – If you suffer from constipation, it might be a sign of early Parkinson’s disease. Researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, have hypothesized that constipation – a common although not usually discussed non-motor symptom of Parkinson’s – could predate diagnosis of the neurological disease by up to 20 years. That’s important because there are currently no therapies capable of stopping the progression of the Parkinson’s. However, if it is diagnosed early enough, scientists hope that certain therapies that have proved unsuccessful later on in the disease might work to at earlier stages. Parkinson’s involves the buildup of tiny deposits of protein waste within brain cells called Lewy bodies (named after Dr. Friedrich Lewy who first discovered them in 1912). Lewy body buildup appears to be linked with specific non-motor symptoms of Parkinson’s including anxiety, sleep disorders and the loss of the sense of smell. Scientists have proposed that Lewy bodies kill some of the brain cells that control the healthy functioning of different parts of the body, including the gastrointestinal tract. Because Lewy bodies are clinically inaccessible and can’t be studied directly in the brain, scientists have had to look for related symptoms – like constipation. Lewy bodies may lurk in the brain for many years before diagnosis. The Hebrew University team, led by Prof. Joshua Goldberg of the Department of Medical Neurobiology, over-expressed a protein called alpha-synuclein in the brain cells of laboratory mice. Alpha-synuclein controls gastrointestinal motility; it is also the main constituent of Lewy bodies. The result was that the over-expression of the protein caused the mice brain cells to shrink and their electrical activity to slow down, directly affecting the physiological properties that lead to constipation. The researchers concluded that it is likely that this is also the process that occurs in humans in the early stages of Parkinson’s disease. “As far as we know, this is the first time that anyone has described a causal chain of events connecting between how alpha-synuclein protein impacts brain cells and the early symptoms that we have long known predate this disease,” Goldberg says. While the research is still hypothetical for humans, Goldberg is enthusiastic. “Consider a 55-to 60-year-old patient suffering from constipation,” he notes. “We may someday design a test based on the neural changes we discovered to determine whether there is a neural factor at play which could hint to Parkinson’s… one day in the future we are confident that we will be able to identify a variety of biomarkers – including physiological ones, like the one we propose – that will allow us to definitively diagnose the disease far earlier than we are currently able.” Goldberg worked with a team of researchers at the Hebrew University including Dr. Wei-Hua Chiu, Prof. Menachem Hanani, Prof. Rami Yaka, Dr. Danny Ben Zvi and Dr. Hadar Arien-Zakay. The results were published last week in the journal Science Advances. To read the original article click here. For more articles from Israel21c click here.

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