Depression is a clinical, mental, and emotional condition that may give rise to feelings of hopelessness and chronic sadness. It slows down the way people process everyday activities and leads the patient to a sense of constant gloom and doom. It is a disabling mental condition as per who, and may be caused due to reasons like genetics, changes in the balance of hormones, stress, grief, trauma and prolonged, chronic physical ailments. Depression is also connected with food and nutrition. Do you want to know how? 
Read on to see the three ways in which food and depression are connected. 

1. Severity and duration: depression is a mental illness that signifies an imbalance in the hormones and the emotional faculties in the brain. Nutrition is the fuel that keeps the brain and body in prime working condition. When a depressive state sets in or becomes emotionally rooted, then nutritious eating and a proper diet take a back seat as the patient succumbs to a state where he or she is not concerned about the food intake. As a result, the brain and hormonal balance get further affected. This can have an adverse effect on the severity and the duration of the depressive mode, which makes it all a vicious cycle of sorts. Poor appetite, not having proper meals, skipping meals, eating junk, avoiding social settings where food will be served, and even emotional eating are all outcomes of depression too.

2. Eating disorders: many patients who have eating disorders often experience deep rooted and chronic depression. Since despondency and hopelessness are the main characteristics of depressive behaviour, the outcome is that the patient tries to behave in a way that seeks approval. And in all this, the patient usually thinks that he or she is not'good enough. In such a scenario, the patient may start trying out fad diets and eventually fall prey to eating disorders like bulimia that make the patient overeat and then vomit. These eating disorders usually come with phases of binge eating, throwing up, starving and then repeating the cycle again. Eating in secrecy is also a symptom of this condition.

3. Nutrition to fight depression: nutrition and proper food intake can build a sense of resilience by first of all improving the overall physical condition of the patient. This can take care of a lot of angst even as the minerals and vitamins travel to the brain for better functioning in the long run.

Ensure that you eat right as a part of your therapy for depression. This is as good as taking your medication on time!

Three Ways Depression Is Connected With Food

If you are a heavy drinker or consume alcohol regularly or frequently, you should know about the harmful effects of alcohol or how it affects your body negatively. When you drink, alcohol gets absorbed into your blood and gets distributed all over your body. Alcohol consumption may cause several physical and emotional changes, which can cause great harm to the body. There are many long-term effects of alcohol abuse, which put your health at great risk.

Here are some ways in which alcohol affects the different parts of your body:

Excretory system: Excessive consumption of alcohol may cause the pancreas to produce toxic substances that interfere with its functioning. As a result, pancreatitis or inflammation of the pancreas is likely. This is a serious problem, capable of destroying the pancreas. Alcohol affects the liver severely. Excessive intake of alcohol may cause alcoholic hepatitis and lead to jaundice development. Chronic liver inflammation may cause severe scarring or cirrhosis. The formation of scar tissue may destroy your liver. When the liver and pancreas do not work properly, there is a risk of hypoglycemia. The damaged pancreas may cause unbalanced blood sugar levels, which is a serious concern.
Central nervous system: Change in behaviour is one of the primary signs of alcohol being in your system. Alcohol travels through the body and quickly reaches your brain and other parts of the central nervous system or CNS. This may lead to slurred speech and it becomes harder for you to talk. Your overall body coordination is affected along with your balance and the ability to walk properly. Over drinking negatively affects your ability to think clearly, impulse control and your ability to form memories. Long term drinking shrinks the frontal lobes of the brain. Damage to the nervous system because of alcohol may cause pain, abnormal sensations in your limbs, and numbness.
Digestive system: Alcohol also affects your digestive system in several ways. Alcohol can affect the entire digestive system starting from the mouth to the colon and a single incident of excessive drinking can wreck parts of the digestive tract.
Organ damage: Alcohol abuse damages your salivary glands, which cause irritation in the tongue and month. This may result in gum disease, tooth disease or tooth decay. Ulcers in the oesophagus or food pipe, acid reflux and heartburn are other impacts. Excessive drinking may also lead to stomach ulcers and inflammation of the stomach lining.
Inflammation of the pancreas disrupts its ability to help the process of digestion and regulate effective metabolism. Damage to the digestive system from alcohol abuse can also cause diarrhoea, gas, abdominal fullness.

Alcohol - How it Affects Your Body?

Change in voice or voice mutilation happens when the voice breaks that commonly occur when a person reaches puberty. Before puberty, almost all the girls and boys have the same voice pitch. But after puberty, a boy s voice deepens an octave and the girl s voice deepens only several tones. Therefore, it becomes easy to identify the gender through voice. 

Another type of change in voice is known as voice crack. It happens when a person unintentionally enters a higher voice pitch zone for a brief period of time. It may be due to singing, shouting, talking in noise, and several other reasons. Also, there are several medical conditions leading to voice break or hoarseness. 

Medical Causes for Change in Voice

Acute Laryngitis: In this, the hoarseness or voice loss starts suddenly. One of the reasons can be a viral infection that causes swelling of vocal cords. Staying hydrated and less talk can treat it. 

Chronic Laryngitis: It can cause acid reflux disease. Exposure to irritating smoke, infections of vocal cords, or asthma can be some of the reasons. It can be cured only through medication.

Laryngopharyngeal Reflux Disease: This problem causes a change in voice. Due to this disease, people may also suffer from swelling issues, a lump in the throat, hoarseness in voice, and throat pain. 

Voice Misuse: Excessively loud voice, prolonged talking, and inefficient voice use can cause a change in voice and also known as voice misuse. 

Risk Factors That Can Cause Voice Disorder

Aging, alcohol use, and allergies are some of the major reasons for the voice disorder. Apart from these, smoking and throat cancer also results in a change in voice or voice disorders. All these are highly risky causes for the throat and may result in long-time problems. 

Some other risk factors are thyroid, psychological stress, and neurological disorder. 

How to Treat Voice Disorder?

One can use an air humidifier to keep the air of the surrounding moist because breathing moist air is a simple solution to the problem.

Giving rest to voice is also a solution.

One must drink plenty of liquids to keep the throat hydrated.

One must avoid whispering and decongestants to take care of the throat.

One must avoid shouting for a long time.

Avoid staying in a polluted area for a long time.

Gargling the throat every day with lukewarm water is good.

Staying warm during winters is also necessary.

All these remedies are simple and can be tried comfortably. A simple change in voice can turn out to be serious if not taken proactive measures. Therefore, one must not ignore any small unintentional change in the voice.

Conclusion
One must consult ENT doctor immediately for any sudden change in voice and if the problem lasts for a long period of time. 



Change In Voice - What Can Cause It?

When man first started using tobacco, he probably did not know that it would grow to be an epidemic that could cause multiple health issues. Be it smoking or chewing, tobacco has severe negative effects on health. Take any of the current lifestyle diseases from diabetes to obesity, the common risk factor is tobacco abuse. In addition, depending on the form of tobacco used, specific organs are affected. For instance, chewing tobacco leads to oral cancer while smoking causes lung cancer.

The statistics around tobacco abuse are extremely startling and can be read below:

A total of about 90 trillion rupees are spent on various tobacco products.
About 1.4 trillion is spent on healthcare-related to conditions caused by tobacco abuse.
India has about 120 million tobacco users.
More than 7 million people die every year due to tobacco usage.
The Government has levied a GST of 28% on cigarettes, making them unaffordable, which is one of the ways to promote quitting.
For those who want to quit but are not able to, there is a quit-line setup, which is toll-free, 1800-11-2356 and is accessible from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Tobacco is a menace in all the strata of society. The lower economic classes are adversely affected both due to lack of knowledge and healthcare facilities. Therefore, the government uses the World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) that is observed by all members of the World Health Organization as an opportunity to drive this awareness.

This is celebrated on May 31st every year. Some measures that are taken to promote 'say no to tobacco' campaign are listed below.

In 1975, the Cigarettes (Regulation of Production, Supply, and Distribution) Act was introduced, which made it mandatory for cigarette packs to have a warning stating  Smoking Kills  or  Smoking is injurious to health. 
Marketing campaigns are shown in the movie theatres at the beginning of movies which depict the hazards of tobacco
Smoking is banned in most public areas, and warnings are on display.
Children below 18 are not sold tobacco products. If in doubt, the seller can ask for age identification.
Schools and colleges do not have tobacco selling within 100 meters of the campus.
The price increase ensures that not everybody has easy access to cigarettes.
Celebrities promote quitting tobacco and smoking by talking about their personal stories.
How can a healthcare professional help you?

A healthcare professional plays a vital role in a smokers life, as it the healthcare professional that can increase the odds of quitting with guidance, medication, and support. 

What should a healthcare professional do?

Identify people who smoke 
Motivate them to quit or think about quitting
Refer a person who smokes for treatment and support
Support ongoing abstinence
What is the right smoking cessation strategy?

Ask: Every smoker to visit a healthcare professional
Advice: Urge the smoker to leave smoking
Assess: Assess whether the person is willing to quit in 30 days
Assist: Plan and help Rx Quit
Arrange: Arrange a follow-up through phone or SMS or in-person
What is that people who smoke need help with?

First and  the foremost challenge are the withdrawal symptoms 
Urge to smoke and borderline depression with a possibility of relapse
People who have high pre-abstinence nicotine intake
How to get over the initial withdrawal discomfort?

Behavioural support is of proven efficacy
Can be delivered in different formats
Face-to-face
Telephone
Internet
Nicotine replacement therapy and nortriptyline are of proven efficacy
Facts On Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT)

There are no real contradictions related to NRT
No drug interactions 
Side effects, if there are any are localized e.g.
Taste of oral products
Hiccups with the mouth spray 
Skin irritation with patch 
Treatment for quitting Nicotine  - Medications: Medicines which are useful adjuncts in the determined but unsuccessful quitters are Varenicline and Bupropion. 

Though smoking out in the open has reduced, there are miles to cover when it comes to eradication of tobacco. 

World No Tobacco Day - Making An Effort To Control Tobacco Usage!

Every person is familiar with the remark  Stop fidgeting  but does anybody ever wonder why do humans fidget? Is there any scientific reason for such an action? This article will throw light on the underlying causes for what is known as fidgeting.

Fidgeting and its underlying causes

Scientific research has revealed that fidgeting has many benefits still most people get annoyed when they see another person twitching and tapping. Most people do this seemingly without any control over their movement when they are ordered to be still. Research shows that there is at least one biological reason to back this action.
Since the same brain area is used for movement and speech, it is only natural that gestures are interlinked with thorough preparation for a speech. People tend to move their hands more when they are looking for a word to say, but are not being able to find it. In a recent study, it was found that school children between the age of 6-8 years who use their hands a lot can come up with the right answers during lessons.
While this is one theory, another neurological theory suggests that a portion of the mental load is off-loaded through the process of fidgeting when people have to tackle complex problems or thoughts. The theory is called cognitive load hypothesis. The offloading mechanism frees up the mental faculties thus, devoting them to the mental process. While this may not be a definitive explanation for fidgeting, it does go to show that there is a link between a person s hand movements and their thought and speech process.
Other reasons for fidgeting

Other than the cognitive advantages, some evidence has also been found linking fidgeting with metabolism. People who fidget are found to have a higher metabolism and lower BMI. This difference can be seen between thin and overweight people. Fidgeting amidst lollygagging during the day helps burn up to 350 calories a day. Also, fidgeting among other incidental physical activity helps keep an individual fit.
Among other reasons, fidgeting also serves as a coping mechanism for people with ADD. If a person is engaged in something that he/she is not interested in then the additional sensory-motor input that is even slightly stimulating or entertaining helps the brain to get completely engaged. This helps to maintain focus on the actual activity being performed by the individual.
So, fidgeting helps distract that part of the brain that is getting bored. This helps the other parts of the brain focus better on the actual activity. This is known as floating attention which perhaps is an evolutionary trait that dates back to prehistoric times. In those times, the ability to focus entirely on a task with undivided attention was not favorable to the human since doing so could make them unaware of the enormous ravenous beast hiding behind the bushes.
Thus, though there is some degree of understanding is there when it comes to fidgeting, more research studies are required to gain further insight. Consult an expert & get answers to your questions!

Fidgeting - Why Do We Do It?

Alchol can it affect your intimacy level with your partner, yes! But with this you might be wondering how can that be possible when you actually sustain yourself for long, maybe longer than you should be. It is probably the  whiskey penis . Alcohol may give you a sense of elation at one point of time, but it is essentially a nervous depressant. The over consumption of alcohol mainly has a reduced effect on sensitivity for both men and women.

How alcohol affects sex life in men: The effect of alcohol on the sex life of men is immense. In most cases, chronic and acute cases of alcohol consumption have shown to reduce the production of testosterone in men. Since testosterone is the hormone that results in the increase in libido in men, the effects of alcohol really reduce the performance in men. It has shown to reduce pleasurability and it can also reduce the intensity of orgasms. Sometimes, it can cause difficulty in ejaculation or delayed ejaculation.

How alcohol affects sex life in women: Alcohol can have a very mixed effect on women in general. While it can increase sexual arousal and desire, it can also result in low sensitivity. Women have a higher percentage of fat as compared to water in their bodies, this means that alcohol has a more profound effect on their bodies as compared to that in men. Their bodies also take longer to process and eliminate the alcohol. While some women report a heightened sense of sexual arousal and an increase in the duration of the orgasm, a large number of women also complain of lesser lubrication.

Alcohol also has a psychological effect; that is the loss of inhibition that may help in developing carnal instincts when intoxicated. This psychological effect may have a more profound effect than the physiological effects as a result of which women might claim that alcohol does indeed help in better sex.

Alcohol - How it Affects Your Sex Life?

Don't wait any longer, manage your Neuropsychiatrist online with a Lybrate doctor today

Consult for Neuropsychiatrist - Online and Easy!

FilterClear All

COMMON SPECIALITIES

COMMON ISSUES