An Ounce Of Prevention Blog

All alcoholic beverages contain the same chemical substance ethyl alcohol (ethanol) that has been consumed by mankind since prehistoric times. Today, alcoholic drinks are divided into three main classes: beer, wines and spirits.

The first two are produced by fermentation while spirits are made by distillation. Whatever their name or class all alcoholic drinks contain the identical chemical – ethanol which is a powerful drug. In countries like Jamaica with a drinking culture, the social conditioning cause many people to disregard the fact that alcohol is an addictive psychoactive drug whose misuse creates a multitude of problems.

Men and women who consume alcohol are known to have increased risks of many diseases. These include cirrhosis of the liver, digestive system diseases, such as gastritis, ulcers or pancreatitis, several painful and often deadly cancers, such as throat, oesophagus and liver cancer, heart disease, bone disorders, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and gout.

Alcohol is particularly poisonous to the nervous system and causes disorders such as blackouts, seizures, tremors and neuritis. It can inflame and disrupt brain function creating encephalitis and psychological and psychiatric disturbances like psychosis, personality changes, anxiety and depression. Experts estimate that a single drink of alcohol results in the death of thousands of brain cells. It negatively influences behavior, reactions, coordination, focus and judgment.

As people get older, one of their greatest fears is the fear of losing their mental functions, a condition referred to as dementia. Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia in older people, robbing them of their cognitive ability and making it harder for them to think, remember, and reason. It destroys a person's memory, particularly short term memory and the capacity to think clearly, eventually making it difficult for them to perform very basic activities.

AD was named after a German physician, Alois Alzheimer, who in 1906 first identified the condition when he performed a post mortem examination on the brain of a woman who had suffered severe memory loss and confusion for years.

Fewer men are diagnosed with AD than women but it is still a problem that men need to be aware of. About 16 percent of women over age 70 have this progressive brain disease compared with 11 percent of men in the same age range but his may be due to the fact that women tend to live longer than men. Unfortunately, these numbers are increasing at an alarming rate. Here are some useful definitions relevant to this subject.

Dementia – the usually progressive deterioration of mental function such as memory that can occur while other brain functions such as those controlling movement and the senses are retained.

The Andropause is the male counterpart to the female menopause. While it is not as rapid, as obvious or as extreme an event as the menopause, men do suffer from declining hormone levels as they age.

In the menopause, women’s sex hormones rapidly decline over several years, usually in their 50's. The sex hormones in men also decline as they age, starting earlier but much more gradually. As one doctor states, ‘women fall off a cliff. Men sort of roll down the hill.’

The Andropause is a condition in which level of the major male hormone testosterone slowly declines with age, and decreases a man’s ability to enjoy sex.  In addition to a lowering of sexual desire and erectile function, men with a low testosterone level may also notice changes in mood and emotions, a decrease in body mass and strength due to loss of muscle tissue, and an increase in body fat.

TESTOSTERONE the male hormone

The average person breathes over twenty thousand breaths per day (about 15 breaths/minute, every 60 minutes, every 24 hours). This process of breathing is fundamental to all our physical and mental functions. The respiratory system powerfully influences our heart and circulation while supporting our digestive and lymphatic systems. On a moment-to-moment basis your nervous system reacts to your breathing pattern whether you are awake or asleep. Yet although it is so important, breathing can take place unconsciously or can be brought under our deliberate control.

For thousands of years ancient traditions like Yoga have stressed the critical importance of proper breathing for good health. Modern medical science has now recognized breath-work as a complementary wellness tool in reducing stress, anxiety and depression and in lowering blood pressure. But there are important details involved in healthy breathing.

BREATHE FROM YOUR BELLY

The two main patterns of breathing are thoracic or chest breathing, and abdominal or diaphragmatic breathing. The former uses the muscles of the chest while the latter employs the diaphragm and this is far more effective. The diaphragm is a large tent like muscle that contracts to take air into the lungs. In abdominal or belly breathing, the belly rises with the in breath and sinks down with the breath out. Breathing with the chest muscles uses up more energy while moving less air.

Health and Happiness are two of the universal goals of all people. Many philosophers, spiritual teachers, the world's major religions, including Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam have prized gratitude as a morally beneficial emotional state. Pastors, priests, parents and grandparents have long extolled the virtues of gratitude, but until recently, scholars have largely ignored it as a subject of scientific inquiry. Now doctors and psychologists have joined the chorus.

Medical research indicates that there is something you can do each day to be healthier and happier and it will cost you nothing and take very little time. Be grateful. Dr. Michael McCollough, of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, and Dr. Robert Emmons, of the University of California at Davis, say their scientific study indicates that gratitude plays a significant role in a person's sense of well-being. Here are some of the benefits that a regular expression of gratitude brings.

A Healthier Lifestyle

Grateful people - those who embrace gratitude as a permanent trait rather than an occasional state of mind - have an edge on the not-so-grateful when it comes to health. Dr. Emmons' research on gratitude revealed "Grateful people take better care of themselves and engage in more protective health behaviors like regular exercise, a healthy diet, regular medical checkups”. It seems that gratitude encourages more self appreciation, more self esteem and thus more self care.

In medical terms, depression is a disorder of mood and ranges in seriousness from mild, temporary episodes of sadness to severe, persistent depression. Doctors use the term "clinical depression" of "major depression" to describe the more severe form of depression.

A depressed mood is not necessarily a psychiatric disorder as it may be a normal reaction to certain life events, a symptom of some medical conditions, or even a side effect of some drugs or medical treatments.

For the layman the term ‘depression” brings to mind images of a sad, withdrawn, teary person who stays in bed and who may be unable to eat, sleep or function normally. These are the usual symptoms associated with depression, but when a man has depression he may present quite a different picture.

Suicide risk

I often refer to the Four Pillars of Wellness: Diet, Exercise, Cleansing and Stress Management. The fourth pillar, which related to how we deal with stress, is probably the most poorly understood and handled. Emotional distress plays a significant role in virtually all medical problems and a simple yet extremely powerful tool for healthy stress management is meditation. Unfortunately, many individuals particularly some fundamentalist Christians, are strongly opposed to this practice.

WHAT IS MEDITATION

You may not have realized that the word meditation comes from the same root as medicine and medical, and the word originally described a technique for being healthy and whole.  In fact meditation is medicinal and it can help to promote optimal health.

The human mind is a powerful facility that gives us the capacity to think. Scientists estimate that the average person thinks about 60, 000 thoughts each day and most of those thoughts are the ones we have day after day: we repeat the same thoughts over and over again. Our thoughts have power and influence our health, our peace and our fortune. This makes the mind an extremely powerful tool that can heal us or harm us.

Thankfully, there has been an increase in public awareness about stress and the importance of good mental health and the month of April has even been designated Stress Awareness Month. More emphasis however needs to be placed on the relationship between the food we eat and our mental health. Research by the UK based Mental Health Foundation suggests that the modern diet has created nutritional imbalances that may adversely affect our mental health.

Their research suggests that eating too little fresh foods and consuming too much processed foods containing unhealthy fats and sugars is leading to depression, anxiety, memory problems, stress related and other mental disorders. Experts from the food industry claim the research is not conclusive, but a group of Canadian psychiatrists have successfully treated thousands of patients with a variety of mental illnesses using a nutritional approach called Orthomolecular Psychiatry. They have used nutrition and vitamin supplements to treat major and minor psychiatric disorders. Food can affect how your brain functions in several ways.

FATTY ACID IMBALANCE

Sixty percent of the dry weight of the brain is fat, including the Essential Fatty Acids (EFA’s) like omega-3 fats. These are good fats, and unfortunately are in short supply in the modern western diet. EFA's are important components of nerve cell membranes and are involved in the electrical and chemical activity in the brain.

Many substances naturally present in the human body are being discovered and found to have healing properties. One such compound is called SAMe, the scientific name for S-adenosylmethionine. This substance is found in every cell in our bodies and, on average, humans produce six to eight grams of SAMe daily. It takes part in several biological reactions in the human body, including balancing brain function, joint cartilage repair, liver detoxification and cell membrane activity.

SAMe and Depression

Among its many functions, SAMe is essential for the manufacture of substances called neurotransmitters that are vital for the healthy functioning of the brain. Specifically SAMe may enhance the production and impact of the mood-boosting messengers in the brain - serotonin and dopamine. An imbalance in these substances is now known to be a major factor in depression. Since the 1990’s, many medical trials have been conducted using SAMe in the treatment of depression.

The overwhelming consensus of these studies is that SAMe is at least as good as, and probably better than many antidepressant drugs in treating depressive illness. Study after study confirmed that SAMe is not only effective but also remarkably non-toxic with few side effects. It is fast acting and well tolerated even by the elderly or the mentally disturbed.

In today’s world an increasing number of our work force work at night. It is estimated that about 20 percent of the working population in the Western world is engaged in shift work. In addition our modern western lifestyle has many people staying up late at night and sleeping more during the day. The natural human sleep-wake cycle is designed for us to be awake during the day and to sleep for approximately eight hours at night.

There is a portion of the brain called the ‘circadian clock’, which monitors the amount of light and darkness we experience. With darkness, this clock signals the pineal gland (in the brain) to produce a hormone called melatonin, which gives the body the signal to fall asleep. Overnight, melatonin levels remain high and fall at daybreak remaining low during the day.

Then in the day the levels of other chemicals such as noradrenaline and acetylcholine are increased in the body to keep you awake and alert. This system regulates the day-night cycle. Several other bodily functions including temperature control, digestion, heart rate, blood pressure, eye pressure and  hormone production fluctuate through the day due to the activity of the circadian clock. 



This changing rate of activity over each 24-hour period is known as the circadian rhythm. Night workers, or people who consistently go to bed after midnight are disrupting their circadian rhythm. This may endanger their health and research now to shows that shiftwork can definitely be hazardous to your health.