Although medications and psychotherapy provide effective benefits to people with anxiety disorders, it still, often fails to achieve complete symptom resolution.
Anxiety disorders or any other neuropsychiatric disorders for that matter are often interlinked with underlying metabolic pathologies.
Neurological conditions and mental illnesses are characterized by metabolic disturbances such as insulin resistance, inflammation, and disturbance in the microbiome. Here lifestyle factors are key contributors. Thus it would make sense that mental illnesses deserve complementary lifestyle approaches!
This may be achieved through nutritional interventions.
Nutrition is a metabolic medicine indeed!
Microbiome-brain axis is a bidirectional relationship. Negative emotions can shift the gut ecosystem by the release of stress hormones and sympathetic neurotransmitters. Therefore, even if the current state of science does not enable precision medicine, it is still important to consider the role that positive feedback loops between the gut and brain may be playing in anxiety disorders.
Thus, the food you consume plays an important role in your mental health as well!
Chronic inflammation is a feature of almost all neurological and neurodegenerative disorders, including anxiety. Inflammatory markers like cytokines contribute to neurotransmitter imbalances in the brain (including, serotonin, dopamine, glutamate/GABA).
Refined sugars and processed vegetable oils, both can contribute to inflammation through myriad mechanisms.
Processed vegetable oils, such as corn oil and soybean oil, that contain high levels of the omega-6 fatty acids, linoleic acid, are likewise inflammatory. Having been stripped of the antioxidants that protect omega-6 fats in whole foods, the linoleic acid in processed vegetable oils incorporates into cells and tissue throughout the body, gets oxidized, and can initiate a vicious cycle of oxidation, insulin resistance, and inflammation that perpetuates metabolic and inflammatory diseases from the gut to the brain!
This can be treated well by changing the food you consume.
Elimination of refined sugars and processed vegetable oils from the diet, and their replacement with whole foods, is foundational for good physical, cognitive, and mental health.
Nutrients like omega-3 fatty acids, particularly the long-chain omega-3s, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), are potent anti-inflammatory signaling molecules that support the microbiome and are important in cognition and mental health.
Including more vitamin D in your routine will effectively help. In the brain, vitamin D regulates calcium homeostasis and ion channels, neurotransmitter levels, including dopamine and serotonin and the secretion of nerve growth factors as well. The benefits of vitamin D are also likely mediated by its role in shaping the microbiome and reducing inflammation.
Thus mental illnesses are metabolic diseases as much as they are psychological. Thus deserving a metabolic medicine like good nutrition!
Start your fitness journey today with the best trainers in Delhi