Month: June 2019

The Impact Of Mental Health On Overall Wellness Marissa Elman

The Impact of Mental Health on Overall Wellness

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On June 10, 2019

In Fitness, Health & Wellness, Marissa Elman, Mental Health

Within the past few decades, the understanding of the relationship between physical and mental health has become more evident due to advancements in the fields of psychiatry and psychology. Before this revelation, the healthcare community and society viewed these two as separate entities. However, with recent research, there is a strong correlation between the two. Put simply, taking care of your physical wellness is not sufficient to live a healthy life; you need to ensure you are healthy both physically and mentally. Additionally, there seems to be a connection between those with mental health conditions and physical health disorders, further enforcing the importance of better mental health care.

 

Patients diagnosed with Schizophrenia are two times more at risk of death from heart disease and three times more at risk of death due to respiratory disease. This relationship is also seen in the reverse. Patients diagnosed with Psoriasis, which is a skin condition that results in dry, scaly, silvery plaques on the surfaces of knees and elbows, have a 1 in 3 chance of experiencing anxiety and depression. 1 in 10 psoriatic patients have contemplated suicide, and 1 in 3 experience problems in their relationships with loved ones.

 

Mental Disorders affect roughly 20% of the total population, and around 4% have a severe mental impairment. This population is at a higher risk of developing chronic physical illnesses, physical injury, accidents, violent tendencies, and suicidal thoughts or actions. The current issue is that the healthcare system is inadequately capable of dealing with mental illnesses while also treating physical ailments.

 

Patients often are unable to receive adequate care for their mental illnesses. This allows physical illnesses to recur since patients with mental illnesses have higher morbidity rates than mentally healthy patients. Typically, standard insurance plans do not include mental healthcare coverage, so patients may not be able to receive the care they need when it is most important. This drives healthcare costs ups since underlying mental illnesses go unchecked. Also, society views mental illnesses in a negative light that treats it not as a disorder but more like a conscious choice.

 

Advancements in psychiatry in recent decades are bringing treatment modalities to the forefront that are now being considered at the time of diagnosing patients. Ohio State Harding Hospital has included a focus on nutrition and spirituality when treating their patients. Harding Hospital is a prime example of how patients could be treated in the future that will allow for a more holistic approach to treatment. Focusing on treating the patient will allow patients to remain illness-free for longer. Learning from hospital systems that have already adopted the view of mental and physical well-being is the most effective way to treat patients holistically.

Treating both mental and physical ailments is essential for patients and providers alike; failing to do so will result in a decrease in quality of life and negative long term effects.

What Is The Paleo Diet Marissa Elman

What is the Paleo Diet?

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On June 3, 2019

In Marissa Elman, Paleo Diet

A Paleolithic diet, or Paleo diet, normally refers to the regimen that humans are presumed to have subsisted on during the Paleolithic or “Old Stone Age” period. This era began around 2.5 million years ago when it is believed that people first began using stone tools, and the diet accounted for a number of physiological changes that occurred in humans as they dealt with periodic shifts in climate and began to control fire. It is also known as the “Stone-Age diet,” “caveman diet,” and “hunter-gatherer diet.”

 

The main ingredients of the Paleo diet consist of wild game and fish, eggs, and the roots, fruits, nuts, and vegetables of wild plants. Usually absent are foods such as beans, grains, dairy, processed sugars, oils, and salt, as most of these items were unavailable prior to the emergence of agriculture and livestock domestication around 10,000 years ago. The diet is typically low in sodium and carbohydrates and high in protein.

 

However, it’s uncertain precisely what Stone Age humans subsisted on as well as portion size and preparation styles given the genetic, geographical, and opportunistic differences affecting various populations. For example, grains from wild grasses as well as legumes and insects may have been available and possibly consumed by some but not others, while the availability of meat and fish might have varied considerably due to environmental factors like climate and nearby sources of freshwater.

 

Modern interest in the Paleo diet was sparked in 1975 by Walter Voegtlin, a gastroenterologist who proposed a similar regimen in his book “The Stone Age Diet.” In 1985, Dr. Boyd Eaton and anthropologist Melvin Konner published “Paleolithic Nutrition,” which later inspired Loren Cordain, an expert in exercise physiology, to publish “The Paleo Diet” in 2002. The Paleo diet has since increased in popularity, often as a weight-loss regimen.

 

Cordain and other proponents of the diet state that, metabolically and genetically, human physiology has changed little since the end of the Stone Age, and that the rapid advent over the past century of processed and artificial ingredients, trans fats, and excess sodium has led to an increase in disorders such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and irritable bowel disease. It is proposed that the Paleo diet is better suited to human physiology and therefore promotes a leaner, more energetic and healthier lifestyle overall.

 

Naturally, there is no one diet that will suit every individual’s needs. Still, the principles of the Paleo diet could be beneficial for everyone if applied with consideration to specific dietary restrictions or allergies.

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