Depression is a disease that spreads rapidly in the world and has increased by 70% in the last 5 years in Turkey. In Turkey, 1 in 10 of the population consists of people who use antidepressants in some part of their lives. In addition, if we add people who are actually depressed but have not been seen and diagnosed by clinicians, it becomes clear how common a health problem depression is.
Depression has a wide spectrum of causes. Poor living conditions, physical sexual abuse, genetic transmission, hormonal disorders, unemployment, financial problems, family problems and some medications can cause depression as a side effect.
In addition to these, in the case of depression, an imbalance develops in some chemicals in the brain. Antidepressant drugs basically try to produce antidepressant drugs and treat patients in order to balance these chemicals.
However, some studies suggest that there may be other causes of depression other than changing chemicals in the brain. In some studies on depression patients, only 25% of the patients mention that the hormones serotonin and norepinephrine decrease in the brain. https://bit.ly/2tWzgp5
In some patients, these hormones may be found to be high on the contrary.
For exactly these reasons, it is necessary to look at depression from a different perspective.
What is Depression?
⦁ Sad, depressed mood most of the day and nearly every day
⦁ Loss of interest and satisfaction in everyday activities.
⦁ Difficulty sleeping (insomnia); Initially inability to fall asleep, waking up at night and not being able to sleep again, waking up very early in the morning or spending most of the time sleeping in some patients.
⦁ Change in activity level, either being lethargic (psychomotor slowing) or agitation.
⦁ Decreased appetite and weight loss, or increased appetite and weight
⦁ Negative self-concept, self-blame and self-blame, feelings of worthlessness and guilt.
⦁ Complaining or really having difficulty concentrating, such as slowed thinking and indecisiveness.
⦁ Recurrent thoughts of death and suicide.
Depression – Inflammation Relationship
I think it is necessary to talk about a more important situation that occurs in the body when talking about depression. Inflammation…
Inflammation can be acute or chronic. We will talk about chronic inflammation in this topic. Chronic inflammation is the general name of the problems that occur in the tissue as a result of the body’s attacking its own cells.
Causes of chronic inflammation
⦁ Sleep disorders and poor sleep
⦁ Excess weight
⦁ Vitamin and mineral deficiencies
⦁ Stress
⦁ Inflammatory foods (such as gluten, sugary foods, some cereals, etc.)
Researchers not only find the relationship between depression and inflammation, they also mention that if we minimize the reasons we have mentioned in the treatment of depression, the disease is significantly reduced. Unfortunately, our current diet contains situations that are very facilitating for inflammation and therefore depression.
If we explain the causes of inflammation in general as the title:
Toxic Foods:
I would like to point out that the less we reduce these products in our diet, the less our risk of developing many chronic diseases and depression, which is our subject, will decrease at the same rate. .
Foods that should not be in our diet and should be avoided:
⦁ Sugar
⦁ Corn syrup
⦁ Sweeteners
⦁ Corn, sunflower and canola oil
⦁ Palm oil
⦁ All kinds of trans fats
⦁ Coloring additives
⦁ Milk and dairy products containing preservatives
⦁ Foods with high sodium content
⦁ Foods containing refined flour and gluten
Stress
Stress can cause many problems in our lives as well as depression. Stress increases inflammatory cytokines in the body and triggers depression.
Everyone has ways of coping with stress, we recommend dedicating 10 minutes a day to dealing with stress. Meditation, Yoga, Walking, Psychotherapy or Complementary Medicine methods can be tried to reduce stress.
Being Overweight:
Excess weight promotes inflammation. Obesity puts your body in an inflammatory state and therefore increases the risk of depression. Just as inflammatory cytokines increase when we gain weight, all of these cytokines decrease when you lose weight and provide protection from many chronic diseases.
Sedentary Lifestyle:
The human body is not programmed to sit at a desk to work, to spend the whole day inactive. The human body should do the movement it needs. We recommend our patients to do sports for at least 1 hour a day. In addition to losing weight for one hour, this will strengthen your muscles, cause many positive hormonal changes, and increase the blood supply to the organs. Thus, it will cause both physical and mental well-being. If you have a sedentary life and a desk job, sports will be much more important.
A sedentary lifestyle increases the risk of some cancers. It causes anxiety and depression. It is a prominent risk factor for many cardiovascular diseases.
It increases the blood cholesterol level and causes the development of coronary heart and vascular diseases.
You shouldn’t just wait for the gym to move. Walking to work or leaving your car for a long distance and exercising. Choosing stairs in stairlift selections. Of course, if you have time, swimming, hiking and cycling are the activities we recommend the most.
Vitamin Deficiencies:
It has been proven that some vitamins, especially vitamin D deficiency, is related to depression. Unfortunately, there is a very high rate of Vitamin D deficiency in our society today. Vitamin D deficiencies are more common in people who see less sun, especially in winter.
In addition, vitamin D suppresses inflammatory cytokines and has a protective effect from depression. If Vitamin D cannot be drawn to a certain extent naturally, vitamin D should be taken as an external supplement. In addition, vitamin D not only suppresses inflammation, but also strengthens the immune system and reduces belly fat.
Sleep Disorders:
Many people experience sleep disorders and this problem progresses. As a result of sleep disorders, the hormonal axis is disrupted and the ground is prepared for many diseases.
Environmental Toxins:
As with foods, many environmental factors and toxins can cause inflammation. Environmental toxins from the air, the cleaning items we use, etc. we can afford.
For example:
⦁ Passive smoking
⦁ Heavy metals
⦁ Molds
⦁ Cleanliness products containing formaldehyde
⦁ Products containing lead element
⦁ Non-organic pesticides
⦁ Fish containing high mercury
⦁ Products containing paraben, synthetic colorants, SLS and many other preservatives
We Should Solve the Root Causes:
If you have depression but cannot see any organic cause, if you do not have any lifestyle or standard of living problems that may cause depression, evaluate yourself in terms of inflammation after reading this article.
And if you decide to stop inflammation, we should start with taking natural anti-inflammatory. Foods such as salmon, green leafy vegetables, Omega 3, turmeric, forest fruits should be consumed in abundance. Stress should be reduced and exercise should be done for at least 30 minutes a day.
It may be helpful to discuss this with a complementary medicine specialist or functional medicine specialist on inflammation.
Now, let’s tell you what to do step by step, what you should do to reduce inflammation
⦁ Cut out sugary products
⦁ Follow a gluten-free diet
⦁ Quit all processed foods
⦁ Cutting out milk and dairy products as much as you can
⦁ Consuming 2-3 sea fish, especially salmon a week
⦁ Minimizing environmental toxins
⦁ Chemical stay away from cleaning products
⦁ Reduce stress
⦁ Organize your sleeping hours, don’t go to bed after 12 at night.
⦁ Exercise daily
⦁ Choose organic beauty products
When you do these applications, you may feel low energy and tired in the first weeks. However, in the coming weeks, you will feel more energetic and more vigorous with many benefits. In addition, you will realize that you are thinking more comfortably and peacefully with your perception opened.
While we support depression patients with psychotherapy and acupuncture in our clinic, we also recommend elimination diets to suppress inflammation. The main changes we see in patients as a result of elimination diets are:
⦁ Weight loss
⦁ Good looking skin
⦁ Energy increase
⦁ Reduction in joint pain
⦁ Reduction in headaches
⦁ Regulation of digestion
⦁ Treating Leaky Gut syndrome
⦁ Reduction of symptoms in autoimmune diseases
⦁ Reduction of bloating
