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Family participation in healthy eating habits

December 2, 2016
Family participation

Family participation in healthy eating habits is helpful in Inspiring healthy lifestyle into this generation

Family participation in healthy eating habits: Family meals

Somebody ones said that “a family that eats together stays together.” This statement is loaded with a lot of facts in the understanding family participation in encouraging healthy eating habits. This is very important and according to the experts from AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center under the able leadership of doctor Dalal Akoury MD, it is important to have the whole members of the family to be involved in the decision making if we are to succeed in raising up healthy family. In view of that, family meals needs to be taken seriously at all time because this (Family meals) is a comforting ritual for both parents and kids. Children like the predictability of family meals and parents get a chance to catch up with their kids at the table. Kids who take part in regular family meals are also:

  • More likely to eat fruits, vegetables, and grains
  • Less likely to snack on unhealthy foods
  • Less likely to smoke, use marijuana, or drink alcohol

The family meals offer the parents an opportunity to introduce their kids to new foods and to be role models for healthy eating. Besides that, parents also need to be very careful when handling teens because in many cases they are likely to turn up their noses at the prospect of a family meal not surprising because they’re busy and want to be more independent. Nonetheless studies have established that teens will still want their parents’ advice and counsel, this should be a motivation for parents to use mealtime as a chance to reconnect. You may also want to consider the following tips:

  • Allow your kids to invite a friend to dinner.
  • Involve your child in meal planning and preparation.
  • Keep mealtime calm and friendly no lectures or arguing.

What counts as a family meal? – Whenever you and your family eat together, whether it’s takeout food or a home-cooked meal with all the trimmings. Endeavor for nutritious food and a time when everyone can be there. This may mean re-scheduling time for eating dinner a little later to accommodate a teen who’s at sports practice. It also can mean setting aside time on the weekends when it may be more convenient to gather as a group, such as for Sunday brunch.

Family participation in healthy eating habits: Be a role model to your children

This brings us to the wise saying and the quote from the holy book teach a child the way they should go and when they grow up they will not depart from it. Therefore the best way for you to encourage healthy eating is to eat well yourself. Remember that kids will follow the lead of the adults they see every day. By eating fruits and vegetables and not overindulging in the less nutritious stuff, you’ll be sending the right message home for your kids.

Another way to be a good role model is to serve appropriate portions and not overeat. Talk about your feelings of fullness, especially with younger children. You might say, “this is delicious, but I’m full, so I’m going to stop eating.” Similarly, parents who are always dieting or complaining about their bodies may foster these same negative feelings in their kids. Try to keep a positive approach about food and always be consulting with doctor Akoury to have a more professional input in the family involvement.

Family participation in healthy eating habits: Family meals

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The Neurochemistry of Female Sex Addiction

May 3, 2015

The Neurochemistry of Female Sex Addiction

Female sex addictionSex addiction is a problem that many people are battling with in the US and the world over. However in the past it was thought that men were the main victims of sex addiction but research has since proved that this is a lie as women are more prone to this vice as opposed to women. Another factor that makes women more of victims is the fact that generally society has always associated women who are addicted to sex as sluts while men who are addicted to sex are often thought as studs. The reality of the matter however is, both genders are at a loss when addicted but what makes it easier for men to find help is the fact that they are free and can express their problems when addressed by their therapists and this openness helps them find help. On the other hand, women afraid of all the negative tittles they will be associated are often afraid to open up and let the problem be known and this will manifest in various behavioral changes.

Orgasm and dopamine

Most people who engage in sex for recreational purposes are often in pursuit for the highest sexual climax otherwise known as orgasm. According Wilhelm Reich orgasm naturally helps in discharge of excess bio-energy with the additional liberation of feeling energy, and he also recognized the negative consequences of blocked sexual energies. However it’s quite unfortunate that in addition to exciting peaks, orgasms tend to produce powerful negative side-effects that are only now becoming better understood. This is due to predictable trends in hormonal activity which seem to be similar in all mammals to ensure certain evolutionary objectives, especially the wide mixing of gene pools and the safe raising of offspring. This is achieved with the following neurochemical changes.

As expected there are hormones that come to play; dopamine, the reward hormone; prolactin, the hormone of satiation; oxytocin, the cuddle hormone, and levels of androgen receptors, which all powerfully affect our mood, our desire for intimacy, our perception of our mate, as well as our susceptibility to addictive activities and substances. These hormones can also have different but generally related functions.

The levels of dopamine will abruptly fall and this will induce the usual withdrawal symptoms. The fall of dopamine is rather immediate in men while it takes time in women to occur. As the level of dopamine falls the level of prolactin will heighten and the androgen receptors fall after orgasm. Low testosterone in women is associated with irritability and anger. In sexually-satiated rats it has been shown that serotonin and endorphin levels also rise, and this also decreases dopamine and raises prolactin levels. Oxytocin levels fall after conventional orgasm but remaining in close contact may help to counter this drop and sustain oxytocin levels. It is the fall of dopamine to the lows that is associated with all the withdrawal effects and women, deprived of affection will engage in sex repeatedly to enjoy the magical bliss of dopamine heights during sex especially at orgasm. This is a ‘high’ that is often compared to the feeling those using drugs of pleasure often crave.

Apart from behavioral changes a female addict will suffer from disturbed hormone equilibrium that may last for a week or two, a period in which she will be battling these side effects; being more irritable, dissatisfied, and anxious or depressed. This is exactly the same process and length of time prolactin levels need to recover during withdrawal from cocaine.

Another stimulant that is involved in sex is the phenylethylamine (PEA). PEA is also present in cocoa and chocolate and elevates energy, mood and attention. PEA is produced in greater amounts when one is in love and when this stimulant is in low levels, a person will feel unhappy and deprived.

as mentioned in earlier article, most women get addicted to sex while in pursuit of love and affection, When a woman first fall in love she becomes bonded by rising PEA, oxytocin and dopamine levels .When she is are sexually aroused by close contact her dopamine level rises further and at the time of orgasm she will have a dopamine brainstorm which one researchers have compared to the effects of heroin on the brain. Dopamine is active in all addictions, even in people who have forgotten what sex is. Most of this activity is in the limbic system, the oldest part of the brain.

What causes addiction in women?

Female sex addictionThe honest truth is that what causes sex addiction women is until now poorly understood but researchers have pointed fingers at childhood neglect or abuse, such as physical or emotional abandonment or other forms of trauma. Most of females who are sex addicts are reported to have experienced sex abuse as children. Early child abuse of nearly any kind can impair a child’s ability to bond in healthy ways as an adult, leading to chronic relationship intimacy issues that can eventually morph into sexual addiction.

Research suggests that there’s also a strong neurochemical component to both eating disorders and sexual addiction. One can become addicted to the potent neurochemical rush that occurs during an exciting sexual or romantic encounter. This neurobiological blend includes highly satisfying dopamine as well as adrenaline, oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins. Women suffering from emotional or psychological issues such as depression or anxiety and from childhood trauma or profound trauma as an adult can unconsciously use this neurochemical response to cope with stress and painful emotions. Compulsively reliving or re-enacting the pleasurable fantasies and experiences sets up an addictive cycle of using sex and sexual fantasies to control intensely painful emotions.

Integrative Addiction Conference 2015

Finally, sex addiction is not a light matter. It’s a problem that is still holding many women captives .This problem needs to be treated effectively through integrative medicine. Dr. Dalal Akoury (MD) is an expert at this. Call her on (843) 213-1480 for help.

The Neurochemistry of Female Sex Addiction

 

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Can Dopamine Depletion Cause Cocaine Addiction

January 20, 2015

Research Shows Dopamine Depletion Causes Cocaine Addiction

Dopamine depletionThe importance of dopamine in our bodies can never be underestimated. This is one of the most crucial neurotransmitters in the body. Dopamine has very many functions in the body but to many people it is famous for its good feeling effects that it is always identified with but this should not be the case as it has functions beyond the mesolimbic pathway. In the brain dopamine plays such roles as: It plays a big role in starting movement, and the destruction of dopamine neurons in an area of the brain called the substantia nigra is what produces the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. Dopamine also plays an important role as a hormone acting to inhibit prolactin to stop the release of breast milk. Back in the mesolimbic pathway, dopamine can play a role in psychosis, and many antipsychotics for treatment of schizophrenia target dopamine. Dopamine is involved in the frontal cortex in executive functions like attention. In the rest of the body, dopamine is involved in nausea, in kidney function, and in heart function.

For emphasis, dopamine isn’t only associated with good feelings but in itself has many functions. This neurotransmitter is involved in many different important pathways. However, most people can only identify dopamine with such aspects as motivation, addiction, attention, or lust, their knowledge of dopamine is limited to the mesolimbic pathway. It is a pathway which starts with cells in the ventral tegmental area, buried deep in the middle of the brain, which send their projections out to places like the nucleus accumbens and the cortex.

Whenever a person engages in any pleasurable activity like sex, use of drugs or partying the brain will respond by increasing the levels of dopamine released in the nucleus accumbens .However during addiction the dopamine signaling in this area is changed. For any drug to have any pleasurable feeling to the user then the level of dopamine must be increased and this is what causes euphoric feelings that drug users will do anything to achieve.

Cocaine abuse and dopamine surges

Cocaine is one of the drugs of pleasure that are largely used even today despite its unpleasant effects on the user. Cocaine abuse is known to trigger large surges of dopamine extracellular in limbic areas, specifically, nucleus accumbens. Researchers have shown that human imaging studies correlate descriptors of reward, for instance, the “high” and euphoria with cocaine induced increases in dopamine nucleus accumbens. There is also the issue of saliency of the reward, which seems to be driven by the novelty or unexpectedness of the activity. It is the euphoric properties of cocaine that lead to the development of chronic abuse, and appear to involve the acute activation of central dopamine neuronal systems. This is based upon known effects of cocaine on dopamine neurons, and the role played by dopamine in reward states and self-stimulation behavior. When a person uses cocaine for a long time his neurotransmitter and neuroendocrine alterations will eventually occur. Dopamine depletion is hypothesized to result from overstimulation of these neurons and excessive synaptic metabolism of the neurotransmitter. It is this depletion of dopamine that may underlie dysphoric aspects of cocaine abstinence, and cocaine cravings.

Some scientists have opined neurochemical disruptions caused by cocaine are consistent with the concept of physical rather than psychological addiction. Possible pharmacological interventions in cocaine addiction are outlined and the psychological approach to these patients is discussed. With many research findings on cocaine relations with dopamine, it is clear that cocaine addiction stems from the depletion of synaptic dopamine in the mesolimbic dopamine reward system, leading to a dysphoric withdrawal state that drives cocaine seeking to restore dopamine to normal, drug-naïve level.

Owing to its euphoric feelings, people who use cocaine find it hard to quit. When your brain has been conditioned to produce high levels of dopamine only when you are using cocaine then it will be hard for you to quit using this drug as every time you try to quit all the withdrawal symptoms, some of which may be too severe sets in and that ties a person to cocaine abuse thereby causing addiction and dependence thereafter. These cravings contribute not only to addiction but to relapse after a hard-won sobriety. A person addicted to cocaine may be in danger of relapse when he interacts with the people he used to take it with. These triggers do something to his brain that awakens his cravings for cocaine.

Dopamine depletionUsing dopamine antagonists to treat cocaine addiction

Today there is evidence that cocaine exerts its rewarding effects through the acute activation of dopamine pathways in the brain. Chronic cocaine administration is hypothesized to lead to dopamine depletion, which results in cocaine craving and cocaine abstinence states. This is a condition that has chained many to cocaine use but there is hope as treatment of cocaine addiction with bromocriptine which is a dopamine antagonist has been found to be effective in quelling all the cravings associated with cocaine addiction.

Drug addiction is a vice that should be fought by all means that is why we at AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center are committed to availing help to addicts and offering them a place to call home. We offer NER Treatment and Amino acid therapy that are the most effective approaches to addiction treatment and recovery. You call on Dr. Dalal Akoury (MD) today and begin your journey to victory against addiction.

Dopamine Depletion Causes Cocaine Addiction

 

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