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Seeking for support in dealing with addiction

Seeking for support in dealing with addiction: Why it is necessary that you get help from the professionals?

Seeking for support in dealing with addiction

Seeking for support in dealing with addiction from experts is paramount in solving all problems of addiction and avoiding future relapse.

The journey of addiction recovery will not be an easy one and therefore when adding nutrition to your list of elements and tools of fighting addiction, it will be very important for you to find and collaborate with a trained nutritionist who can tailor your diet to your specific needs in recovery. Remember that no matter where you live, seeking for support in dealing with addiction is not optional and for sure it will not be difficult for you finding a trained nutritionist within your locality. The good news to you is that when you reach out for experts at AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center under the able leadership of doctor Dalal Akoury, you will not only find nutritionist but also highly qualified addiction experts who will be able to holistically address all your nutritional and addiction needs professionally and timely leaving you to enjoy your life to the fullest thereafter.

Dr. Akoury is fellowship trained and certified in anti-aging functional and regenerative medicine, as well as having more than twenty years of accumulated experience in emergency medicine, pediatrics, and a master’s degree in public health. She has also served fellowships in pediatric hematology/oncology and has performed research in leukemia and the effects of smoking. Besides that her decision to create a medical center whose main objective is to transform each individual’s life through increasing awareness about health and wellness and by empowering individuals to find their own inner healing power was guided by the enormous struggle that she saw in the faces of those struggling with addiction problems. It will also interest you to note that Dr. Akoury’s practice focuses on personalized medicine through healthy lifestyle choices that deal with primary prevention and underlying causes instead of patching up symptoms. Therefore if you or any of your loved ones is struggling with any kind of addiction, you can reach out for her on telephone number 843 213 1480 and schedule for an appointment with her to have all your addiction needs professionally addressed today.

Seeking for support in dealing with addiction: The sugar saboteur and food as a substitute addiction

In her practice, doctor Akoury strongly emphasizes on sugar regulation because of its addictive nature. It is not uncommon, she says, for people recovering from drug and alcohol addiction to become addicted to sugar. Alcoholics are especially prone to sugar addiction and to the energy rollercoaster that accompanies it, nonetheless that is not all because sugar addiction also affects other addicts too. Akoury believes that eating in a way that promotes blood sugar spikes and crashes is a recipe for disaster when it comes to maintaining your sobriety. She says that when you get that blood sugar crash, your body craves for more sugar. In an alcoholic’s mind, and it works this way in a drug addict’s mind too, when you crave sugar it immediately translates in your brain to alcohol and you get a really strong craving for alcohol. It may be a craving that you can’t control. By regulating their blood sugar, recovering alcoholics can avoid the sugar highs and lows that often send them running for a drink. According to her, in many cases, an addict’s overwhelming urge for his or her next fix is actually a sugar craving in disguise.

The tendency for recovering addicts to develop sugar addiction as they withdraw from alcohol or drugs is an example of a very common phenomenon in addiction recovery. It is not uncommon for those recovering from addiction to turn to food as a replacement. According to a study published in the international research journal Appetite, men in the early stages of recovery often practice dysfunctional eating habits, including substituting food for their drug of choice.

Seeking for support in dealing with addiction: The role of amino acids

Professionals at AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center agrees that one of the most promising areas of nutritional therapy for recovering addicts relates to neurotransmitters, amino acids, and how they all affect the brain. Research has also demonstrated that the substantial role neurotransmitters, the chemicals that transmit messages between neurons and other cells in the body, play in addiction.

The connection between neurotransmitters and addiction results from the ability of drugs and alcohol to impact the brain’s output of certain neurotransmitters. For example, cocaine causes the brain to increase its production of the neurotransmitter dopamine which impacts mood and stimulates the feeling of pleasure. A problem arises, however, when the brain has been artificially stimulated to produce a neurotransmitter so often that it no longer produces this neurotransmitter on its own. Essentially, what this means is those recovering from addiction are dealing with a brain that no longer creates neurotransmitters, like dopamine, which play an integral role in their well-being.

According to doctor Akoury, amino acids, which are the building blocks of protein, are precursors to neurotransmitters including those most related to addiction like serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. This connection indicates the potential to treat addiction through the targeted consumption of amino acids, which can be done through the intake of certain foods or supplements. Since dopamine is the key neurotransmitter involved with addiction and is associated with ‘reward,’ it is critical to restore depleted dopamine levels through a higher protein intake. Phenylalanine is an essential amino acid which is widespread in food that becomes tyrosine, which is converted to dopamine.

An example of how amino acid supplementation works for addiction can be found in the instance of alcohol withdrawal. Alcoholics going through withdrawal experience an increased turnover of the neurotransmitter norepinephrine. The amino acid phenylalanine, however, is a precursor to norepinephrine. If an individual recovering from alcohol addiction eats foods high in phenylalanine, like meat and fish, he will be helping to fulfill the need for this neurotransmitter during withdrawal.

Finally says doctor Akoury, it is important to note that dietary recommendations do vary mostly depending on the substance you are withdrawing from. Alcohol and opiates, for example, negatively impact the stomach it therefore means that people recovering from these substances should work to restore gut health through increased intake of probiotics. Cocaine however is associated with essential fatty acid deficiency, so those recovering from cocaine addiction would benefit from increased consumption of Omega 3. Because of these nuances in each recovering addict’s dietary needs, it is important to collaborate with a trained nutritionist to determine what nutritional approach will help you most on your road to recovery.

Seeking for support in dealing with addiction: Why it is necessary that you get help from the professionals?

 

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Why some food stuff motivates food addiction

Why some food stuff motivates food addiction: When the food you feed on becomes the problem to your health

Why some food stuff motivates food addiction

Why some food stuff motivates food addiction? Responding to the root cause of food addiction is very fundamental in containing all the triggers of food addiction.

Ordinarily we need food to supply our bodies with energy it needs to function well. Food is actually healthy for the body and we cannot do without it. And even though food is necessary for our lives, when we do not take some of these food stuff well they can be the cause of our health problems. In other words when we over eat we are likely to become overweight or obese and on the other side if we take inadequate food consistently we risk being malnourished and underweight conditions which can lead to serious health complications. It is on that back drop that we want to take time and consult with the experts from AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center under the able leadership of doctor Dalal Akoury a renowned veteran addiction expert of several decades. It is regrettable that in many cases overweight people are often seen or believed to be either going through this because of their laziness or that they just don’t have the will power to actively operate normally. This analogy is actually misleading because the choice of food one feeds on, when they feed on it and the frequencies of exercise you do will affect your weight significantly. Doctor Akoury is explaining that some of the food stuffs that were previously ignored may actually the drivers of an addiction in our lives. It is because of this reason that we want to benefit from doctor Dalal Akoury in the discussion of the topic “why some food stuff motivates food addiction in our societies.” And some of such food stuff may include: chocolate, sugar, cheese, milk and meat. The question that will now follow is that, how are they causing addiction? Let us now respond to that as we progress into the discussion as follows:

Why some food stuff motivates food addiction: Chocolate

From various studies experts have now established that chocolate stimulates the very same part of the brain just in the same way as opiate drugs does. It therefore means that chocolate even though it is food, it acts in the same way a drug producing food addiction that causes us to crave for more food. This will then continue and before we realize, we are on the road to being addicted to chocolate. According to the experts at AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center we all have a duty to be on the watch out and therefore emphasis should be made to everybody that food addiction is a serious issue and must be given all the due attention lest things get out of hand. Remember that chocolate as food contains other stimulant drugs like caffeine, theobromine and pheylethylamine and according to expert’s chocolate is not just a drug but a whole drug store wrapped up in one.

Why some food stuff motivates food addiction: Cheese

We have now seen how chocolate can be a serious threat to addiction and that immediate attention must be taken expeditiously if we are to kick off addiction from our societies. Now besides chocolate, experts have established that it is not just chocolate that brings food addiction. However when people who were consuming meat and other dairy products are stopped from consuming the same, the yearning for cheese was described as a “deep seated craving” that stayed with them much longer than their compulsion for other foods. Researchers also found a chemical in cow’s milk similar to morphine, and after testing it repeatedly, they discovered that it was, in fact, morphine. It was only a trace amount, and not all the samples contained the chemical in recognizable levels, but there was indeed a small amount of morphine in cow’s milk.

Therefore assuming that the morphine must have come from the cows’ diets, researches were actually shocked to find that the cows actually made traces of it within their bodies, along with codeine and other opiates that were produced in their livers. Besides the findings were equally surprising to learn that cow’s milk (and the milk of any species) contains the protein, casein that breaks down during the digestion process, and releases other opiate-like compounds called casomorphins. What does this have to with cheese? Casein is concentrated in cheese. So we have the makings of another possible food addiction.

Why some food stuff motivates food addiction: Milk

From the illustrations and explanations above, the question that rings in everyone’s mind would be why are there traces of morphine in milk? (Actually, it’s not some environmental problem.) Scientists believe that the mother’s milk has a relaxing effect on the baby, and this drug-like effect on the brain is responsible for the bonding that is necessary, for the baby to get the nutrition he needs. In one of the studies, researchers gave volunteers yogurt and skim milk, and found that the casein (milk opiates) not only acted within the digestive tract, but some of the fragments actually entered the bloodstream, with direct access to the brain. The effect was greatest about 40 minutes after eating. And as we had mentioned before, cheese has more casein than other dairy products. (Recent studies have found that meat also stimulates the brain’s pleasure centers.) To further prove their theory, researchers found that when volunteers were given naloxone, (a drug that blocks opiates, used in the treatment of heroin and morphine overdoses), their desire for cheese, meat, chocolate, and other addictive foods was greatly decreased.

Why some food stuff motivates food addiction: Sugar

In addition, scientists have discovered that fast foods, like hamburgers and fries, may also be responsible for food addictions. The high fat and carbohydrate content causes changes in the brain that are normally correlated with drug addiction, (and the result is food addiction.) Sugar and fat stimulates the release of natural opiates in the brain, and may be triggering the same response as heroin. After giving rats a diet that was one quarter sugar, he abruptly withdrew the sugar, and the rats went into high anxiety mode, experiencing trembling and teeth chattering, similar to the effects that occur during morphine or nicotine withdrawal. So, in review, the sugar produced the same withdrawal effects that highly addictive drugs do.

Finally doctor Dalal Akoury says that food addiction plays an enormous role in our eating habits, when we’re depressed, tired, lonely, anxious, worried, fearful, etc. we often run to the addictive food of choice. People may be different and for many people, it is chocolate and sugar, with carbohydrates following close behind, which is particularly bad and that, explains why diabetic is rising. Certain foods act as drugs, because our body responds to the natural opiates in them, just as it would to drug opiates. As we experience these effects over and over, we may develop a food addiction. Therefore if you are suspecting any possibility of an addiction of whatever form or kind, you will need to take treatment action promptly so that you can be help with less or just minimal pain. Talking to doctor Akoury should be your staring point and therefore you can schedule for an appointment with her today for the commencement of your recovery process.

Why some food stuff motivates food addiction: When the food you feed on becomes the problem to your health

 

 

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