Unravelling Good Food Good Mood Concept and Homoeopathy

Dr Pooja P Mudhol

Introduction
Food cravings are defined as strong inclinations or cravings for a specific kind of food. Certain experiences that are indicative of a food craving include anticipating either positive or negative reinforcement if one eats the food, having strong urges to find and consume the food, and having intense and intrusive thoughts and multisensory imagery of the food.¹

Cravings are our body’s way of telling us that something is missing from our diet—a vitamin, mineral, protein, or another nutrient—or that there may be a chemical component involved. This is why cravings are more prevalent in people who are depressed or experiencing emotional distress. Emotional eating is the habit of consuming large amounts of junk food or “comfort” food in response to emotions rather than hunger. “The technical definition of emotional eating is eating to escape, numb, change, or amplify our feelings,” says psychologist Susan Albers. Experts estimate emotions contribute to 75% of overeating.¹³

A lot of us discover that, at least for a time, eating can be comforting. Because of this, we frequently turn to food to soothe our emotional issues or ease our discomfort.

Emotion and desire are frequently involved in food cravings, in addition to their physiological causes. According to renowned researcher Drewnowski “food cravings arise to satisfy emotional needs, such as calming stress and reducing anxiety.” Many of us find that when we’re worried or stressed, our cravings intensify. Our levels of the calming hormone serotonin are increased by carbohydrates. Additionally, new studies indicate that the combination of sugar and fat may have a calming effect.

Basic facts:
Stressed emotional eaters ate sweeter high -fat foods and a more energy-dense meal than unstressed and non-emotional eaters. Dietary restraint did not significantly affect appetitive response to stress⁴

Emotions are found to be a major factor in food cravings. “When we’re stressed, anxious, frustrated, lonely, all those feelings can trigger our cravings”. Furthermore, we might remember how certain foods made us feel in the past when we were younger.

Many a times, we must have noticed that we crave for certain specific food items, especially when we are emotionally disturbed. It could be when we are angry, lonely or during the time of our sadness, anxieties, depression, frustration and sometimes when we feel happy too. So at these times, when we indulge in eating the food we crave, rather than expressing our emotions, we tend to stuff them down with food, which our bodies translate as comfort and fulfilment. Eating to self soothe becomes a habit preventing us from learning skills that can effectively resolve our emotional distress. Scientific research shows that when people have difficulty identifying the emotion they’re experiencing and ways to deal with it, they’re more prone to binge eating. The more readily we can express our emotions, the healthier our bodies, hearts and minds will be, depression, boredom, loneliness, chronic anger, anxiety, frustration, stress, problems with interpersonal relationships and poor self-esteem can result in overeating and unwanted weight gain.

Eating can be: Social (eating with other people in the vicinity).  For instance, feeling inadequate in front of others, eating to fit in, or receiving encouragement from others to eat can all lead to excessive eating. Emotional (eating to “fill the void” or to cope with feelings brought on by recollections of unpleasant past experiences), stress, exhaustion, tension, depression, anger, anxiety, and loneliness Situational eating refers to eating when the chance arises. For instance, going to a restaurant, noticing a food advertisement, walking past a bakery, etc. Additionally, eating may be connected to certain activities like watching TV, going to the movies, or attending a sporting event.

Eating to self-soothe becomes a habit preventing us from learning skills that can effectively resolve our emotional distress. Scientific research shows that when people have difficulty identifying the emotion they’re experiencing and ways to deal with it, they’re more prone to binge eating. The more readily we can express our emotions, the healthier our bodies, hearts

and minds will be, depression, boredom, loneliness, chronic anger, anxiety, frustration, stress, problems with interpersonal relationships and poor self-esteem can result in overeating and unwanted weight gain.

Due to thoughts (Eating because one has low self-esteem or fabricating justifications for eating). For instance, chastising oneself for Often, we must have observed that we have cravings for particular foods, particularly when we are experiencing emotional distress. It may occur during moments of rage, loneliness, sadness, anxiety, depression, or frustration. It can also occur occasionally during moments of happiness. Therefore, instead of expressing our emotions when we overindulge in the food we crave, we often stuff them down with food, which our bodies interpret as comfort.

Daily cravings can be overwhelming, but our bodies may be communicating with us through these cravings. Our bodies are remarkable bio-computers with an error-free record of about 100 trillion, making them a powerful tool for self-reflection and self-improvement.

Interconnected cells work around the clock to ensure our senses function. Cravings are vital signals for maintaining equilibrium, and can be caused by yin/yang imbalance, dehydration, nutritional deficiencies, harmonic causes, emotional issues, and cravings for sweets, salt, caffeine, and other foods.⁵

Emotional Association
If you have a strong emotional association with a food, you are likely to crave that food when you are really craving the associated emotion associate family gatherings with apple pie, you might crave apples when you are feeling lonely. If you had a fantastic time picking blueberries with a group of friends, you might crave blueberries when you really just miss your friends. These types of cravings are a type of emotional eating. While indulging a fruit craving does great things for your health, it is important to get out of the habit of eating as an emotional response; fruit might not be the focus of your cravings forever, and when the cravings turn to cheesecake, an ingrained emotional eating habit can wreak havoc on your health.⁷

 Serotonin Connection

 Serotonin is a neurotransmitter in your brain associated with pleasant feelings and happiness.

Your body requires carbohydrates in order to produce this neurotransmitter.

Without carbohydrates as a food source, your body may not manufacture serotonin. The lack of serotonin can affect your moods, causing you to feel cranky or fatigued. This is one of the complex reasons you may crave carbohydrates — your body may be sending you signals to improve your mood, which could be one of the reasons why women with premenstrual syndrome tend to want carbohydrates.

Serotonin is a chemical messenger that’s believed to act as a mood stabilizer. It’s said to help produce healthy sleeping patterns as well as boost your mood.

It’s even been looked at as a treatment for depression. This is because people who have depression often have a low serotonin level. Studies show that serotonin levels can have an effect on mood and behavior, and the chemical is commonly linked to feeling good and living longer Serotonin is synthesized from the amino acid tryptophan.

The Serotonin Theory:
The effects of carbohydrates and protein Serotonin is an important neurotransmitter that the brain produces from tryptophan contained in foods such as “clams, oysters, escargots, octopus, squids, banana, pineapple. include the regulation of sleep, appetite, and impulse control. Increased serotonin plum, nuts, milk, turkey, spinach, and eggs. Functions of serotonin levels are related to mood elevation. Wurtman and Wurtman (1989) developed a mood in disorders such as carbohydrate craving obesity, pre-menstrual syndrome, and theory suggesting that a diet rich in carbohydrates can relieve depression and elevate seasonal carbohydrate intake associated with these disorders represented self-medicating affective disorder (SAD). They theorized that increased patients carbohydrate intake associated with these disorders represented self medicating attempts and that carbohydrates increased serotonin synthesis. A protein rich diet, in contrary, decreases brain serotonin levels. The synthesis of serotonin in the brain is limited by the availability of its precursor tryptophan into the brain is proportional to the ratio of its concentration to that of the share the same transport carrier across the blood-brain barrier. The transport of transporters. Eating foods high in protein increases the amount of many amino acids sum total of the other large amino acids since they compete for available

Therefore, many large amino acids compete with a small amount of tryptophan for in the blood but not of tryptophan, which is only found in low doses in dietary protein synthesis. Consuming foods high in carbohydrates can also change amino acid levels transport into the brain, meaning that less tryptophan is available for serotonin in the blood. As blood glucose levels rise, insulin is released and enables muscle tissues to take up most amino acids except for tryptophan, which is bound to albumin in the blood. As a result, the ratio of tryptophan relative to other amino acids in the blood increases, which enables tryptophan to bind to transporters, enter the brain in large amounts, and stimulate serotonin synthesis.

The potential of increased carbohydrate intake to treat depression, pre-menstrual only a protein content of less than 2% of a meal favored the rise in serotonin syndrome and SAD remains small, however. Benton and Donohoe (1999) found that levels. Foods high in carbohydrates such as bread and potatoes contain 15 percent and 10% of calories, respectively, that come from protein thereby undermining the effects of carbohydrates on serotonin levels.¹²

Mood-Food Relation:
As much as food can affect our mood, our mood can also affect our food choices. In a mood effects on food choice study by Macht (1999), female and male participants were asked to report how their eating patterns changed with emotions of anger, fear, sadness, and joy. When feelings of fear and sadness. Anger increased comfort and impulsive eating, and joy experiencing anger and joy, participants experienced increased hunger as compared to increased eating for pleasure. Another study found that people eat more less-healthy comfort foods when they are sad, Participants either watched a happy or a sad movie were provided with buttered popcorn or seedless grapes throughout the movie. The group watching the upbeat movie consumed significantly more grapes and less popcorn than the group watching the sad movie. In addition, when participants were provided with nutritional information, the sad people consumed less popcorn than the happy people and the happy didn’t alter their consumption.⁶

The relationship between tryptophan and serotonin is part of what’s commonly considered the food-mood connection. Carbs Come In Handy. Carbs cause the body to release more insulin, which promotes amino acid absorption and leaves tryptophan serotonin boost. Serotonin isn’t found in foods, but tryptophan is. Foods high in the blood. If you mix high-tryptophan foods with carbs, you might get a protein, iron, riboflavin, and vitamin B6 all tend to contain large amounts of the amino acid. Unfortunately, though, boosting your serotonin levels isn’t as simple as eating high tryptophan diet.⁸

Psychological effects of food consumption:
Cognitive factors are often more powerful than physiological factors. For example, if a group of dieting individuals is asked to eat foods high in calories, the might experience anxiety and other negative emotions because they are afraid of gaining a group of dieting individuals is asked to eat foods high in calories, they might weight. These effects have nothing to do with the ingredients of the foods themselves our favourite foods usually trigger positive emotions. Even the smell of food can evoke In addition, learned appetites can also influence our experience of foods. For example, a strong emotional experience. Furthermore, the situation in which food is consumed and our past experience with particular foods also affects our emotional response. For example, a person who thinks that drinking a cup of coffee will increase alertness might feel more alert even after drinking decaffeinated coffee.¹²

HOMOEOPATHIC REMEDIES WITH MARKED CRAVINGS AND ASSOCIATED MENTAL SYMPTOMS^10,11,12
We can give importance to cravings and desires by corelating to his mood disturbed at present state in order to treat any emotional disturbances where patient might feel this has to be treated so by taking into consideration the entire portrait of his state we can treat his/her condition.

According to Dr. Hahnemann in the 6th edition of the Organon, in Homoeopathy sickness is not a local affair but involves the man as a whole psychologically as well as his physical makeup. The line of management in this system of medicine is the selection of medicine depends on various factors like disposition features both mental and physical planes after analysing life space situations, patient as a person, his general attributes, predisposition, family history etc. which determines the individuality of a person.^. The aim of homoeopathy is not to just treat the disease but to address the underlying cause. The indicated remedy in any case is the remedy that corresponds to the totality of symptoms.¹⁴

1. NUX VOMICA: Mental symptoms: Tremendous Iritability; scolds very severely

Cravings: fats, spices which aggravates him. Craves pungent (Kent)

2. HEPAR SULPHURIS CALCAREUM: Mental symptoms: Ferocious Abusive Wants to kill those who offend him Wants to set things fire.

Cravings: spices, fats and sour, highly seasoned food and condiments

3. CHOCOLATE: Mental symptoms: want of warmth and affection;need for contact;feels forsaken, isolated and estranged from family craves for love;

Cravings : Craves chocolate

4. PULSATILLA: Mental symptoms: very affectionate and caring feels extremely forsaken. very dependent invites warm caress or a hue

Cravings: ice cream, pastries, batter cakes(kent)

5. PHOSPHOROUS: Mental symptoms: feels unloved and uncared for and estranged from her family

Cravings: Desires ice creams, chocolate, sweets

6. ARGENTUM NITRICUM: Mental symptoms: Fear of narrow spaces, failure, falling, anticipation. This remedy has sudden anxiety attacks. The person has the fear of undertaking anything

Cravings:  Longing for sugar

7. COFFEA CRUDA: Mental symptoms: Gaiety, easy comprehension, irritability, tossing about in anguish, violent irregular palpitations especially after excessive joy or surprise. Rapid high tension, pulse and urinary suppression. sleepless, on account of mental activity, with nervous excitability.

Cravings: excessive hunger, coffee

References:

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9. THE SOUL OF REMEDIES.Breihat consultants.Pondicherry, HOMOEOPATHIC MEDICAL;1997
10. HENRY N GUERNSEY Key-notes to the material medica JAIN PUBLISHING PUBLISHERS CO; 1984
11. .BOERICKE WILLIAM. Pocket manual of homoeopathic material medica and repertory.B Jain Publishers.1996
12. Kaplan HI, Sadock B. Synopsis of psychiatry: Behavioral sciences, clinical psychiatry. 8th ed. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams and Wilkins; 1998.
13. Getting over overeating. (n.d.). WebMD. Retrieved July 4, 2024, from https://www.webmd.com/obesity/features/getting-over-overeating
14. Hahnemann Samuel. Organon of Medicine, 6 the; New Delhi; B. Jain Publishers. 2011,3132p.

Author:
Dr Pooja P Mudhol, PG Scholar,
Father Muller Homoeopathic Medical College, Mangalore
Co- Guide: Dr Girish Navada UK HOD, Department of Psychiatry, Dr Justina M Steefan Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry