Pregnancy and Nutrition

Pregnancy is a time when women should pay extra attention to quality nutrition.  But an article in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association suggests that this may not be as easy as it sounds.  The article specifically highlights choline, a member of the B vitamin family.

Choline, like so many other nutrients, has many roles in the body.  One of the most famous roles is acting as a substrate to make acetylcholine, an important neurotransmitter.  It is also vital for cell signaling and maintaining the integrity of the cell membrane.  Choline is found in food often as phosphatidylcholine (aka lecithin).  Phosphatidylcholine is present in egg yolks, meat products, soy, brussel sprouts, broccoli, beef liver and more.  

During pregnancy, a great amount of choline is concentrated in the growing baby.  By the time he is born, his blood choline concentration is 3 times higher than Mom's!  Clearly, pregnancy is a critical time for choline availability.  Taken to an extreme, choline deficits can lead to neural tube defects in the embryo as well as cognitive impairment.  

According to Dr. Caudill, the author of the article being referenced here, "the majority of pregnant (and presumably lactating) women are not achieving the target intake levels and that certain common genetic variants may increase requirements for choline beyond current recommendations."

Ideas like this show us we have a long way to go if we want to truly provide comprehensive prenatal care.

Massage- Real Benefits

Most people enjoy receiving massages.  But in recent years, massage therapy has been gaining steam as a legitimate therapeutic modality.  Beyond rubbing muscles to make you "feel good" for an hour, it is very likely that there are discernible biological changes that occur as a result of a good massage.

The New York Times reported on a recent research article that highlights some of the benefits of massage therapy.  It appears that volunteers had lowered cortisol levels after a massage compared to controls. Cortisol is regarded as the "stress hormone" that often runs out of control in our lives. In other words, massage lowers stress levels.  This may not be a surprise, but it is good to see that our this effect is more than psychological; it actually changes our biochemistry.

It also "decreased IL-4, IL-5, IL-10, and IL-13 levels relative to baseline measures."  Interleukins (IL) are chemicals that cells in your body use to talk to each other.  Many are produced by immune cells.  A decrease in these levels is interpreted as a generally good thing in this context.  We want cells in your body to talk to each other, not scream at each other.

Dr. Mark Hyman Rapaport, the lead author of the study is quoted as saying the findings are “very, very intriguing and very, very exciting — and I’m a skeptic.” 

Massage therapy probably won't replace regular visits to your doctor, but it may deserve as place alongside "healthy diet & regular exercise" as staples of a healthy lifestyle.

Stress and epigenetics

I've written previously on the concept of epigenetics, the study of gene expression.  We know that for all intents and purposes, your genes do not change.  However, the little signals that tell your body when to express those genes (epigenetic signals) can be altered.  Food certainly has a powerful role in this although we do not understand all the details.  A recent paper also demonstrates that chronic stress will alter epigenetic markers.

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine found that the markers on genes were different after mice were exposed to stress hormones.  They believe that this may have a significant role in the development of  mood disorders.  Notably, the changes were found to be long lasting.  The epigenetic changes were presents for weeks even after the hormones had been removed from their environment.  In other words, these are potentially long lasting epigenetic changes.

 

"These behaviors, which were probably advantageous earlier in evolution, aren't as useful today with modern stressors that we can't fight or flee, such as work deadlines, Potash adds. Consequently, chronic stress might instead lead to depression or other mood disorders triggered by epigenetic changes."

I spend a lot of time talking about the benefits of eating good food.  But total health requires a life style adaptation as well.  Some people believe they thrive when under pressure; we even take pride in it.  Nobody can argue that some individuals genuinely do well under chronic stress. However, we must understand that your performance (at your job, school etc.) does not necessarily correlate with your well-being.  Chronic stress comes with a price.  Much of it has been well described (HPA dysfunction, hypercortisolemia etc.) We now have evidence that even your DNA expression may be altered by stress.