WellPostpartum Weblog- Integrative Approaches to Maternal Mental Health

Poor Nutrition in the Womb Triggers Genetic Changes

From www.mercola.com.

The new science of epigenetics explains how genes can be modified by the environment. A prime result of epigenetic inquiry has just been revealed — a research report shows that rat fetuses receiving poor nutrition in the womb become genetically primed to be born into a nutrition-poor environment.

As a result of this genetic adaptation, the rats were likely to grow to smaller sizes, and they were also at higher risk for a host of health problems throughout their lives, such as diabetes, growth retardation, cardiovascular disease, obesity, and neurodevelopmental delays.

Although the study involved rats, the genes and cellular mechanisms involved are the same as those in humans.

Dr. Mercola’s Comments:

Most people now understand that what a mother eats during pregnancy can have a major impact on her child’s future health. What may be news to some of you is the relatively new field of science called epigenetics, which explains how and why this happens.

Epigenetics is the study of how environmental factors like diet, stress and maternal nutrition can change gene function without altering the DNA sequence in any way. The changes occur when a certain factor, such as your diet, changes the expression of a certain gene or set of genes, essentially turning them on or off.

Researchers found that rat fetuses that received poor nutrition while in the womb experienced epigenetic changes that primed them for a nutrition-poor environment once they were born, thereby increasing their risk of health problems ranging from diabetes and heart disease to obesity.

Previous research has shown that these changes can last for two generations or more, meaning that even what your grandmother ate during pregnancy can have an impact on your health now.

Fortunately, while a poor diet in pregnancy can cause health problems for a child down the road, the opposite also holds true in that a healthy diet can help prevent health issues, even ones that you may have been predisposed to.

In one study from a few years ago, mice that were predisposed to obesity, diabetes and cancer grew up healthy because their mothers were fed supplements that blocked the genetic trigger.

Not only does this lend credence to the importance of nutrition in your health, but it highlights some of the amazing possibilities of epigenetics — and the power you have to take control of your health.

The Most Important Dietary Steps to Take During Pregnancy

In order to “prime” your future child’s genes for health, rather than disease, here’s what you should focus on integrating into your diet:

• Supplement with a high-quality animal based omega-3 fat, such as krill oil, before and during pregnancy. Omega-3 fats are absolutely vital for the complete development of your baby’s brain, and they can help prevent premature delivery.

• Optimize your vitamin D levels. Ideally you should do this by getting proper sun exposure but you can also use a supplement as long as you monitor your levels. Vitamin D is essential for helping your baby’s brain develop properly, including reducing the risk of autism.

• Eat a well-balanced diet, with plenty of fresh produce and healthy meats. One of the easiest ways to do this is by eating right for your nutritional type.

• Take a high-quality probiotic. If you are not eating a lot of naturally fermented foods, such as kefir or natto, taking a probiotic supplement is important. Doing so during pregnancy and breastfeeding may promote your immune system, along with help protect your baby from allergies and eczema.

• Eat organic as much as possible. This will help reduce your exposure to pesticides and other chemicals that could harm your developing baby.

• Avoid non-fermented soy. The phytoestrogens in soy products such as soy milk, tofu, soy burgers, etc. can influence your baby’s hormones, leading to an increased risk of breast cancer and other health problems.

What Else Can Alter Your Baby’s Genes in the Womb?

Prenatal nutrition is a major factor in your baby’s future health, but it is not the only one. Stress and your emotions also play a major role.

The evidence is very clear, for instance, that infants whose mother’s were depressed while pregnant are more likely to be irritable and sleep erratically, show diminished responsiveness, and may develop problem behaviors during their early elementary school years.

The important thing to remember, though, is that it’s possible to repair the damage that’s been done. So even if your mother was malnourished or extremely stressed during pregnancy, you can take steps now to change the expression of your genes in a positive way.

Ultimately it is your lifestyle, not your genes, that determines your health as an adult.

Hello Dear Readers!  Hope you’re having a happy summer and heading to Los Angeles for Postpartum Support International’s annual conference (August 4-7th).

Here is a study that corroborates new ideas in epigenetics.  Researchers now theorize that genes have the ability to turn on and off, calling the concept “gene expression”.  Simply eating one bite of broccoli releases b-vitamins into the body, which impacts genes- actually changing their characteristics and abilities.

(By the way, stress also causes us to leach b vitamins).

Much touted ‘depression risk gene’ may not add to risk after all

Full Story

Stressful life events are strongly associated with a person’s risk for major depression, but a certain gene variation long thought to increase risk in conjunction with stressful life events actually may have no effect, according to researchers funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), part of the National Institutes of Health. The study, published in the June 17, 2009, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, challenges a widely accepted approach to studying risk factors for depression.

“Rigorous re-evaluations of published studies provide the checks and balances necessary for scientific progress,” said Thomas R. Insel, M.D., director of NIMH. “We are still in the early days of understanding how genes and environment interact to increase the risk for depression.”

Most mental disorders are thought to be caused by a combination of many genetic risk factors interacting with environmental triggers. However, finding the exact combinations continues to present significant challenges to research.

Advances in scientific understanding and technologies during the past decade have led to powerful tools for studying how genetic and environmental factors can affect a person’s risk for disease. Such advances allowed mental health researchers in 2003 to show that a gene involved in serotonin activity increased the risk of major depression in people who had a number of stressful life events over a five-year period (see “More About the Science” below for more information about this gene and serotonin). Coming at a time of heightened research interest in these gene-environment interactions and the relative lack of progress in the field for mental disorders, this study received wide acclaim and had a far-reaching influence. Not only have considerable resources been invested in subsequent studies that built on this finding, but also some researchers have proposed marketing the gene test to the public, claiming to be able to predict a person’s risk for depression.

However, efforts to replicate the 2003 study’s findings—a key step in scientific progress that helps show whether a particular finding was a chance event—have had inconsistent results.

To examine whether the 2003 study’s finding had been confirmed, a group of scientists from NIMH and six universities with expertise in epidemiology, biostatistics, genetics, and psychiatry reviewed the status of relevant replication studies. Led by Kathleen Merikangas, Ph.D., of the NIMH Intramural Research Program, the workgroup did a meta-analysis, re-analyzing data on 14,250 participants in 14 studies published from 2003 through March 2009. Of these, the researchers also re-analyzed original data, including unpublished information, on 10,943 participants from 10 studies published before 2008. The workgroup analyzed these original data to see whether there were gender differences in the associations between the serotonin genotype, stressful life events, and depression.

By applying the same definitions of study variables and data analysis methods used in the 2003 study, the workgroup found a strong association between the number of stressful life events and risk of depression across the studies. However, the presumed high-risk version of the serotonin transporter gene did not show a relationship to increased risk for major depression, alone or in interaction with stressful life events, in the analysis of the 14 studies. Their findings were the same in men and women alone in the analysis of original data from 10 studies.

The workgroup noted that their analysis had some limitations. Individual level data were available for only 10 of the 14 studies published before 2008. However, these limitations would have had little effect on the overall findings because the number of participants in the studies not included was only a small proportion of the total sample.

These findings may account for the difficulty many researchers have faced in attempting to replicate the 2003 study. This analysis confirms some earlier reviews that had also questioned the validity of the gene’s effect on depression risk. However, the workgroup emphasized that the intent of its analysis was not to deter research on gene-environment interactions for mental disorders.

“Identifying gene-environment interactions is most successful when studies can focus on a single gene with a major effect, or when the environmental exposure has a strong effect,” said lead author Neil Risch, Ph.D., University of California, San Francisco and Kaiser Permanente Northern California. “In the case of modest gene effects or environmental impacts, the statistical power to detect an interaction will be low, and thus weak positive results should be interpreted carefully.”

The authors concluded that incorporating environmental exposures in candidate gene studies (those that study a particular gene) may be as likely to yield false positive findings as the candidate gene studies themselves. Therefore, the results of other studies using the same approach as the 2003 study also deserve thorough review and meta-analysis.

“Even though our re-analysis did not confirm an association between the serotonin gene and depression, the finding that the environmental factor was strongly associated with depression in several studies reminds us that environmental factors are also involved in the complex pathways leading to mental disorders,” noted Merikangas. “Future progress will require thoughtful integration of the tools of genetics, epidemiology, and clinical and behavioral sciences.”

###

The authors on the paper include Neil Risch, Ph.D., University of California at San Francisco and Kaiser Permanente Northern California; Richard Herrell, Ph.D., NIMH; Thomas Lehner, Ph.D., NIMH; Kung-Yee Liang, Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University; Lindon Eaves, Ph.D., Virginia Commonwealth University; Josephine Hoh, Ph.D., Yale University; Andrea Griem, NIMH; Maria Kovacs, Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh; Jurg Ott, Ph.D., Rockefeller University; Kathleen Ries Merikangas, Ph.D., NIMH.

More About the Science

Serotonin is one of several chemical messengers in the brain, or neurotransmitters, which help brain cells communicate with one another. Among many other functions, serotonin is involved in regulating mood. Problems with making or using the right amount of serotonin have been linked to many mental disorders, including depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, autism, and schizophrenia.

There are many genes that code for serotonin. Some of these genes guide serotonin production and other are involved in its activity. The serotonin transporter gene makes a protein that directs serotonin from the space between brain cells—where most neurotransmitters are relayed from one cell to another—back into cells, where it can be reused. Since the most widely prescribed class of medications for treating major depression acts by blocking this transporter protein, the gene has been a prime suspect in mood and anxiety disorders.

The serotonin transporter gene has many versions. Since everyone inherits a copy of this gene from each parent, a person may have two copies of the same version or one copy each of two different versions. One version of the serotonin transporter gene makes less protein, resulting in decreased transport of serotonin back into cells. This version has also long been the focus of depression research due to its suggested effect on risk.

The mission of the NIMH is to transform the understanding and treatment of mental illnesses through basic and clinical research, paving the way for prevention, recovery and cure. For more information, visit www.nimh.nih.gov.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) — The Nation’s Medical Research Agency — includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.

Food for mood

30/01/2007

If your emotional state is not what you would like it to be, the answer may lie at least partly in your diet. At first consideration, this may seem a bizarre idea, but after taking a closer look, it makes perfect sense. Our emotional response is strongly related to our brain health and chemistry. Neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine, which regulate mood, are made from amino acids. These chemical pathways also require vitamins and minerals as cofactors for their normal function. The brain is made largely of fatty acids and requires a healthy supply of other nutrients to function normally.

Almost every vitamin or mineral deficiency can cause psychiatric symptoms such as depression, anxiety, irritability, low stress tolerance, etc. A large array of other dietary factors such as caffeine, allergies, alcohol and blood sugar also influence our mood. A growing number of health professionals are now utilizing this information to improve the mood of their patients.

Nutrient deficiencies are not an all or nothing issue as varying degrees of severity exist. For example, while full blown scurvy is now rare, mild vitamin C deficiency is not uncommon. In the nutritional treatment of altered mood states, correcting these nutrient deficiencies is a primary initial consideration. This may consist of dietary changes and moderate nutrient supplementation.

Nutrient supplements, however, are not purely used to correct nutrient deficiencies. Using nutrients in doses considerably higher than that achievable through diet is referred to as using “pharmacological” doses. For example, high doses of vitamin B3 were shown in the 1950’s by Dr. Abram Hoffer to reduce schizophrenic symptoms. Doses of 3000 mg were used, while adults typically only need 15 mg/day.

Vitamins and minerals.

Before they were stopped in the 1970’s for ethical reasons, scientists used to study the effects of nutrient deficiencies by depriving individuals of specific nutrients. Psychiatric symptoms were very commonly found. For example, vitamin B1, thiamine, deficiency was associated with irritability, depression, fearfulness, agitation and emotional instability.

Vitamins and minerals typically each have a number of different functions. For example magnesium is required by over 300 biochemical reactions in humans. Just to name a few examples, vitamins/minerals are required for the normal production of neurotransmitters, hormones, cellular energy, antioxidants, DNA and digestive substances. When these are not synthesized in optimal levels, our health and mood are subsequently affected.

Deficiencies of key vitamins and minerals are found in significant numbers of people with altered mood states. For example folate deficiency is present in 17-31% of major depression patients. Correcting these imbalances is in the persons best interests. As a secondary consideration supplements of specific vitamins and minerals may have a pharmacological effect in improving mood. For example, in the absence of nutrient deficiencies, boosting antioxidant status via vitamin C and E, and utilizing high dose vitamin B6 supplements to enhance neurotransmitter pathways, are examples of therapeutic applications of vitamin/mineral supplements.

Amino acids.

Amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, form structural components of neurotransmitters, nucleotides, membrane structures, hormones, and many other substances. A deficiency in one or more amino acid can directly or indirectly impact on mental health by leading to a deficiency of its metabolites. For example, tyrosine is a component of dopamine and thyroid hormones.

The basic building blocks of the mood regulating neurotransmitters are referred to as the neurotransmitter precursors. Supplements of these amino acids can be used therapeutically to boost the levels of specific neurotransmitters. Tryptophan and 5-HTP supplements can be used to boost the serotonin pathway, while tyrosine and L-Dopa are used to increase levels of dopamine and norepinephrine.

Tryptophan –> 5-HTP –> Serotonin

Tyrosine –> L-Dopa –> Dopamine –> Norepinephrine

Supplements can also be used to modulate other mood regulating neurotransmitters, including endorphins, acetylcholine and GABA.

NOTE: These supplements should not be combined with psychiatric medications and should only be taken under the guidance of a knowledgeable health professional.

Essential fatty acids.

Omega-3 (N3) fatty acids are a class of essential polyunsaturated fats. Well known dietary sources of omega-3 fatty acids include fish and flax seeds. The role of omega-3 fatty acids in mental health has received the attention of vast amounts of research in recent years. Omega-3 fatty acids participate in a large array of physiological actions. They are structural components of brain tissue, improve brain cell membrane fluidity, have anti-inflammatory properties, regulate stress response, and participate in a vast array of other functions.

Research consistently reveals lower levels of omega-3 fatty acids are associated with poorer mood. To date, the vast majority of research has documented that fish oil supplements reduce symptoms in almost every brain related condition it has been tested against, including major depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, ADD/ADHD and dementia.

Hypoglycemia.

Hypoglycemia, low blood glucose, can cause psychiatric symptoms, including anxiety and depression, due to the reduction of glucose supply to the brain and the compensatory increase in adrenaline production. Hypoglycemia is indicated by the occurrence of psychiatric symptoms between meals and a quick reduction of symptoms after commencing a meal.

Caffeine.

In laboratory studies, large doses of caffeine consistently increase levels of anxiety, while caffeine withdrawal is also capable of producing symptoms of anxiety. Individuals with anxiety disorders typically have increased sensitivity to the effects of caffeine and may benefit from the gradual elimination of caffeine containing products. On a short term basis, caffeine appears to improve mood, although it is unclear if this effect is due to the correction of temporary caffeine withdrawal or net gains in mood due to caffeine.

Celiac disease.

Celiac disease is a disorder of gluten intolerance. Gluten is a class of proteins found in wheat, barley, rye, oats and spelt. Celiac disease causes malabsorption, increased intestinal permeability (‘leaky gut’), immunological disturbances, and other complications. Studies have revealed higher rates of depression and anxiety in patients with untreated celiac disease. Research at the Pfeiffer Treatment Centre in Illinois has documented roughly 4% of those diagnosed with schizophrenia have celiac disease and their symptoms rapidly dissipate after adoption of an appropriate gluten free diet. Many people do not realize they have celiac disease and suffer the health consequences for their entire lives.

Conclusion.

If you feel your emotional balance is off, improving your diet is one positive step you can take. You may also wish to see a health professional that works in the field of nutritional medicine, who can develop an individualized program of dietary and nutrient supplement recommendations for you. Nutritional therapies complement other mood enhancing therapies such as exercise and counselling/psychological therapies.

Blake Graham, BSc (Honours), AACNEM

Clinical Nutritionist

Perth, Western Australia

Click to read full article:

American Pregnancy Association presents:

Natural and Alternative Treatments for Perinatal Mood Disorders

—by  Shoshana Bennett, Ph.D.