Connor Mooney
The world we live in today requires those in it to push to
be excellent in their fields of endeavor. It isn’t surprising, then, that there
is a big focus on physical and mental wellbeing. It also surprises few that
these parts of our lives are intimately connected. It’s a popular science
project that elementary age kids do for science fairs (personal experience:
I’ve judged several science fairs, and this one always seems to pop up) where
they give math quizzes to kids who finished playing outside and compare their
performance to when they didn’t go outside. The kids who had just finished
exercising (recess) always perform better on their math quiz. It is also well
known that mental illness and brain injury have varied systemic effects as
well. The purpose of this article is to explore the effects that mental and
gastrointestinal (or GI) issues has on those in various fields of endeavor.
The first field of endeavor to look at is that of a drunk. I
know not many in our society would endeavor to be a drunk, but in certain
circles of friends, the ability to drink more than others is celebrated and
grounds for gloating. One of the issues with alcohol, though, is that it is a
poison. Fortunately for drunks, though, mammals have what’s called the area
postrema, a part of our brain stems that has no blood-brain barrier that
monitors the contents of our blood and induces vomiting when an emetic compound
is present. Mothers also may have cause to hate their area postrema because it
interacts with hormones and is thought to cause morning sickness
In addition to the drunks, we all use connections between
our brains and our guts to maintain regular flow of food through the GI tract.
It’s modulated by the brain through the Vagus (Li & Peng, 2014) nerve that
connects to a cluster of nerves that is referred to as the pancreatic brain
which is the head of the Enteric Nervous System that governs much of GI
function.
One
field of endeavor that we often overlook is the role of a stay-at-home parent.
This role is all the more important if there is a disabled child in the family.
However, the connection I’m looking to make here is between a stay-at-home
parent and Huntington’s disease. There’s a lot of things that can happen that
change a family dynamic, and any chronic disease or illness is a clear and
present threat to many families. It can tear families apart as I discussed in
the last group of entries, or it can bring them together. Every family is
different, and counseling or, at the very least, education is often offered (Wagner
et al., 1996). Unique challenges present themselves. Massive lifestyle changes
are associated with diagnoses, especially that of Huntington’s disease. The
diagnosis is almost a death-sentence. The patient has a limited amount of time
to spend before he/she loses his/her mind and ability to control their own
movements. How would they spend this time? Vacationing with family? Pursuing
other avenues of pleasure? Continuing to work and spend time with their
children? Drop everything and start cooking meth a la Walter White? It’s
ultimately the patient’s choice how to spend their last cognizant years, but
with Huntington’s, due to its normally late diagnosis, it’s more likely that
they will have a family that they unknowingly dragged into the mix. There could
very well be warning signs to prepare the patient for this lifestyle
crossroads. The fact that it’s autosomal dominant means that if they have a
parent who had the disease, they have a 50-50 chance of getting it, too. They
could get tested and make the preparations necessary for their future. What
effect does this have on the stay-at-home parent? It means that the patient can
no longer provide the services for his/her family, and somebody has to work and
provide for the family as well as pay the medical bills which are substantial (Divino
et al., 2013). Stay at home parents can’t stay at home anymore when their
spouse reaches the later stages of the disease, and if it is the stay-at-home
parent who reaches that point in the disease development, measures must be
taken to fulfill the roles he/she played in the home. It’s often a nightmare
for the family due to the psychological decline that comes with the disease (Vamos
et al., 2007), and we ought to find out how we can better treat this disease
that is so traumatic to family members.
Educators, especially those of young children, have a very
important role in our society, and it is a position that many endeavor to have.
An issue that we have recently had a boom in is that of children with Attention
Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD). It has been a bit of a controversy in that
some believe that the disorder is now being recognized more often in children
while others believe that it is an excuse for poor parenting technique and
relying on the drugs treating it to make their job easier. There are a huge
amount of factors that contribute to the advancement of ADHD. These indeed
include poor parenting (pre-, peri-, and postnatal care), a number of gene
alleles, and anatomical variation (Curatolo et al., 2010). It is unfair to the
parents of afflicted children to assume that it is their fault, but it
shouldn’t be completely ignored as a possibility for making it worse. Teachers
have a unique challenge of maintaining order in a classroom full of many
children who tend to be active regardless of whether they have ADHD or not.
Children come from a variety of backgrounds and home environments, and
sometimes, unfortunately, these kids may suffer from several different issues
that may manifest themselves in various manners. ADHD, being one of these, may
be one of the most problematic and frustrating. The disorder is treated with
stimulants which may seem counterintuitive, but the explanation stems from
arousal theory. When under-stimulated, patients with ADHD tend to move or distract
themselves to raise their arousal by focusing on several different things. So
when the children take the drugs, such as Adderall (an amphetamine), their
minds are aroused to the point where they can focus much better on schoolwork.
Psychiatry has come a long ways since the hospitals were
taking care of the mentally ill by using corporal punishment and other inhumane
treatment. It used to be that the mental hospitals were filthy areas used to
babysit people who were considered ill in the mind. I first learned of the
reality of this dark piece of our history in my Sociology 1010 class, and ever
since, the media has reminded me in movies such as Sucker Punch, 12 Monkeys,
and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and TV shows like American Horror Story:
Asylum. These shows misrepresent mental illness by showing that the afflicted
are mostly dangerous, scary or evil. The reality is that there are several
severities of various mental illnesses, and the lack of treatment that often
accompanies the portrayal of these scary asyla can make the condition much
worse. My sister works in a Long-Term Care wing of my hometown’s hospital. She
refers to her patients (most are mentally ill) with great affection as though
her patients are her friends, which many of them are. One of the sad things
that she has expressed to me is that there are things that the nurses and aids
need to do that would embarrass anyone involved in such procedures. Naturally,
said procedures are met with any level of resistance. It’s a sad conflict that results
in more than blushing, and sometimes as much as a feeling of violation in the
patient. Some media have taken advantage of such situations by making the
caretaker seem like a mean spirited or evil individual when in fact they are
doing their job. I propose that Hollywood ought to make an unbiased real and
true account of our modern psychiatric hospitals. In doing so, the public may
be more thoroughly informed about the state of our country’s psychiatric field.
I think we would see that we have advanced quite a ways from the beginnings of
institutionalization of the “disturbed” in decaying buildings that facilitate
the corporal punishment of anyone not behaving.
My sister often discusses the irritation that she feels when
dealing with the mentally ill, and I know she’s a good CNA, but sadly there are
many that aren’t. A psyche nurse in a large hospital spoke to the writers of
Cracked.com and told his story of how he was pressured into mistreating the
residents of the psyche ward in the hospital. The sad part is that by the time
he stood up and reported the mistreatment, the people he worked with who
mistreated the residents more regularly felt betrayed by him, and refused to
help when the residents began to get violent. This is something that really shouldn’t
be happening at all in places entrusted with the care of people’s family
members. Not only this, but really there ought to be legislature to prevent
this from happening or, at the very least, elevated security and counseling for
hospital employees.
Moving on to the gastrointestinal tract, the
food industry is often the butt of many jokes when it comes to the health of
consumers. Whether it be complaints about the lack of healthy options at
McDonald’s or the hippie jokes regarding Whole Foods, there’s always a quip to
elicit a giggle. However, the beauty of the free-market system that we have is
if you don’t like something about the establishment, you don’t have to eat
there. Consumers drive the quality and the diversity. My point in saying this
is the fact that unhealthy fast foods like McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC, and
the like are so popular is because we made them that way. The big mac, whopper,
and that sandwich that used fried chicken as the buns, all became hot button
because of the consumers at the time of its coming out. More recently, there
has been a movement (likely due to earlier generations feeling the effects of
their unhealthy lifestyles and the rise in childhood obesity) to make the fast
food healthier. Wendy’s has salad choices, McDonald’s offers milk and apples in
place of soda and fries in their Happy Meals, and KFC got rid of that God-awful
“sandwich”. So we’re moving in the right direction, but is it enough? Several
studies have shown that red meat tends to contribute to the development of
colon cancer (Harvard Health Publications, 2008). If people get mad about their
obese children, it’s only a matter of time until customers ask that they reduce
the number of beef options in these popular restaurant chains. At the same
time, beef has been shown to have a number of redeeming qualities: high iron
content, folic acid, Zinc, Vitamin B12, and a whole lot of protein.
In the end, I think it’s still up to the consumer to choose a healthy
lifestyle. In a world like today’s it’s a tough road to take, but really, if we
want to shed the problems associated with overeating and poor diet, it is a
case by case issue where each person must choose the healthier option.
The anti-gluten movement in my personal
opinion is being taken a little overboard since it was brought to everyone’s
mind through publicity of Crohn’s and celiac disease. One question that I have
concerning the movement is what is its effect on the agriculture industry? In
The New Yorker (Specter, 2014),
Michael Specter explains a shift in wheat consumption by the masses. He
explains the vast amount of wheat that is produced by wheat farms across the
nation are used in far more than just breads, cereals, and pastas. Some of it,
including proteins isolated from it (like gluten) or starch, has become a big
part of the other foods we eat (Specter says almost a third of our food
contains these components of wheat). According to one of his sources, Joseph A.
Murray (a professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic), consumption of wheat has
been decreasing over the past 50 years. This doesn’t necessarily mean wheat
farmers’ families are going hungry. It’s more likely that the farmers simply
shift crops. Wheat is a grass, after all, it may change the soil, but I imagine
that growing another grass-like plant (corn for example) would be a relatively
simple switch. The backlash against the gluten madness may be greater than just
agriculture, though. His article is a little blog-ish, but Hank Campbell (the
president of the American Council on Science and Health) posted his comments on
the issue on his site, Science 2.0 (Campbell, 2013). He worries that there are
many people adopting a gluten-free lifestyle despite the fact that they don’t
have celiac disease. He also brings up the fact that many in the food industry
may be going “gluten-free” or at least offer gluten-free alternatives while
they replace it with ingredients like “extra sugar, extra fat, hydroxypropyl
methyl cellulose and xanthan gum.” He also brings up the fact that politicians
are ever eager to shove their noses into businesses with unnecessary
regulations such as the prospective ban on trans-fats, GMO’s, and perhaps the
staple of people’s food, gluten. It’s up to us to decide what’s good for us. We
don’t need others dictating our home menus.
It’s important that everyone educate
themselves a little bit on what possible issues will arise in their field of
endeavor. Everyone works in either their dream job or some other job that they
have to get money to do the things they want to do. The problem is that we fall
into a routine and we don’t take into account possible things that could happen
as we wait for our next coffee break. The beauty of a scientific mind is that
it gives the opportunity to open your mind to other possible explanations and
issues. I think everyone would benefit from a little science in their life and
consider what can go wrong.
References
Curatolo,
P., D’Agati, E., & Moavero, R. (2010) The Neurobiological Basis of ADHD. Italian Journal of Pediatrics. 36:79
Divino, V.,
Dekoven, M., Warner, J.H., Giuliano, J., Anderson, K.E., Langbehn, D., Lee, W.C.
(2013) The Direct Medical Costs of Huntington's Disease by Stage. A Retrospective
Commercial and Medicaid Claims Data Analysis. Journal of Medical Economics. 16(8):1043-1050. doi:
10.3111/13696998.2013.818545.
Li, Q., &
Peng, J. (2014) Sensory Nerves and Pancreatitis. Gland Surgery. 3(4):284-292 doi:
10.3978/j.issn.2227-684X.2013.10.08
Specter, M.
(2014) Against the Grain: Should You Go Gluten-Free. The New Yorker. November 3, 2014 issue.
Vamos, M.,
Hambridge, J., Edwards, M., Conaghan, J. (2007) The Impact of Huntington’s
Disease on Family Life. Psychosomatics.
48(5):400-404 doi: 10.1176/appi.psy.48.5.400
Wagner, E.H.,
Austin, B.T., Von Korff, M. (1996) Organizing Care for Patients with Chronic
Illness. The Milbank Quarterly.
74(4): 511-544
