Let food be your medicine

In our modern world, we are becoming more and more passionate about health and about the various possibilities that we can use to prevent certain diseases and improve our quality of life. When I say “improve our lives”, I mean that we can change our mental and physical state.

The ancient Greeks already realized that one can only have a healthy mind if you have a healthy body. This connection, between body and mind, is extraordinarily strong. So much so, that many symptoms appear due to certain negative emotions and traumas that have not been properly dealt with.

Hippocrates, the greatest physician of his time said “let food be your medicine, and let medicine be your food” Hippocrates considered nutrition one of the main tools that doctors could use. More and exact dietary measures play a lead part in the original oath of Hippocrates. Let us remember that the Hippocratic oath is something doctors still use today.

So here we are, going back to the basics, paying attention, and making the right choices in what we eat, maintaining a healthy exercise routine and a positive attitude, all that will help us prevent and, in some cases, reverse some of the most dangerous and modern diseases like diabetes, heart problems, stroke, just to mention a few.

So where do micronutrients fit in? Well very simply, micronutrients are vitamins and minerals which are essential elements needed by life in small quantities. Humans must obtain micronutrients from food since your body cannot produce them.

With our modern society living so fast and under so much stress, lots of individuals suffer from chronic illnesses and drink medication every day of their lives, and these medicines have many unpleasant and dangerous side effects and deprive your bodies of many vitamins and minerals. Modern medicine (Western medicine as we know it) is at least focused on treating symptoms, yet sometimes overlooks the cause of certain illnesses.

Another common problem of our modern society is all the different mental conditions that people face. Among them, it is quite common for young adolescents to behave violently, many young children suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder and other forms of mental disturbances.

Doctor A Schauss deals with this subject in a remarkably interesting way in his book – Diet, Crime and Delinquency. He presents evidence that overly aggressive boys tend to have high levels of copper and consequently low zinc levels, because of the antagonist effect of these two minerals. Reducing copper levels in these boys led to greatly diminished aggression. Doctor Schauss observed that criminals often ate a diet that was high in junk food. This points to the possibility that the rising crime rate worldwide could be linked to a diet that is increasingly nutrient deprived.

Dietary nutrients are critical for brain structure and function, so they have a potentially profound impact on mental health. An increasingly robust body of research points to the detrimental effect of unhealthy diets and nutrients deficiencies. This same research points to the protective value of healthy diets along with select nutritional supplements as required for maintaining and promoting mental health.

Zinc, magnesium, vitamin D, omega 3, B vitamins and Folate are some examples of vitamins and minerals that are important for the proper functioning of our neurotransmitters which are responsible for our mental wellbeing.

In this world and our own lives, there are many things that we cannot control but remember when it comes to your body and mind there is always a right choice, you can transform both.

You can only enjoy life fully if you are healthy! So, let us focus more on our diets in order to have a healthy mind and body.