Role of Vitamins in Mood Disorders

Mood disorders are also called affective disorders. Mood disorders have a major economic impact through associated health care costs as well as lost work productivity. A mood is an emotion or feeling that lasts a long time. Moods affect how we act. Your mood also affects how you feel about yourself and life in general. Mood disorder problems may be caused by changes in your life. Chemical changes in your body can also cause a mood disorder. Moods range from feeling sad to feeling happy. Women who have a mood disorder are more likely to get depressed than men. Signs and symptoms of mood disorder start very slowly. Other people may see changes before you see or feel them. However, sometimes depression can occur due to another disorder or as a drug side effect, and in these cases it is known as secondary depression. The effects of exercise in improving the symptoms of depression are well-documented. Inadequate intake of zinc, vitamin B6, iodine, vitamin B12 and folic acid during early life may impair nervous system development and permanently alter function and behavior.

Having a mood disorder can affect your ability to function at work and at home. Treatment of mood disorders such as depression is a complex process and may involve psychotherapy and drug treatment. Where there is no clear physiological cause, the disorder is known as primary depression and it seems likely that the disorder will have several contributory causes. Research has focussed on biological factors such as heredity, hormonal abnormalities, medication side effects, disease-related effects, nutritional deficiencies and psychological and social causes. Drugs which have antidepressant effects usually alter levels of neurotransmitters, serotonin and noradrenaline, which are involved in the transmission of nerve impulses in the brain. An appropriate exercise program is an important part of any treatment of depression.

Causes of Mood disorder

Some common causes of Mood disorder are as follows:

1. Family history of mood disorder.

2. Changes in your life.

3. Chemical changes in your body.

4. You use illegal drugs or abuse alcohol.

Signs or Symptoms of Mood disorder

Following are signs and symptoms of a mood disorder:

1. Changes in your eating habits, energy level, weight, or sleeping patterns.

2. Inability to function effectively.

3. Fatigue.

4. Sense of Inferiority.

5. People may have trouble getting along with you.

6. Loss of interest.

The Role of vitamins:-

1. Vitamin A: Vitamin A helps protect the mucous membranes of the nose, eyelids, mouth, throat, stomach, intestines, thereby reducing susceptibility to infection.

2. Vitamin B Complex: Vitamins B complex provide the body with energy by aiding in the conversion of carbohydrates to glucose, which the body “burns” to produce energy.

3. Vitamin C Complex: Vitamin C plays a role in healing wounds and burns because it facilitates the formation of connective tissue in the scar.

4. Vitamin D: Vitamin D can be acquired either by ingestion or by exposure to sunlight.

5. Vitamin E: Vitamin E is necessary for all forms of oxygen-consumin

Is Stress A Reason Behind Mood Disorders?

Mood disorders have been found to be a part of many lives. There have been two forms of mood disorders identified and each is considered a type of depression.

The two disorders are Bipolar Disorder and Unipolar Disorder. When a person has a Bipolar Disorder they are manic depressant and have major mood swings including intense mania, high energy and major mood swings associated with depression. Now the Unipolar Disorder suffers from depression and has many different levels within this mood disorder. These types include seasonal affective disorder, Dysthymia, postpartum depress and major depression.

When someone has a mood disorder they suffer from a variety of symptoms. These symptoms include:

1. Despair
2. Irritability
3. Sadness
4. Guilt
5. Appetite changes either in lack of or increased
6. Suicidal thoughts
7. Constant fatigue

A person dealing with these symptoms could feel any combination of these elements. It is important for these individuals to get professional assistance to help with deal with their disorder. Any combination can consume a person’s life for weeks, for months, for years of suffer can occur without proper assistance. Treatment could include psychiatric or medical treatments.

Treatment examples include an anti-depressant medication or therapy. There are various medications to consider and the person’s doctor will help find the right medication. They could also go through a regiment of medication and therapy. Treatment is determined by the mood disorder type. Sometimes mood disorders can lead to other issues such as alcohol or drug abuse that needs to be treated as well. It could also lead to illness but stress can actually increase the sessions of mood swings. Stress management is important in the treatment of these diseases.

No matter the issues that are created because of disorders or related to symptoms in general they need to be treated. Yet, a majority of those that suffer from any mood disorder never seek treatment. A mood disorder is more than just being in a bad mood from time to time. Everyone goes through moods throughout their day and throughout their lives. Having a disorder can really take over your life. It can cause you to not do things because you don’t feel like it or you want to avoid people. You might start to say away from others because of how you feel or because of how you might act when you are in a certain situation. It doesn’t have to be this way and you can enjoy your life again. There is help available.

Bipolar Disorder – An Abnormal Mood Disorder

Bipolar Disorder is a mood disorder characterised by abnormal mood states. More accurately it involves cycling between the high mood state of mania to the incredibly low state of depression. Bipolar disorder affects at least one in every 70 people, greatly impeding the sufferer’s ability to live a normal life, and putting them at a higher risk of personal, relationship and work related issues.

In order to understand this disorder correctly, a discussion about how we actually define mood or abnormality of mood is in order. Our moods include the obvious states of happiness and sadness, but also optimism, pessimism, contentedness or dissatisfaction and they can even cover physical states such as how fatigued one can feel. You could say that mood is like an emotional barometer a set of feelings that expresses our sense of emotional comfort or discomfort.

Generally speaking everyone’s moods vary within a certain range from day to day, people are not constantly in one state or the other and it is quite normal for people to have ups and downs of mood. So what is the difference between these regular ups and downs in mood and the moods of a bipolar disorder sufferer? Do they simply have higher ups and lower downs?

Well yes, in a certain way this is correct. A bipolar sufferers’ moods quite often are so outside the range of normal that it doesn’t take a psychologist to know something is wrong. They can swing from mood to mood like a monkey swings from a tree at a rate that is almost impossible to keep up with and that doesn’t make any rational sense. Therefore, the symptoms of bipolar disorder seem to be caused more by a defect in the brains regulation of mood.

So for what is essentially a biological condition, the effects are felt both physically and psychologically. Bipolar disorder is accompanied by a range of symptoms that affect not only mood but energy levels, memory, cognitive ability and ones ability to relate and connect to the people around them. Physically one suffers sleep impairments, energy surges or lack thereof, appetite changes and concentration difficulties. Psychologically one might experience changes in thoughts, feelings, choices and actions. As the symptoms are cyclic in nature a sufferer can be left feeling as if they are always losing ground and never quite able to get a handle on their life.

As such the prognosis for bipolar disorder can seem quite dim, however it does not have to be that way. With greater understanding of this disorder and improved medical options over the past 30 years, fortunately today there is much hope for the bipolar sufferer. Through better understanding and management techniques combined with medications such as lithium a bipolar suffer can control the cycling moods and triggers for mania and depression so that one can live an enjoyable life.

Of the treatments necessary for sufferers of bipolar disorder, non is more i