GREEN TEA AND DEPRESSION: FUTURE TREATMENT ?

Green tea is known all over the world for its antioxidant properties and is preferred by many consumers over other teas , maybe more tasty, in virtue of its health benefits.
On the basis of several clinical and preclinical studies, green tea, if consumed regularly,  could have also antidepressant properties. 

A recent double-blind study on healthy subjects showed why .

The regular consumption of green tea for five weeks has been proven to be helpful in preventing depressive symptoms. 

How?  Increasing the so-called "Reward learning", an important mechanism for survival and adaptation : its function is to let us learn through experience to make predictions and create expectations about consequences of events and behaviors. 

Reward learning is a form of almost automatic learning of "approximate" predictive associations between certain events or behaviors and some of their possible rewarding consequences, that are therefore satisfying for the individual.

A deficiency in reward learning contributes to the development of anhedonia, an inability to experience pleasure and to perceive satisfaction, which is a key symptom of depression.

Therefore green tea , for its effect on reward learning, is very promising for the future development of natural remedies for prevention and treatment of depression.

And now, let’s have green tea!

Sources:

Effect of green tea on reward learning in healthy individuals: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled pilot study. Qiangye Zhang, Hongchao Yang, Jian Wang, Aiwu Li*, Wentong Zhang, Xinhai Cui and Kelai Wang

Nutrition Journal 2013, 12:84 doi:10.1186/1475-2891-12-84

www.ilgiorno.it -" Lo psicologo: "Piccole vincite, l'illusione che porta al disastro. Parla il professor Cherubini" Luca Zorloni

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CHEWING GUM LINKED TO HEADACHE ? YES !

Headache can have many different causes : stress , fatigue, hormonal problems , and so on and so forth. Also chewing gum consumption can cause headache.

This is the clear result of a study on 30 teen- agers, victims of recurring headaches, that stopped consuming chewing gum.

The study showed, after one month without chewing gum,  significant improvements in the intensity and frequency of headaches for 7 individuals , and complete resolution of headache for 19 individuals. 

All those teen agers who have next resumed chewing gum consumption, had a bad surprise: headache again!

The relationship between chewing gum consumption and headache has been attributed by some experts to the contents of aspartame, which, however, is present in other foods, such as “light” sweetened beverages in higher amounts than in chewing gum. Another possible cause can be the overloading of the temporomandibular joint, due to prolonged use of masticatory muscles.

So, if you are always fighting with headache ... pay attention to chewing gum! Maybe, this is the long-awaited solution to headache!

Source:

American Friends of Tel Aviv University. (2013 , December 30). " Chewing gum is Often the culprit for migraine headaches in teens - 87 percent who quit experience significant relief" Medical News Today. Retrieved from http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/270524 .

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