Looking at photos of good times with family or friends provokes nostalgia, an emotion that, although bittersweet, is also positive. Nostalgia can help reduce pain, and now a team of Chinese scientists has revealed the brain mechanism behind this relief.
Its description is published in the journal JNeurosci and, according to researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, nostalgia decreases the activity of brain areas related to pain and reduces subjective evaluations of thermal pain.
Specifically, the team led by Kong Yazhuo found that the thalamus, a brain region essential for pain modulation, is also related to the analgesic effect associated with nostalgia, according to two press releases from the Society for Neuroscience, in the United Statesand the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Nostalgia, a sentimental longing for one’s past, is a self-conscious social emotion, perhaps bittersweet, but predominantly positive. “This helps us maintain a positive psychological state by counteracting the negative impact of difficult situations,” the study authors explain.
Images to measure nostalgia
The adaptive functions of nostalgia are many and one of its effects is pain relief. To reach their conclusions, the scientists measured the brain activity of adults with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) as they rated levels of nostalgia from snapshots and rated pain from thermal stimuli.
Nostalgic images depicted scenes and objects from ordinary childhood, such as a popular candy, cartoon TV show, or backyard game, and “control” snapshots depicted scenes and items from modern life.
Viewing nostalgic images reduced pain scores compared to viewing the other images.
In addition, looking at nostalgic photos also decreased activity in the left lingual gyrus and parahippocampal gyrus, two brain regions involved in pain perception.
Most importantly, the researchers say, the anterior thalamus encoded nostalgia and the posterior parietal thalamus encoded pain perception.
Thus, the activity of the thalamus, a brain region involved in the transmission of information between the body and the cortex, was linked to both nostalgia and pain classifications, describe the authors, who explain that the thalamus can integrate information from nostalgia and transmit it to the pathways of pain.
“The thalamus plays a key role as a central functional link in the analgesic effect,” summarizes Zhang Ming.
Homesickness may be a way to relieve low-level pain, such as headaches or mild clinical pain, without the need for drugs, the authors conclude.
This study sheds light on the neural mechanisms underlying nostalgia-induced pain relief, “providing new perspectives for the development and improvement of non-pharmacological psychological analgesia.”
Each person has a unique intestinal microbiota, with enormous data: the place of birth, how you have eaten, if you eat or have eaten ultra-processed or high-fat foods, what your personal hygiene is, what drugs you have taken…
“Our microbiota is not invincible against all the aggressions that endanger its balance and not all the bacteria that inhabit it are good. The solution: get along with all these bacteria, pamper them and not neglect them, with proper nutrition and a healthy lifestyle.
And to complicate it further, “there are many factors that can cause some of the beneficial bacteria in our intestinal microbiota to multiply excessively, disappear or be displaced by other potentially pathogenic ones,” he explains to EFEsalud Ángela Quintas, graduate in Chemical Sciences and specialist in human nutrition.
in his last book Why does my stomach hurt? (Planet), Quintas explains to us this mystery of the microbiota and how to keep it at bay.
Gut pain: candidiasis, helicobacter pylori, hiatal hernia, dysbiosis
He also explains that the balance between health and disease depends “in a very high percentage on the proper functioning of our intestinal barrier” and behind a stomach ache or stomach dysfunctions can hide ailments caused by the candidiasis, the helicobacter pylori, hiatal hernia wave dysbiosis, among other.
Although it may simply be due to a poor diet, being overweight, lack of physical exercise, tobacco, alcohol, old age…
candidiasis:
The specialist indicates that you feel like you can’t give up sweetsIf the smell of tobacco or perfumes bothers you more than ever, if you are more irritable and have very sudden mood swings, the culprit may be candidiasis.
This infection, which affects the health of our small intestine, appears due to the massive and uncontrolled presence of a fungus, which lives naturally in our intestine, skin and female genital organs, but sometimes it leaves its reservoir and grows disproportionately.
Helicobacter pylori:
Patients often complain that their stomach hurts as if they were stabbed with a dagger, when they are kidnapped by this bacterium that lives in the gastric epithelium, is very resistant to the acid medium of the stomach and usually generates stomach inflammation.
According to Quintas, who is also UNED professor and nutritional advisor in films directed by Almodóvar or Amenábar, more and more people with gastrointestinal disorders due to this infection are being treated.
It is estimated that around 50% of the world’s population has H. pylori, although most are asymptomatic.
“As the bacteria is easily transmitted and through close contact, infections often spread between different members of a family”
hiatal hernia
The most typical annoyance is gastroesophageal reflux after having eaten food (food or drink constantly rises in the mouth) and we have heartburn.
“Difficulty swallowing and feeling full after eating are other signs. In other cases, the symptoms are also respiratory: irritation of the larynx due to reflux can cause aphonia or hoarseness and even asthma or breathing difficulties due to aspiration of acid in the respiratory tract”, he points out.
severe dysbiosis
Sometimes, the author refers, to some patients everything they eat makes them feel bad, they suffer from stomach pain, swelling and a pronounced discomfort. What happens is that they suffer from severe dysbiosis, that is, significant alteration of the microbiota.
» They feel both sick and lost when it comes to following a food pattern. Above all, after having undergone various tests in which they have not found the cause of his state of health.
To do this, he recommends following a low FODMAP diet. This diet, first developed at Monash University in Melbourne (Australia), is indicated for people with fructose intolerance or malabsorption, irritable bowel syndrome, bacterial overgrowth syndrome and, in general, for all dysbiosis or imbalances severe on the gut microbiota.
He warns that it is “very important to adapt the low-FODMAP diet to the symptoms of each case and to bear in mind that it is not a diet for life, because there may be a nutrient deficit.”
(The FODMAP diet excludes foods rich in fermentable carbohydrates such as oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols.)
But each person is a world, so there is no equal ailment, nor a unified treatment.
Overweight and obesity
Also overweight and obesity are intimate enemies of microbiota, and they are at the origin of some of the digestive disorders and stomach pain that Quintas exposes in his book.
He points out that it is “very likely that these extra kilos are due to an unbalanced diet, in which ultra-processed products are abused, protein is left aside and, basically, carbohydrates are consumed.”
“Not to mention stressful situations, which also cause a bad relationship with food in many people.”
The nutritionist refers to five basic rulesof good eating and losing weight:
one.- Beware of eating anything that comes from the earth alone, that is, carbohydrates alone, and less if it has a high glycemic load. It is recommended for example eat them with protein.
two.- Be careful with liquid carbohydrates such as fruit juices and vegetable juices and with gazpacho in summer.
And this is because the liquid calories they provide cause blood glucose levels to rise very quickly and the lipogenesis, that is, the transformation of excess glucose into fat.
3.- Consume food every three to four hours to prevent your body from starting to use muscle mass as a source of energy.
4.- Do not let more than an hour pass from when you get up until you eat some food.
5.- Never play sports on an empty stomach.
In his book, the nutritionist and director of the BeOk program, also tells us what foods are good for us and why, or how to use them probioticshow to fight the irritable bowel or what dishes help you lose weight without starving. It also includes more than thirty healthy and easy-to-make recipes.
On the occasion of World Cancer Day, the Spanish Multidisciplinary Pain Society (SEMDOR) highlights the need for a multidisciplinary approach to chronic cancer pain, studying in depth the pain and emotional sensitivity of the patient and the family circle
Photo provided by the Utrecht University Hospital (UMC). EFE
Cancer is a disease that affected 19.3 million people in the world in 2020, according to estimates by the Agency for Research on Cancer.
That same year, the most common new cancer cases were: breast cancer (2.26 million cases); pulmonary (2.21 million deaths); colorectal (1.93 million cases); prostate (1.41 million cases); skin (non-melanoma) (1.20 million cases); and gastric (1.09 million cases).
This figure rises every year, forecasting that it will reach about 30.2 million patients in 2040.
Therefore, the interdisciplinary approach to chronic cancer pain is essential. This type of pain affects the majority of cancer patients depending on the type of this disease and the phase in which it is, affecting 90% of patients in the terminal phase.
“In the multidisciplinary approach to conical cancer pain, it is essential to distinguish the type of pain of the patient. On the one hand, there is somatic and visceral pain that we can deal with with non-opioid and opioid analgesics. On the other hand, neuropathic pain is more resistant to most analgesics and it is necessary to use co-analgesics”,
reports Dr. Luis Miguel Torres, president of SEMDER.
Doctor Luis Miguel Torres, president of SEMDOR
In addition, there are other disciplines capable of helping the patient with pain and which allow improving the quality of life and well-being of the affected person: Anesthesia/Pain Unit, Medical Oncology, Radiotherapy Oncology, Primary Care, Rehabilitation, Pharmacy, Psychology, Physiotherapy, Nursingito, among many others.
“We also have highly advanced interventional techniques that help us control the most serious cancer pain conditions,”
adds the doctor.
How to live with chronic cancer pain?
The doctor Elena Arregui Lopezattached to the Radiotherapy Oncology Service of the General University Hospital of Ciudad Real, member of SEMDOR, also provides a series of recommendations for patients suffering from chronic cancer pain.
Trust your oncologist and his instructions. Remember the importance of an early diagnosis.
Record all incidences of your pain in a diary.
Maintain a healthy and balanced diet. It has to be rich in antioxidants, mono and polyunsaturated fatty oils and fiber.
Exercise regularly. What your disease and treatments allow you.
Avoid toxic substances such as alcohol and tobacco.
Take care of your psychological health.
Strengthens social and family relationships.
Remember that there are treatments beyond drugs, such as radiotherapy for the pain of bone metastases.
