Poor physical health may be a strong indicator of mental health problems, even more powerful than brain scans, according to new research.
Scientists have long studied the relationship between mental and physical well-being. The ability to use one to clarify the other is helpful to both healthcare professionals and patients.
Approximately 20% of American adults live with a mental illness. A 2021 National Institutes of Health study found that nearly half of Americans surveyed reported feeling depressed or anxious.
“Paying attention to other parts of the body other than the brain is definitely something we need to do with psychiatric patients. Not only are we taking care of those patients, but we’re making sure we know what’s going on.” “In order to do this,” said John Denninger, MD, director of integrative science and clinical training at Massachusetts General Hospital’s Benson Henry Institute for Mind-Body Medicine. health.
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To expand on the growing body of research on how mental and physical health are closely linked, Australian researchers tapped into databanks of adults from the US, UK and Australia.
The study compared about 86,000 people with mental disorders to about the same number of people without mental disorders. Mental disorders ranged from neuropsychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder to depression and generalized anxiety disorder.
The researchers used a combination of markers in blood, urine, and other samples that correlated with the function of seven different body systems: the lungs, musculoskeletal system, kidneys, metabolic system, liver, cardiovascular system, and immune system. Did. They also used data from MRI brain scans. With this information, the researchers divided people into different groups based on the quality of their physical health.
The data revealed that poor physical health, especially those involving the metabolic, liver and immune systems, are more indicative of poor mental health than brain changes that show up on MRI. .
Lead author of the study and Mary Lugton Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Melbourne Center for Neuropsychiatry at the University of Melbourne in Australia, Ye Ela Tian MBBS, Ph.D., said her team was surprised by the results.
“Mental illness is usually understood as a disorder of the brain,” she explained. The results of the new study do not suggest that this understanding is incorrect, but “show that poor physical health is also a very important component of mental illness.”
The study will examine whether that link relates to people who have more difficulty managing their physical health, who also suffer from poor mental health, or whether that link is linked to something else. It was not possible to determine whether it was related. Tian noted that further investigation is needed into why poor mental health may be linked to poor liver, immune system, and metabolic health, among others.
At present, “mental health professionals and physicians will work more closely together to monitor and care for the physical health of these people, even from the very early stages of psychiatric and spiritual care.” “There is a need,” she stressed.
Although it is useful to distinguish between physical illnesses that are related to mental health and those that are not, Tide noted that clear-cut distinctions are questionable.
Scientists continue to unravel the many mysteries of the brain, such as how a person’s thoughts and mental state affect the physical body. According to Dr. Denninger, the brain is part of the body, so the concept of a mind-body connection is a bit of a false dichotomy.
“We do ourselves a favor when we recognize that the brain and the rest of the body are one system,” he explained. “It removes some of the problems that arise when trying to determine whether it’s in the brain or in the body.”
Tian believes that the relationship between mental health and physical health is complex and bidirectional, meaning that physical health and mental health influence each other.
Past research has documented how mental illnesses such as anxiety can cause feedback loops with a wide range of physical symptoms such as stomach pain, dizziness, and chest pain. Because of this, people with mental illnesses may not be diagnosed with physical illnesses in the same way that health care providers diagnose people without mental illnesses.
“It’s not uncommon for people with mental illnesses to be prescribed everything for their mental illness, which can lead to many illnesses being overlooked,” Dr. Denninger said.
So how can we determine which physical conditions are caused by poor mental health?
“My glib answer to that is that you can’t do that,” Dr. Denninger emphasized. “These things are so intertwined that it’s very difficult to tell what’s coming from the brain and what’s coming from the body. It’s a complex system… Whenever something is happening inside our bodies, our brains play a role.”
What is important to understand is that for those who treat patients with mental illness, it is vitally important that people are able to take control of their physical health and deal with the concerns that come with it.
“We know that mental illness is associated with shorter life expectancy,” Tian added. “And the majority of deaths among people with mental illness are related to poor physical health.”
It’s difficult to draw the line between mental and physical illness, but Dr. Denninger recommends looking at physical and physical illnesses to better understand what may be triggering your physical symptoms. It was recommended that people keep records of their mental (or emotional) symptoms.
For example, are people more likely to get sick when their mental health is poor, or does that seem to be unrelated?
“The great mystery about the mind-body connection is not the fact that there is a connection, but the understanding of all these obstacles,” he stressed. “What is the pathway from what happens in our brains to what we perceive in our bodies?”
