According to statistical data panic attacks and anxiety are the most common mental health disorders in today’s modern day and age. Even though they’re mental health issues, they may be caused by regular physical health issues.
According to latest research, our diet has a significant impact on our mental health. But this shouldn’t surprise us, as we all know that everything in our body is connected and linked to everything else.
What exactly could be causing these serious mental health problems? It seems that scientists have discovered a connection between low iron and vitamin B levels and anxiety and panic attacks. In today’s article we decided to take a closer look at how these two are connected.
The Science Behind Anxiety Disorders and Panic Attacks
We’ve all had to deal with a panic attack at least once or twice in our lives. It’s quite common to feel like this before some public speaking or an important test. But people who have chronic panic attacks deal with this type of situations on a regular basis. Their panic attacks occur suddenly and without any particular reason. Or rather without any visible reason to everyone else, but a perceived one for the person experiencing it. Those who suffer from panic attacks feel like they’re losing control and experience an array of symptoms like sweating, chills, stomach aches, nausea, dizziness, accelerated heart beat and so on.
How Are These Two Disorders Linked to Low Vitamin B and Iron?
The study we refer to was conducted by the University Okayama in Japan and the scientists behind it were able to determine a connection between low levels of iron and vitamin B6 and increased anxiety. The study was done on 7800 patients who were critically ill and hospitalized in the Atago Hospital in Japan. It lasted for a year and 44 of the patients were eligible for the study while 21 of them agreed to take part. All the subjects were premenopausal women around the same age. Eleven of them suffered from hyperventilation attacks and 10 from panic attacks. The study was able to determine that all of the subjects had significantly lower vitamin B6 and iron levels, compared to the subjects from the control group who had normal levels and experienced no mental health issues.
The Role of Iron and Vitamin B6 in Serotonin Synthesis
Serotonin is known to play an important role in anxiety disorders. The research team discovered that serotonin is synthesized from tryptophan and during the synthesis of this hormone in the brain vitamin B6 and iron play an important role. Both of them play a vital role in the synthesis of serotonin. Hence it’s no surprise that low levels of vitamin B6 and iron could lead to a plunge in serotonin. And people with anxiety disorders are known to have low serotonin levels.
