International Journal of Pure & Applied Bioscience (IJPAB)
Year : 2017, Volume : 5, Issue : 5
First page : (10) Last page : (14)
Article doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.18782/2320-7051.5393

Role of Antioxidants in Generalisaed Anxiety Disorder

Medhavi Gautam*¹, Mukta Agrawal², Shiv Gautam³ and Manaswi Gautam^4
1Consultant Dietician, Gautam Hospital & Research Center, Jaipur
²Assistant Professor Department of Home Science, University of Rajasthan, Jaipur
³Director Professor, Gautam Institute of Behaviour Sciences and Alternative Medicine, Jaipur
⁴Director and Consultant Psychiatrist, Gautam Hospital & Research Center, Jaipur
*Corresponding Author E-mail: medhavigautam@yahoo.com
Received: 6.08.2017  |  Revised: 10.09.2017   |  Accepted: 18.09.2017  

 ABSTRACT

Though there are wide range of stress induced disorders, anxiety is the core symptoms of all stress induced disorders and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is the commonest syndromal presentation.
            To combat the biochemical changes which occur as a result of stress there is antioxidant defence in the biological system. Secondary defence is by the non-enzymatic antioxidants like Vitamin E, Vitamin C, Vitamin A.
Therefore the authors intrest was aroused to examine the status of these antioxidants in biological system of patients suffering from stress induced psychiatric disorders.
The study was carried out with following aims:-

1. To find out whether patients with GAD have any difference in blood serum levels of Vitamin A, C & E in comparison to normal healthy control group.
2. To find out whether supplementation of adequate doses of Vitamin A, C & E leads to improvement in anxiety and reduction in scores of the patients.

60 subjects in the age group of 20-60 years who attended psychiatric clinic of a private hospital, who met inclusion and exclusion criterion of the study and consented for psychological evaluation and blood screening to find out the serum levels of Vitamin A, C and E were included in the study. Approval was saught from the institutional ethics committee for collecting blood sample of these subjects before and after the Vitamin A, C and E supplements given for a period of 6 weeks.
            It was observed that patients with GAD had significantly lower levels of Vitamin A, C and E in comparison to healthy controls after dietary supplementation of these vitamins for a period of 6 weeks it was observed that there was significant reduction in anxiety scores of patients. A significant increase in the blood levels of antioxidants was observed in patients.
Findings suggest that antioxidant supplement therapy as an adjuvant therapy is useful in patients with stress induced psychiatric disorders results have been discussed.

Key word:

• GAD- Generalisaed Anxiety Disorder
• HAM-A- Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale
• ICD-10. (International Classification of Diseases X version)

Full Text : PDF; Journal doi : http://dx.doi.org/10.18782

Cite this article: Gautam, M., Agrawal, M., Gautam, S. and Gautam, M., Role of Antioxidants in Generalisaed Anxiety Disorder, Int. J. Pure App. Biosci. 5(5): 10-14 (2017). doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.18782/2320-7051.5393