www.AZMuslimVoice.com
DEAR SISTER HANA / HEALTH
OCTOBER 2010
17
DEAR SISTER HANA Dear Sister Hana, I am writing you this letter with hopes that you can help me with this matter. My wife has some mental health issues that she is currently working on and I try to support her as much as I can. Until recently she has told me what I did not know before which is that she has suicidal thoughts and behaviors that I never knew about, however I notice it now that she has been open and honest with me about it. I urge her to seek help from her therapist about this but I think she feels ashamed of having these thoughts since it is against our religion to commit suicide. I am asking you for any help or advice you can give me on how to help her with this matter. Thank you. Dear Brother, I appreciate your honestly and truth. Therapy is only helpful when we are honest and truthful to ourselves. I understand why your wife may feel ashamed; it would be helpful if you were to explain to her that there is nothing to be ashamed about. It may be against our religion to commit suicide, but she is not choosing to have these thoughts. It might be helpful to her if you remind her that she is not committing any sin by having these thoughts. In fact, she is doing everything in her power to improve her problems, like going to therapy and being honest with you about her thoughts and feelings. It is not helpful to carry additional shame and guilt that is unnecessary in her situation. When your wife (or anyone) share with you (or anyone) that there are having suicidal thoughts, there are basic steps that can be followed to help that person feel better. When confronted with something like this a person can feel stressed and responsible for the safely of the other. I will provide you with three basic
steps that anyone can follow when they are told that someone is having suicidal thoughts. Step number one: Connecting. Connecting will give you an opportunity to clarify and examine you own feeling about the person exhibiting suicidal behaviors. Through connecting you build trust with the person to help them be more open and honest with you in what they are thinking and feeling. The next step is: Understanding. In this step, after a connection was made it is important to ask the person who is feeling suicidal why they want to die and why they want to live. Asking these questions are crucial and may be intimidating, but are very helpful in the long run. Understanding also involves asking the person if they have a plan or intention of committing suicide and when. If there is no plan, you can more forward to step three, if there is a plan of suicide, then a safety plan is necessary to ensure the person has no means of hurting themselves or that the means will be taken away. The third step is: Assisting. This step includes helping the person find resources to get help. Therapy, supports, people to call or go to when feeling this way. In your case, your wife’s resources are you and her therapist. You can ask her why she feels like she wants to die and why she wants to live, what does she think she has to live for. This will help he shift her thoughts from depressive thoughts, to thoughts about living and will help her feel better. I hope this helped you and everyone else reading this. Thanks again for your question. Sincerely, Sister Hana
Sister Hana is a Certified Counselor from Arizona State University. She is a Muslim therapist who is able to provide guidance and support to my fellow Muslim brothers and sisters in an Islamic and therapeutic way. She has experience in a large range of concerns including depression, anxiety, identity crisis, relationships, life skills, coping skills, anger management, and trauma. Inshallah with this column she will be able to provide you with confidentiality and help to any concern you may have. Please feel free to write to us and anticipate my reply in the monthly edition of Muslim Voice to dearhana@azmuslimvoice.com
Gluten-free has gone big time, but why so popular? By MICHAEL HILL Associated Press Writer Gwyneth Paltrow gushes over gluten-free. Chelsea Clinton’s wedding cake was baked without it. The new Old Spice guy avoids the ubiquitous protein to help stay buff. In fact, odds are good you too have tried, or at least encountered, a product with the gluten removed.
cut from his diet. Then there are the claims that going ``G-free’’ makes you feel more energetic. ``I feel better when I don’t do it. If I go out to a restaurant with friends and I have a beer and a plate of pasta I’m going to feel it the next day. No one wants a gluten hangover,’’ said Silvana Nardone, former
Gluten does affect some people, notably people with celiac disease. But celiacs, who suffer an immune reaction if they eat food with gluten, such as bread or pasta, are estimated to represent less than 1 percent of the U.S. population. Some other people have less severe gluten allergies or sensitivities. Dr. Alessio
and dabbling in vegan and dabbling in different things and they see gluten-free as part of that world,’’ said Shauna James Ahern, better known as the popular blogger ``Gluten-Free Girl.’’ Ahern, diagnosed with celiac at age 38 after feeling ``lowlevel lousy’’ her whole life, said that even as dabblers drop the diet, they build
Dr. Brian Bosworth, associate director of the Gastroenterology Fellowship Program at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, noted that while gluten can certainly be an irritant to some people, he would not make a blanket statement that it is harder to digest for everyone.
Americans are enthusiastically exiling a dietary staple that was not even in most people’s vocabulary a decade ago. But why?
Not only is gluten an essential element of traditional breads and pastas (it is the protein that gives them their structure), it often is used as a thickening agent in processed foods, such as ketchup and ice cream. And cutting out gluten is no guarantee of weight loss. The fad seems to be fueled partly by the celebrity factor: Paltrow talks it up on her website, Clinton stirred online chatter this summer when she ordered a glutenfree cake for her big day, and the muscular guy on the funny Old Spice commercials recently told Jay Leno that gluten is among the things he
Why people report feeling better is not totally clear. And the connection may be indirect. People who eliminate gluten-rich foods may eat more produce, and therefore have a healthier diet overall, said Dee Sandquist, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. Fasano suggests that gluten is generally harder to digest, perhaps because it was only introduced to the human diet about 10,000 years ago. In evolutionary terms, that’s not a lot of time to adapt to digesting a new protein.
Because gluten-free is what low-carb was a decade ago: The ``it’’ diet discussed on daytime television talk shows, promoted by hyperslim actresses and adopted by masses. Grocery aisles are stocked with the likes of gluten-free pasta, crackers, cereal and beer.
Unlike some other dietary bogymen like trans-fats, gluten is not inherently bad to eat. Only a small percentage of people cannot tolerate the protein, which occurs naturally in wheat, barley and rye. Plus, banning gluten from your diet can be really hard.
play a big part.’’
``I don’t think that, in general, that there’s a reason to strictly avoid it,’’ said Bosworth, who has celiac disease. editor-in-chief of Every Day with Rachael Ray magazine. Nardone, the mother of a teenage boy with a gluten intolerance, just released a cookbook of gluten- and dairy-free recipes titled ``Cooking for Isaiah.’’ These sort of claims are common, if hard to prove. But that has not slowed the industry’s growth. U.S. sales of gluten-free food has more than doubled since 2005 to over $1.5 billion, according to the market research company Packaged Facts. And the growth spurt is expected to continue at least through 2012.
Fasano, director of the Center for Celiac Research at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, figures that up to 7 or 8 percent of Americans have some kind of sensitivity to gluten. Yet about a quarter of U.S. adults are either trying to reduce or to avoid gluten altogether in their diets, according to the marketing firm NPD Group’s Dieting Monitor. That means most of the people eating gluten-free foods probably do not have to, but want to. ``Some of the people we’re talking about most are people who are dabbling in raw foods
awareness of gluten-free, which leads to more people getting diagnosed. That is why she thinks the diet still will be around in a decade. Many of these gluten watchers are people like Akiia James, a 33-year-old news producer from North Carolina, who already was healthy and fit before she decided to cut out gluten and dairy several months ago. ``The main thing is just feeling better after you eat, not feeling the weight of eating,’’ James said. ``I mean, I never anymore feel like I’m stuffed ... I think I still eat the same amount, but the ingredients
Sandquist says there is no harm in avoiding gluten, as long as you eat a balanced diet. But she said it can be a challenge to eat a nutritionally sound diet without gluten, despite the recent proliferation of products. And watch out: just because a product is labeled glutenfree does not mean it is low in calories. And some glutenfree prepared meals can run high in both calories and salt. ``There are just as calories, if not depending on the choices,’’ Sandquist ``It’s all about the choices.’’
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