I call myself the “accidental psychiatrist.”
I never set out to be a brain or mood expert. In fact, my
focus was more on how the body works as a whole system. And people came to me not to treat brain disorders
like depression or autism or Alzheimer’s, but to deal with
chronic complaints and illnesses of the body.
Over the years, as I worked to correct the fundamental imbalances that cause all disease, I discovered that
mood and brain disorders would often magically disappear as I treated patients’ physical problems. I began to
investigate, for example, how treating digestive problems
could cure depression, or how detoxifying a patient from
mercury could bring back his or her memory.
As it turns out, the body and the mind are one
interacting, interlocking, networked system. And imbalances in the body’s seven basic core systems — nutrition,
hormones, immune function, digestion, detoxification,
energy metabolism and mind-body — can cause brain
disorders resulting in altered mood, memory, behavior
and attention.
The upshot? Fixing your body may be the best way to
fix your broken brain — and improve the quality of your
life as a result.
Silent Suffering
Our society is experiencing an epidemic of brain problems
— depression, anxiety, memory loss, brain fog, attention-deficit disorder (or ADD), autism, and dementia, to name
a few — and yet almost no one is talking about it. Unlike
obesity, which you can’t hide, psychiatric disorders like
depression and anxiety (as well as brain dysfunctions that
fall on the lighter side of the broken-brain continuum,
such as mood swings, anger or just feeling a bit anxious or
depressed most of the time) are often suffered silently, hidden from view. Yet such problems touch nearly everyone,
either personally or through family members and friends.
The numbers tell the story: An estimated 40 million
people in the United States experience some sort of anxiety-related disorder. As many as 20 million suffer from depression.
The use of antidepressants has tripled in the last decade.
Most psychiatrists and neurologists focus solely on
their favorite organ, the brain, using medications and
psychotherapy, and ignore the rest of the body. But what
if the cure for many brain disorders lies outside the brain?
What if mood, memory, attention and behavior problems,
and most other “brain diseases” have their root cause in
the rest of the body — in treatable imbalances in the
body’s key systems? (To learn more about therapeutic
and lifestyle alternatives to prescription drugs in treating
anxiety disorders, see “High Anxiety,” page 48.)
I’m not suggesting that nutrition is the only effective
approach in treating mood and mental-health disorders. If
the body is in balance and brain or mood problems still
persist, then working with the psycho-emotional and spiritual dimensions of these problems — through therapy,
for example — is critical. And yet only about 10 percent
of us are nutritionally, metabolically and biochemically
balanced enough to fully benefit from psychotherapy.
What’s more, years of psychoanalysis or therapy will not
reverse the depression that comes from profound omega-
3-fatty-acid deficiencies, a lack of vitamin B12, a low-functioning thyroid or chronic mercury toxicity.
The bottom line is that nutritional influences affect
mood through the body, and they do so powerfully. So optimizing nutrition through mood-calming foods and supplemental nutrients is one of the most important factors in
keeping your brain healthy and your mood steady.
In fact, when it comes to dealing with anxiety,
moodiness, depression and memory problems, certain
healthy foods — including a wide array of fats, proteins,
carbs and special nutrients — help heal and comfort your
brain in ways that no drug or other intervention can. And
chances are good that you could benefit from eating a
whole lot more of these foods more often.
Essential Fats
Do you gather wild plants to eat? Do you hunt wild game
for your meat? If not, you are likely one of the 99 percent of people who are deficient in the most important
ingredient bodies need for normal cell and brain function
— omega- 3 fatty acids.
Your brain is built from fat. And omega- 3 fats are
the most important building blocks for a healthy brain
and cells. Yet, in the last 150 years, we have seen an
unprecedented change in our fat intake. Refined omega- 6
inflammatory oils, including corn, soy and safflower oils,
have replaced omega- 3 fats from fish, wild game and wild
plants. Specifically, the ratio of omega- 6 to omega- 3 fats
in our diets has increased from 1-to- 1 to 10-to- 1 or 20-to-
1, and the effects have been disastrous.
All of the major diseases of aging, as well as the epidemic
of “brain disorders,” including mood problems, are directly
associated with this change in our diet. Specifically, low
levels of omega- 3 fats have been linked to everything from
depression and anxiety to bipolar disease and dementia.
Our brains don’t work without omega- 3 fats. Period.
Why? Because omega- 3 fats, together with phospholipids,
form the basic structure of all our cell membranes. In the
brain, specifically, each brain cell is connected to every
other brain cell by about 40,000 synapses, and they are all
sending messages constantly. Each of those connections
meets at the cell membrane.
Healthy cell membranes — those formed with an
ample supply of omega- 3 and other healthy fats — are
fluid and flexible and allow for easy communication from
cell to cell. This supports not just happier, more balanced
moods, but clearer thoughts and a sharper memory.
Conversely, if a cell’s membranes have been formed
from unhealthy substances that lack flexibility and fluidity
(such as trans fats, rancid fats or industrial oils), the ➺
