Brains misbehaving...or are they?

Big Pharma would certainly have us believe that many human emotions, depression the most notable amongst them, are completely amenable to pharmaceutical manipulation. End result - potential for a lifetime of drugs that do more harm than good!

I’m now quoting verbatim from Dr. Kelly Brogan - board certified in the US in Psychiatry/Psychosomatic Medicine/Reproductive Psychiatry and Integrative Holistic Medicine. I recommend Dr. Brogan’s article in full.

“What are these medications actually doing?!  The truth is, we have very little idea. We like to cling to simple explanations, but even the name of the various antidepressants, selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors and norepinephrine re-uptake inhibitors is misleading. They are far from selective.  An important analysis by the former director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) claimed that antidepressants "create perturbations in neurotransmitter functions" causing the body to compensate through a series of compensatory adaptations which occur after "chronic administration" leading to brains that function, after a few weeks, in a way that is "qualitatively as well as quantitatively different from the normal state."

So forget anti-depressant medication, instead try the following

• restful sleep: get rid of EMR from your bedroom
• exposure to sunshine:10-15 minutes daily between 10am-2pm (expose 40 percent of your skin area) 
• whole foods: healthy food grown on healthy soil, fresh and in season
• avoid: stimulants, alcohol, refined foods, sugar-laden foods, chemical-laden foods
• hydrate: plenty of high quality purified water (2 litres daily)
• exercise: muscle building and aerobic (at least 40 minutes daily)
• meditate: studies show it is every bit as good as those dubious drugs!

The above initiatives, undertaken together, seriously and regularly will lift your spirits, but in the event that "the blues" linger or the "black dog" still bites, look to Thomas Moore “Care of the Soul”. Then ask yourself if maybe, just maybe, a period of less than joyful enthusiasm for life might actually be part of the mysterious, remarkable journey that for all of us will have its ups and downs, its highs and lows and was most certainly never designed to be a never-ending pleasure cruise.

From the front line in the fight against depression and anxiety

You may have heard of serotonin, a neurotransmitter produced by the body, and maybe you’re familiar with the mode of action of a whole class of anti-depressant drugs. These selectively inhibit the uptake of serotonin, increasing its extracellular concentration, but despite widespread prescribing of these Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors (SSRIs), mental health issues such as depression and anxiety are not at all well controlled. Simply put, SSRIs don’t work very well, but if your were also aware that there are more serotonin receptors in your gut than in your brain, the fact that they're less than truly effective starts to make more sense.

Now the evidence is mounting and it’s pointing to the seat of a host of mental and emotional health issues - in the health of your gut! So whether you're worried about your mental health, your digestive health, your immune response, your hormone balance or whether you already feel and plan to stay truly well in all of those departments, a regular dose of a high potency probiotic is the product you need. And better still, with regular probiotic intake, all your other health-promotion measures and your supplement program will be enhanced!

Addiction, mental health issues ... prevention's easier than cure

Just launched in Sydney is a new program to identify future alcoholics and drug addicts. The program will run under the auspices of the Centre for Research Excellence in Mental Health and Substance Use and will be the biggest in the world for research into the combined topics. The Centre will work with The Black Dog Institute and Royal Prince Alfred and Royal North Shore Hospitals in Sydney to ensure research findings are quickly translated into practice. More than 3000 NSW high school students are currently being studied to identify whether personality traits predispose them to drug and alcohol problems, and if early intervention can prevent them. 

I’d like to put forward a suggestion here. We need to look right back to the beginning of the life cycle for viable, long-term and effective ways to counter the drug and alcohol epidemic and the epidemic of mental health issues. We need two optimally healthy parents conceiving optimally healthy babies, normal unmedicated births, breastfeeding with infant led-weaning and full-time parenting in the early years, then a lifetime of healthy eating habits (e.g. those who eat more fruit and vegies are less likely to be depressed). 

I’ve contacted Professor Maree Teesson who is the head of the team at the new Centre - suggesting they might like to be involved in the roll-out of foundation, health-promotion, preventive education through community pharmacy. I await her response. 

"The Menopause Trap"??

On my soapbox about the other end of a woman’s reproductive life today and I do get angry when journalists and health writers talk about menopause in terms that surely leave women wondering what they’re in for...

Today's SMH article really lays it on “it's something women dread”, “10 years of hot flushes”, “50 hot flushes a day”, “a time for anti-depressants” and so on. 

Nothing for it but to ignore the $1 billion Women's Health Initiative study and reach for the HRT!

I’m trusting Sydney Morning Herald won’t reject my comment which mentions Femmenessence by name, as a clinically researched natural alternative to HRT with documented positive effects on hormone levels (together with positive effects on hot flushes and all the other things that make this a trying time for so many women). 

But as usual, a product can only do so much and even though I plan to continue taking Femmenessence into the sunset (for my bones, heart and neurological function) I’m working hard at all the dietary, lifestyle and exercise elements that have made menopause not much more than a cessation of my menstrual cycle. And if I manage to find a publisher who isn’t terrified of the word menopause you’ll be able to read all about those self-help measures in a new book. Meanwhile, those measures are pretty much the same as the ones that support healthy conception and pregnancy! 

The good guys that grow in your gut

I’m hopping on the “healthy gut” soap box again! The research, expanding at a phenomenal rate, confirms the importance of the gut microbiota. Quite apart from preventing a host of directly, gut-related, health issues, the good gut bacteria go a long way towards establishing and maintaining normal weight, hormone balance and emotional stability!

And relevant to my work, Yale and Harvard researchers have identified a brief window of opportunity postnatally when optimal gut health can be established. Take advantage of that window and you bestow a lifetime of better health on the child. WOW - what an opportunity we have, or conversely, what an opportunity we miss. Caesarean-section means a baby born into a sterile environment, failing to acquire his mother’s bacteria as he passes down the birth canal. Formula feeding presents a similar story, delivering an equally unfortunate impact on the infant's gut health. Those US researchers make a direct link to the extremely high C-sec and formula feeding rates to the epidemics of obesity and depression! 

But no matter how deplorable the statistics, the good news is that probiotics can act as a surrogate with probiotic-containing products of potential benefit to the whole family. But there’s madness in the air! As of December 14 2012 in the EU, the word “probiotic” can no longer be used on product labels since it infers a “health claim.” EU consumers will have to look for the names of specific strains to find what they want - a move that defies logic and will no doubt deter the less well-informed. When will restoring optimal (normal?) status of naturally occurring bacteria, trace elements, vitamins or whatever be the RIGHT OF and made EASY for the health-conscious consumer? Before the madness reaches Australian shores,  get a product with multiple strains and get those good guys growing in your gut!

More important than vitamins and trace elements

Wow, what an eye-opener the Congress in Istanbul - Probiotics and Prebiotics in Paediatrics! Latest research confirmed the absolute and fundamental importance of establishing healthy gut ‘microbiota’ which is the official term for 1.5Kg, mostly bacteria, containing 100 times more cells and 100 times more DNA than our body! ‘Important’ isn’t really strong enough to describe all the things this colony of microorganisms is responsible for, including integrity of gut lining, nutrient absorption and vitamin synthesis, immune function, energy metabolism, hormone production and balance and neurotransmitter production. All of that said you won’t be surprised when I tell you that compromised gut health (fewer of the healthy bacteria, or an overgrowth of unhealthy species) are linked to a host of gastrointestinal health issues but also to the obesity and depression epidemics. Wondering about the health of your gut? Don’t wonder, make sure! Invest in a potent probiotic product and take it on an on going basis.