Nutrition Info

A lot of people come here and say that they feel they eat a healthy diet. I used to think that, too -- and then the depression hit. The problem is that the "nutrition" I was taught in school, and the ideas still commonly around now (i.e. that "low fat" is good, and that polyunsaturated oils are good, saturated fats are bad) is simply wrong. How on earth could doctors, teachers, and society at large be mistaken about this? For the same reasons that they are wrong about antidepressants being ideal treatments for mental illness. Pure ignorance. Before you write me off as a lunatic, there's loads of info out there to be had, from credible and respectable sources, if you just look for it. "The truth is out there," if you know how to find it.

It took me a long time searching before I did. I had the idea, or instinct, that there should be some kind of way to put my depression right. Something went wrong, and no one was going to tell me that it was going to stay wrong the rest of my life. Medications did not "fix" it. A lower carbohydrate, no-processed-sugar diet did not fix it. I was beginning to despair, when I finally found a naturopathic healer who has extensive medical and nutritional knowledge. She helped begin my re-education in nutrition. Much of what I know, and much of my healing, I owe to her. I've also done research on my own.

I don't claim to be an expert. Far from it. This is a field in which medical doctors should be much more knowledgeable themselves, because that's where the deep healing occurs, right at the root of many problems. Unfortunately, modern Western medicine tends to treat the symptoms rather than the cause, and it is obsessed with prescribing medications. We can't look to doctors as godlike, omnipotent figures who know how to put everything right. We at least owe it to ourselves to research what ails us and look for alternative solutions, especially when the doctors really are at a loss to help us.

I urge everyone who reads this, therefore, to take responsibility for your own health, to educate yourselves. That doesn't mean avoiding doctors, but admitting that doctors are capable of causing more harm than good if we blindly hand our well-being and very lives over to them.

That said, I'd like to share here what I've learned about nutrition in the past 8 months. It's only a beginning, but maybe it can offer some help and some hope to those who read it. This knowledge literally saved my life, because I was depressed and suicidal when I came across it.

Happy reading,
Linda.

I've thought repeatedly of starting a nutrition thread in here these past two days, but have been waiting for you to do it because I have been too lazy. I was going to mention it to you to see if that might provoke you to do it, ha!

Thanks for doing it anyway,

J

Some things I've learned, and can add to this.

Fruit -- best avoided if you have blood sugar issues. Maybe some berries once in a while, which are lower in sugar, though it's worth bearing in mind that most fruit today has been cultivated to be sweeter than it would have been in the wild. You will get all the vitamins and minerals you need from a good vegetable intake, and some high-quality nutritional supplements like a multivitamin and colloidal minerals.

Grains -- up to individuals to experiment; though as the above article explains, our bodies don't really need them at all, and they can cause our bodies problems. I don't have any: no wheat products, no corn, rice, potatoes, legumes, none of it. I don't miss it. If I eat any now, it sits in my stomach like a rock.

This diet is fairly high in HEALTHY fats, again as the above article explains. You need to know what these are. Meat with fat attached to it is great, if you know that the animal was grass-fed, or fed on its natural diet (I still wait for the day when I can sample some chicken that was raised on its natural foraging food of insects). If the animal was grain-fed, you don't want to eat its fat because it's full of omega-6. Try explaining that to my parents, who love their yummy "good corn-fed" meat, LOL.

You won't gain weight on this diet if you keep grains to a minimum. You will instead shed the pounds at a slow and healthy rate. Eat what your body was originally programmed to eat and you will reap the rewards.

I'll post more info here as and when I have time, including sharing the nutritional and Paleo links I have.

With love,
Linda.

I think we need to be careful about the vegetarian/vegan issue here, maybe best not to get into arguments. However, I think there's a lot of evidence that the human body needs animal products. That's what it evolved to have. Certainly, I would have to say a purely vegan diet is unhealthy. If you are a vegetarian, then the leader of my Withdrawal and Recovery list says you will not be able to heal much from the ravages of psychotropic drugs; you body needs animal proteins.

Why don't you join, and ask her about this?

If you react badly to cheese, then it certainly isn't necessary to eat cheese in order to be healthy. Bread isn't necessary either. If you eliminate grains from your diet, then you will probably find you do not crave carbs, be they breads or sugars. Doing Paleo is the only way I've been able to free myself of sugar cravings that plagued me my entire life.

Must dash, happy to chat later if you like :)
Linda.

What you say about fish sounds sensible to me. If you're willing to have fish oil then most all of your omega-3 can come from that. There are recommended brands that are fairly pure from toxins.

It's also sensible, as you say, to read the files you've been sent closely. I didn't and I'm paying the price. When I joined that group I was mad keen to stop taking my medication, so I did a flimsy week-long taper and that was that. I should have read about all the problems that can occur if you do that but I brushed it off. I'm told that most people who join don't read the files, so you're giving yourself a really good start I think.

Right, I'll see about getting some links posted here.

Linda :)

Hi Linda

Thanks for this information. I don't post very often, but I am interested in trying this form of eating to see if it does work, although I'm concerned it will be horrendously difficult to get used to!
I've just about given up on my doctor today as all they are interested in is prescribing AD's which I do not want, so I'm going to have to try and help myself.
It sounds similar to nutritional advice given for SAD by natropath & nutritionist Michael Van Straten on his website.
I think I will do some research and give it a go once christmas is out of the way. I'll let you know how I get on.

Thanks for giving me some hope!
Sam

Here is an extract from a book by one of orthomolecular nutrition's most respected and longest-standing practitioners, Abrham Hoffer. He is mainly known for his success in treating schizophrenia with megavitamin therapy (specifically B3 and C).

It is interesting to compare Hoffer's take on mental illness with Breggin's (see the Antidepressant Info topic). Hoffer uses the language of the psychiatrist and talks of neuroses and diseases. In treating a patient he would first and foremost look at the patient's diet. He is not a supporter of "talk therapy." Breggin, however, believes talk therapy to be of ciritcal value, especially when the alternative is psychiatric drugs. However he seems unaware of the role nutrition plays in mental illness.

If only the twain shall meet, LOL. Hoffer still has much knowledge to offer, and it is tragic that the mainstream does not pay more attention to his research. This extract explains some of his ideas about nutrition, particularly how the modern Western diet can cause mental and physical illness.

from Putting it All Toegther: The New Orthomolecular Nutrition, by Abram Hoffer M.D. and Morton Walker D.P.M.

Some years ago a woman was admitted to City Hospital, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, with a diagnosis of self-induced skin gouges, a supposed psychiatric problem. Her immediate history included a broken love affair – which was generally considered the reason why this woman, a nurse, was tearing at her own skin. Invariably I include a nutritional history as part of any patient’s entry under my care, and I learned that she had suffered severe malnutrition long ago as a prisoner of a concentration camp in Europe. Now she had a resultant vitamin dependency . Additionally, she was eating a highly processed carbohydrate diet routinely. This was a combination debilitating to her mental health.

This nurse was gouging out portions of herself because of a severe state of anxiety-depression. I treated her psychiatric problem with orthomolecular nutrition (which consisted primarily of a nonrefined carbohydrate diet and vitamins) and she became well enough to be discharged from the hospital within two weeks. Her skin damage had ceased altogether. Any other orthodox medical treatment would have placed her under long-term, detailed psychotherapy – perhaps once a week for the next five years. It could not possibly have helped. Her malnutrition of thirty years before had finally caught up with her and caused mental illness – which was relieved through nutrition according to the principles of orthomolecular therapy.

The Consequences of Consuming a Junk Diet

Overconsumption of refined food causes the saccharine disease. Organ changes from the saccharine disease result in diabetes, peptic ulcer, constipation (and its effects such as varicose veins, hemorrhoids and cancer of the bowel) and other debilitations. Consequently, an orthomolecular therapist will direct primary attention toward changing the patient’s diet.

Associated with the saccharine disease, and especially with mental and emotional problems resulting from it, is the condition known as relative hypoglycemia. In reality, relative hypoglycemia is not a clinical entity in itself, being a term used to denote a laboratory test result in which a person’s blood sugar level decreases more than 20mg per 100ml after being given a “challenge dose” of 100g of glucose, constituting a six-hour sugar tolerance test. One can only guess at the proportion of our population who have relative hypoglycemia, but assuredly it is large – perhaps close to a majority.

Of 500 alcoholics that my colleagues and I have tested, almost all suffered a decrease of 20mg or more in blood sugar. About 10% of any adult population consumes excessive quntities of alcohol, and it is likely this group suffers from the saccharine disease. And as two-thirds of all neurotics and people with depression have the condition, we may assume that at least 35 to 50% of our entire population is victimised by its mental and physical manifestations. It is a result of the average North American ingesting a junk diet.

A Junk Diet Is:

A junk diet supplies poor quality eating – foods which contain sugar, white flour or polished rice, alcohol and items processed by manufacturers from whole foods. People are allergic to certain foods, and consumption of them can result in disease.

In effect, a junk diet is a disease, especially resulting in the so-called degenerative diseases of civilisation such as heart problems, and forms of cancer, arthritis and diabetes. Junk foods are artifacts derived from living organisms, either plant or animal. The major plant material which comprises living natural food is the seed of wheat, corn and rice. Seeds are the plant’s future progeny. When a wheat kernel is formed, it contains the amount of protein, carbohydrate, fat, vitamins and minerals necessary to launch a new plant. These components must also be present in adequate amounts in the human diet to support a person’s nutrition. In processed foods such components are not present. On the other hand, seeds and nuts, which are capable of growing new plants, are nutritious packets of food for us.

The flesh and organs of animals are even closer in composition to our bodies. When they are consumed they provide most of our requirements, provided we do not eat damaged goods of devitalised quality altered during the journey from the animal to our plates.

The components of food in nature’s packets are combined in a very intricate relationship. Protein, fat and carbohydrate interlaced with vitamins and minerals must be present. When natural food is consumed, all its components are provided at the same time. The elemental nutrients such as the amino acids, simple sugars and other items, will be delivered via the circulated blood to all the cells together. All the essential amino acids must be present about the same time. It does not help the cell to be supplied half the essential amino acids and then to receive the other half twelve hours later. If all the components are not present simultaneously, the cell functions poorly.

People are surprised when they discover that our present diets are generally inferior to the diets of our ancestors. They point to the tremendous advances in the science of nutrition and to our present food technology. It is hard for them to believe that modern foods, which taste so palatable, are so attractively packaged, and are so easy to warm up in a twentieth-century kitchen, can be as harmful as they are. Not uncommonly, people who are burying themselves with their teeth look upon those who are disturbed by our modern diets as food faddists or freaks.

Patients who have recovered from disease by eliminating sugar from their diet sometimes force a test of their eating programmes upon themselves. Very often they will expose themselves to several relapses by reverting to the diet that originally made them ill. They then return to orthomolecular physicians for care, while knowing full well what has gone wrong. Although they could overcome recurrence of their symptoms by halting their intake of processed and high-sugar foods, they return for treatment because they need the doctor’s reasurance and confirmation that their eating is valid, to offset the negative opinions of ignorant consumers of highly refined foods.

The Results of Eating Junk Food

Artifact or “junk” foods include such items as white bread, commercial french-fried potatoes, non-dairy creams made of chemicals and all the foods to which sugar has been added. Pies, pastry, cakes, chocolate, candy, most desserts, jello and many canned goods such as soups, contain added sugar.

Most children like sweets, and often sugared foods form a staple of their diet. When fed a diet free of processed junk, these children may feel deprived. However, not uncommonly after six months the sugar addiction will be lost, and they can adapt to the various healthier foods substituted. If sugar addiction actually manifests itself as allergy, junk food will produce disease symptoms which become uncomfortable. Any tissue or organ in the body may react.

Allergy to sugar and other components of processed food may manifest itself in the skin in the form of hives, rashes, itch, swelling, redness, decreaed ability to move because of skin rubbing and tautness, and pain. The urinary bladded may shrink and cause bed wetting. The central nervous system can react, causing a variety of unpleasant symptoms such as tension, anxiety, depression, hallucinations, thought disorder and changes in behaviour. The neuroses or psychoneuroses are psychiatric diseases that mainly alter mood. Psychosomatic conditions also fall into this category.

Malnutrition resulting from excessive comsumption of processed food in the form of refined carbohydrates is also the major cause of a braod group of neuroses and physical illnesses. Until recently these were looked upon as unrelated diseases with no known etiology, but now the root cause, nutritive deficiency, has become apparent. It may help many people who suffer from these diseases to embrace principles of proper eating. They will become aware immediately, from the reduction of their symptoms, of the reasons why they have been ill.

The mass indictment of refined carbohydrates as the cause of many of the ills of Westernised countries today was advanced by Surgeon-Captain T.L. Cleave, formerly director of medical research of the Institute of Naval Medicine, Great Britain. In 1956, he designated “the saccharine disease” as the master disease, incorporating diabetes, coronary disease, obesity, peptic ulcer, constipation, hemorrhoids, varicose veins; Escherichia coli infections such as appendicitis, cholecystitis, pyelitis and diverticulitis; renal calculus, many skin conditions and dental caries.

The master disorder which is the saccharine disease produces a variety of physical and mental manifestations that derive from the excessive consumption of refined or processed carbohydrates. Primarily, these are sugar and white flour. Highly processed products of this type cause specific physical anf psychiatric changes sometimes labeled psychosomatic and sometimes considered idiopathic. To distinguish them, however, and separate them from “thinking” diseases that arise from an influence of the mind or “unknown” diseases that come from no apparent extrinsic cause, the doctor merely needs to perform a six-hour glucose tolerance test on his patient.

Psychological Manifestations of the Saccharine Disease

I have identified relative hypoglycemia (functional insulinism) as a psychological component of the saccharine disease. The basic problems arise from the excessive consumption of refined carbohydrates, chiefly sugar and white flour. In 1924, about one year after insulin came into general use for the treatment of diabetes, Seale Harris, M.D., Professor of Medicine at the University of Alabama, noted that many non-diabetics experienced some symptoms of insulin overdosage, insulin shock. He suggested that in some people “hyperinsulinism” occurred: that is, the pancreas overreacted with secretion of too much insulin. Dr. Harris developed the six-hour glucose tolerance test to determine its presence.

However, today relative hypoglycemia is uniformly rejected by the majority of physicians as a valid entity or even as the end result of a diagnostic laboratory test. It remains one of the diseases not taught in medical schools. Not uncommonly, a 50-to-75 year gap will occur between medical discovery and application of its knowledge. For example, it took 50 years before the Royal Navy adopted Sir James Lind’s discovery that citrus fruits would cure and prevent scurvy. Nevertheless, more than 90 years have passed since Dr. Harris developed his glucose tolerance test and there still remains a reluctance to accept it on the part of medical traditionalists. Reading about relative hypoglycemia here, you now know that low blood sugar is responsible for a great deal of mental illness. When the sugar content of blood goes too low all the tissues of the body have alternative sources of energy except the brain. Brain tissue depends primarily upon glucose for its energy.

A consistent association prevails between neuroses and relative hypoglycemia. Symptoms may include depression, insomnia, anxiety, irritability, crying spells, phobias, lack of concentration and confusion. Accompanying these neurotic symptoms may be physical ones: fatigue, sweating, rapid heartbeat, diminished appetite and chronic indigestion. Other main neurotic symptoms may be headache, dizziness, tremor, muscle pain and backache. Hypoglycemic people do have the typical neurotic symptoms. Possibly one-third of people visiting their physicians for various symptoms suffer from this condition. It is one of the most common causes of neuropsychiatric illness, and it occurs because of the poor dietary habits of Western civilisation.

************

Criteria of Mental Health

Disappointment and annoyance are emotions I feel at the number of psychiatrists who remain content to keep their schizophrenic patients heavily and permanently tranquilised. Those patients are perfect consumers of services, support and every other community resource, but never again are they able to be productive citizens of society. They are being given cruel, ignorant and inhumane treatment. Keeping them tranquilised holds them in a state of abnormality not reconcilable with the precepts of morality – the science of the good and the nature of the right.

By my criteria, a patient is well or recovered from mental disease as soon as he is free of all signs and symptoms. He returns, or is able to return, to his former occupation or, if he had never worked before, now acquires a useful occupation. He gets on well with his family and with the community.

The basic treatment for mental disease in orthomolecular medicine is the overcoming of the effects of poor nutrition with corrective nutritional therapy. Yet a measure of ignorance of many medical critics of this care is that they hardly ever take nutritional histories of their patients. The most enthusiastic exponents of treatment of mental disease with nutrition are physicians who have themselves suffered with psychological manifestations of the saccharine disease. There is nothing as convincing as a personal cure, especially when every other treatment has been ineffective.

An example of what I mean is the result of my treatment of four general physicians who became severely psychotic before entering the study of medicine or who became ill after being in practice. They are now normal and practising successfully. The other two medical students recovered from mental ills under my care and are now completing their medical training. Medical study, calling for stringent concentration as it does, points up these recoveries as remarkable. I am unaware of other physicians able to recover from psychosis and practise medicine after being treated with standard tranquiliser therapy.

The International Network of Cholesterol Sceptics
http://www.thincs.org/index.htm

Questioning conventional wisdom about cholestrol and statins -- article from the Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/healthmain.html?in_article_id=430682&in_page_id=1774&in_page_id=1774&expand=true#StartComments

Both of these links assert that there is no connection bewteen high cholesterol and heart disease, or between saturated fat and high cholesterol, or saturated fat and heart disease. Sounds incredible? Have a look.

Hi Linda,

I read your Jan 26th post from Abrham Hoffer's writing when you first posted it...


I just realized that that was only about 10 days ago, which is really strange, because that seems like 2 months ago to me... I have been so busy lately with school and miscellaneous life things, that time is flying.

Anyway, I thought Hoffer's ideas there were very interesting and the mention of the saccharide disease really "rang true" for me. I had slightly below normal results on the second (2 hour) blood draw on my 2 hour glucose tolerance test, and his suggestions, causes, and consequences of these kind of results correlated perfectly with my own personal experience throughout my life.

I was wondering where you got that book excerpt? It seems that you have posted a number of book excerpts here, which is confusing to me, because I very rarely ever find a book excerpt, or a whole book for that matter, posted online in html (regular text) format, to facilitate copy/pasting. Where do you find these book excerpts? Or did you type that all out? It also seems I may have asked you this question before, but I do not recall.

My source is Catherine Creel. Well, she's often the start. Then I branch out on tangents of my own. Often I'll look up a link she gives me, find names, info there, links to other sites, and off I go.

I type these excepts out myself. I don't mind, if my cortisol can cope with it. It gives me something worthwhile to do. It's hard sitting around the house at this time of year, hoping/waiting for a job. I've done my best to be a stay-at-home mum but it's had a devastating effect on my mental health.

At any rate, most of the books I've recommended can be found at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com. What I've found is the more information I absorb, the more balanced I feel about it all. The authors of these books have their own agendas and they are skewed toward this. Peter Breggin is outstanding in his stance against psychotropic drugs, several other doctors are, but they do not marry any nutritional awareness with this, and end up offering little comofort to people whose depressions are partly or mostly caused by nutritional problems. Abram Hoffer is outstanding in his awareness of how vitamins can treat illnesses, but he is arrogant/ignorant enough to say in his own book that he thinks talk therapy should be completely unnecessary. Part of his original treatment for the girl whose schizophrenia turned out to be caused by multiple food allergies, was to offer her ECT, which he coldly decided did not help her. (My god, how would anybody truly be helped by having their bodies and brains fried?) And Sally Fallon is a big advocate of whole grains. I originally changed my own diet by cutting out sugar and white flour, which is about as far as she goes, but it didn't help much. I needed the full Paleo diet to be able to start healing.

However, taken all together, there's a lot of knowledge there. I'd also recommend Linus Pauling's How to Live Longer and Feel Better. It's a little out of date, and again I don't think his dietary advice is radical enough to help people who are already ill, but for info about vitamin C and its hundreds of benefits, it is a book second to none. There's also info about other vitamins. He was a remarkable man.

I know there's software you can get that will scan a page from a book and put the text in a word processor. Our scanners are covered in dust upstairs though, and my husband (who is the computer expert) is at work every day. So I type. I enjoy sharing this info. If only it had been available to me before the drugs.

Linda :)

Sugar rush: the sweetening of the British palate

http://www.guardian.co.uk/food/Story/0,,2013348,00.html

Rise in Mental Illness Linked to Unhealthy Diets, Say Studies

· Patients benefit by cutting intake of junk food
· NHS warned of rise in £100bn bill

Felicity Lawrence
Monday January 16, 2006
The Guardian

Changes in diet over the past 50 years appear to be an important factor behind a significant rise in mental ill health in the UK, say two reports published today.
The Mental Health Foundation says scientific studies have clearly linked attention deficit disorder, depression, Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia to junk food and the absence of essential fats, vitamins and minerals in industrialised diets.

A further report, Changing Diets, Changing Minds, is also published today by Sustain, the organisation that campaigns for better food. It warns that the NHS bill for mental illness, at almost £100bn a year, will continue to rise unless the government focuses on diet and the brain in its food, farming, education and environment policies.

"Food can have an immediate and lasting effect on mental health and behaviour because of the way it affects the structure and function of the brain," Sustain's report says. Its chairman, Tim Lang, said: "Mental health has been completely neglected by those working on food policy. If we don't address it and change the way we farm and fish, we may lose the means to prevent much diet-related ill health."

Both reports, which have been produced collaboratively, outline the growing scientific evidence linking poor diet to problems of behaviour and mood. Rates of depression have been shown to be higher in countries with low intakes of fish, for example. Lack of folic acid, omega-3 fatty acids, selenium and the amino acid tryptophan are thought to play an important role in the illness. Deficiencies of essential fats and antioxidant vitamins are also thought to be a contributory factor in schizophrenia.

A pioneering nutrition and mental health programme, thought to be the only one of its kind in Britain, was carried out at Rotherham, South Yorkshire. According to Caroline Stokes, its research nutritionist, the mental health patients she saw generally had the poorest diets she had ever come across. "They are eating lots of convenience foods, snacks, takeaways, chocolate bars, crisps. It's very common for clients to be drinking a litre or two of cola a day. They get lots of sugar but a lot of them are eating only one portion of fruit or vegetable a day, if that."

The therapy includes omega-3 fatty acids and multivitamins, with advice on cutting out junk food and replacing it with oily fish, leafy vegetables for folic acid, Brazil nuts for selenium, and food providing tryptophan.

Some patients who resist treatment with drugs accept nutritional therapy and most have reported an improvement in mood and energy. Ms Stokes said: "Within the first month there's been a significant reduction in depression. We've had letters from psychiatrists saying they can see a huge difference."

One sufferer who benefited from a dietary change was James McLean, who was at university when first diagnosed with bipolar disorder (manic depression). After he had been sectioned repeatedly, his father read about the role of nutrition in mental health. The pair went privately to the Brain Bio Centre, in London, where Mr McLean's nutrient levels were checked; he was allergic to gluten and yeast and was given supplements, including vitamin B and essential fatty acids.

"I'd been eating lots of intense carbohydrate foods ... because they were cheap, and very little fruit or vegetables," Mr McLean said. Now, he excludes wheat from his diet too. He added: "I have more energy and confidence, I sleep better, and I came off the anti-psychotic drugs, although I still take mood stabilising ones."

Andrew McCulloch, chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation, acknowledged that mental illness results from a complex interplay of biological, social, psychological and environmental factors, but thought diet should be an everyday component of mental health care. "It costs £1,000 a week to keep someone in a psychiatric hospital. How much does good food cost? We need mentally healthy school meals, and mentally healthy hospital foods," he said.

Best choices and worst:

Good for the brain:

Vegetables, especially leafy
Seeds and nuts
Fruit
Whole grains
Wheatgerm
Organic eggs
Organic farmed or wild fish, especially fatty fish

Bad for the brain:

Deep fried junk foods
Refined processed foods
Pesticides
Alcohol
Sugar
Tea and coffee
Some additives

Here is a good article that gives info about how the veg we eat today has fewer vitamins than the same veg a generation ago, and why it is beneficial to take vitamin supplements:

http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2001/mar2001_report_vegetables.html

More info on the mineral depletion of soil. Includes some info about veg farmed in the UK. An in-depth explanation of what happened, how it affects people, and what can be done about the problem.

http://www.trccorp.com/faq_root_disease

Meat and Dairy: Where Have the Minerals Gone?
http://www.foodcomm.org.uk/PDF%20files/meat_dairy2.pdf

Conventional medicine vs. naturopathy: How to fix a leaky roof

NewsTarget.com, April 10, 2007

People often ask me about the difference in philosophy between conventional medicine and naturopathic medicine. While the differences are numerous, some of the more fundamental ones can easily be explained. Imagine your body is a house, and the health of your body is the maintenance of that house. If you don't do regular maintenance on this house, the roof of your house begins to leak and you might notice water dripping into your home every time it rains. The water is a symptom of an underlying problem -- a roof with poor maintenance.

The difference between conventional medicine and naturopathic medicine can be described in the way that health practitioners would perceive this problem and attempt to resolve it. Conventional medicine would look at the water dripping out of the roof and find a way to measure it. So they would have a number, which might be 60 drips per hour, and they might say anything above that (such as 70 drips per hour or 100 drips per hour) is a disease, and they would name that disease something like, "Roofoporosis Disease."

They would identify the symptom itself -- the water -- as being the disease, and they would try to figure out which chemical would take care of it. In this case they might prescribe water absorbing crystals that you would spread around the house to absorb this excess water, completely ignoring the integrity of the roof, as well as the need to actually repair the roof and not allow water to drip through it. If you said to them, "well, maybe we should think about repairing the roof," they would say, "The problem is clearly the water -- you can see the water, here's a measurement of the water." They might even say if you don't aggressively treat this excessive water, you're going to end up flooding your entire house.

In contrast to that, a naturopathic approach involves a little more investigative work. A naturopath would use the dripping water as a clue, but then ask: what is the underlying fundamental cause of this water dripping into the home? The naturopathic physician would trace the water back to the stain in the ceiling, and this stain would indicate that water has been chronically dripping in from a leaky roof. Then, he would trace it through the attic to the roof and find a hole in the roof. After a bit of detective work, he (or she) would decide to patch the hole, repair the roof and stop the leaking water at its source.


Treat the problem, not the symptom
Naturopaths aren't treating the water -- the symptom -- and this confuses conventional medicine to a great degree. They don't understand how someone can treat cancer without treating the tumor itself. Because conventional docs think the symptom is the disease or the disorder. But naturopathic medicine sees the cancer tumor as only a symptom of a much deeper problem. Just like the water dripping into the home is only a symptom of a broken roof in need of repair, a cancer tumor is only a symptom of a serious underlying metabolic problem.

The naturopathic physician would fix the cause of the problem, but they wouldn't stop there. They would also realize that if the roof has one hole in it now, it seems likely that there could be other holes that are beginning to form, too. They would look at it from a holistic perspective and work to not only solve today's problems, but also prevent the development of other chronic degenerative problems that share the same cause.

Conventional medicine, having ignored the leaky roof in the first place, would play a game of prescribing a never-ending chain of treatments to mask all the various water disorders, each of which would be given a unique disease name. If water dripped onto your wooden furniture, it would be called something like Furniture Disease, whereas if the same water dripped on your carpet, they might call it Soggy Carpet Disease. No matter what the water dripped on, conventional medicine would have a different name and a different treatment for it. Even though all these problems have the same common cause (the leaky roof), medicine would find a way to turn it into a dozen different diseases and treatment plans, all while completely ignoring the root cause.

Naturopathic physicians and Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners, on the other hand, will listen to their patient's symptoms but not necessarily treat those symptoms directly. Sometimes they even appear to ignore the symptoms completely, even though they are in actuality looking beyond them and treating the fundamental causes of the disease. There are really only a few basic causes of all disease. Conventional medicine has over ten thousand names for various diseases, but these are merely symptomatic descriptions. Every single one of them is based on one of the following three causes:

Number one: the body (or the mind) doesn't have something it needs, such as nutrition, oxygen, air, sunlight, love, sleep, etc.

Number two: the body (or mind) has too much of something it can't use or is toxic.

Number three: the body (or mind) doesn't have the proper flow, either energetically or physically. This means it cannot remove metabolic waste products, nourish cells with fresh blood, or neurologically respond to a stimulus.

No matter what symptoms you present at the doctor's office, the naturopathic physician will investigate the root causes of disease: your exposure to toxic chemicals, your levels of chronic stress and the health of your relationships, your level of physical exercise, and your exposure to sunlight, fresh air and fresh water, among other factors. These are simple causative factors, but when they are out of balance, deficient, or present in excess, they combine to create all the different biochemical problems that conventional medicine labels as disease. In other words, these three causes can combine in ten thousand different ways, creating ten thousand different symptoms, and conventional medicine has invented a name for each one.

But treating disease is wasted effort if it remains focused on the symptoms. Preventing disease is sort of like doing basic maintenance on your home; it's something you have to do routinely, something you do preemptively to prevent disease from occurring. And you have to cover all the basics: nutrition, exercise, avoidance of toxic chemicals, avoidance of chronic stress, good flow and circulation, and a healthy mind and emotional state. These things go together to create a healthy body and mind.

This fundamental idea -- which is centuries old and was understood in China thousands of years before the rise of modern pharmacology -- remains utterly neglected by modern medical science. Today's medical practitioners cannot grasp this simple concept, and they still insist that there are more than 10,000 different diseases, each requiring specific chemical or surgical treatments.

It's like running around a leaky house with a pail trying to catch all of the drops of water while billing Medicare for the cost of the pails. It would be better to simply fix the roof. But knowing that the roof is leaking requires some detective work, and conventional medicine has abandoned anything resembling real detective work. Today, it's all about identifying and treating the symptoms, then waiting for the patient to return with more symptoms caused by the treatments used on the first round of symptoms.

Someday, this whole system of modern medicine will be looked upon as quite foolish. Because it doesn't take a genius to figure out that fixing the leaky roof is the best way to prevent water from dripping into your home.

This article is essentially about carcinogens (cancer-causing compunds) in foods, but I think it's just as relevant to sufferers of depression. If you include foods like these in your diet then they can end up wreaking havoc over time, and any number of symptoms can result, including depression and mental illness. So the next time you get the SAD-fuelled carb cravings, the info in this article is worth bearing in mind. True, one donut may not kill you -- but "one donut" here and there, along with other unhealthy foods, over 20 or 30 years or more, is a sure recipe for disaster.

Top cancer-causing foods:

http://www.newstarget.com/021808.html

I've been there too, I totally understand.

The past 3 months were rough for me as well. But I think it can be a signal that we still need to look for answers. I am trying like mad to secure some kind of teaching job for the autumn because no matter what else I do, the depression isn't going to lift until I get out of the house and get back to work. It helped when I worked 6 weeks last autumn but I had to quit because of overstimulation problems due to what my antidepressant had done to me when I discontinued it. That was a year ago now. Fingers crossed that things will be better with time having passed.

It sounds like you've got a good plan and are doing great. Diet alone often isn't enough though, especially for people who are having problems like depression. You could try looking into some supplements. There's some info in this topic, though I probably ought to look at that and revise it as I'm always learning more. And there's a wealth of info on the internet. If you have the good fortune of being able to access a naturopath in your area, that's probably the best thing of all to do. I've also been reading this book; it's from the US but was well worth getting, I've learned a lot from it:

Depression Cured At Last by Sherry Rogers M.D.
https://prestigepublishing.northlandcom.com/cgi-bin/html_web_store/html_web_store.cgi?page=depress.htm&cart_id=3998726.19334

Hope this helps. I bet you'll be feeling a lot better soon. It's been an incredibly sunny spring. Sometimes it just needs a little bit more intensity to help those of us who are really sunk LOL.

Take care,
Linda.

Other possible causes of depression:

Damage to the body from prescription medications. For example, some people who have taken psychotropic drugs end up being more prone to depression, even if it was not the original problem. Drugs can change a person's system in many ways, and healing can be incomplete if the body is not getting enough of the right nutrients.

Problems with gut flora and candida overgrowth. (Also see Leaky Gut Syndrome.) Candida is a fungus that is normally benign in the intestine; but when a person's body is in a weakened state for whatever reason -- for example, through an antibiotic killing off other healthy gut flora -- it can proliferate and start filling the system with its toxic by-products. It can also be fed by too much sugar in the diet.

Exposure to electromagnetic fields, e.g. living in a house near a pylon, or sleeping with your head against a wall where cables run.

Heavy metal toxicity. Some common sources are mercury amalgam dental fillings, contaminated tapwater, and chemicals in the workplace. There are tests that can determine amounts in the body. It is a good idea to get mercury amalgam fillings replaced whether or not they are the source of the problem, as they add to the total load of chemicals your body must detoxify daily. They can also cause problems with galvanism, especially if the composition of the fillings varies from one to the next.

There are many more possible causes of depression. It's important to take into consideration anything that could be throwing your system off balance. A good naturopath with a knowledge of nutritional and environmental medicine should be able to go through a checklist with you, if you find yourself uncertain about how to proceed, or feel you've tried many things but nothing seems to be working.

Hello, it's been a while since I posted but I am having to look at my diet and eat more red meat as I have been diagnosed with anemia. This can feel very much like depression as you feel extremely tired and are prone to catching every bug there is around.

However the weather has made a difference as I do feel much more energetic since the sun has been shining. My light box has made a difference this winter so I've probably had SAD and anemia, at least I now feel that with the sun shining and changing my diet I can start to feel normal again and hopefully feel even better for next winter.

Thank you Linda for highlighting nutrition as women especially (because of loss of blood in menustration) can be prone to low iron levels which causes general fatique. I wouldn't have known my iron levels were so low if I hadn't have fainted and gone to the doctors as a result.

Hope everyone is feeling well with this lovely run of good weather. Long may it continue!

Louise

Hi Linda

My anemia is most likely caused by heavy periods, so I have been given some tablets which has helped with this. My doctor wishes to tackle the cause of the anemia rather than prescribing iron tablets, so I also have to change my diet. I still feel terribly drained at times but hope this will lessen when my iron levels rise. I've been told it will take at least 3 months for my iron to get to where it should be as it is quite low and I am being monitored with regular blood tests. I've been impressed with the doctors, they do seem good at finding out deficiencies in iron.

I agree, I do think my SAD will be much better when my iron level is normal, I've been blaming all my tiredness on SAD but now I wonder!

Hope you are making a good recovery with your nutrition regime.

All the best
Louise

Thanks I'll give your receipe a try, it sounds good but I'll give raw liver a miss I think! I've been drinking guinness as it is supposed to have iron in it, and been cooking things like steak and kidney, lasagne with minced beef etc as well as trying to eat more greens. I was also advised by the doctor to eat black pudding.

Fortunately I'm not vegetarian (that would be very difficult in this situation), and actually like liver, kidney, black pudding, steaks etc but never really ate them that much.

A trip to the butchers beckons!

Hope you are keeping well Linda

Louise

Excuse me but this info is here to help people. How is it in any way dangerous to a 13 year old? Maybe you don't go along with anything I've written here and that is your choice, but it is also other peoples' choices to read it and take what they will from it. I can't see how anything I said to this particular person was inappropriate.