Mental Illness-Lifestyle Changes

1.       Introduction

·         If you scroll far back enough you’ll see another mental illness article that tackled the whole topic of neuroses from a worldview/belief angle. But there’s no point in doing that if its just a matter of deficiencies and bad habits. The diet advice is likely to be better in the case of unnatural neuroses (you don’t know where it came from or why).

·         If you have anything at all wrong with you ever, the first thing you should ever do is make sure you're maxing out on every nutrient under the sun. And that doesn’t mean hitting the RDI’s because they are rubbish. You should use chatgpt or go through research papers manually and find the doses used that achieve therapeutic benefit and try that. Remember these are vitamins not toxic chemicals despite what big pharma has purported.   

2.       Possible Causes

·         Chronic stress and continuously high cortisol shrink the hippocampus. Overactive sympathetic nervous system leads to anxiety then depression.

·         All the chemicals like glyphosate in our world that blocks tryptophan in microbes which is needed to make neurotransmitters like serotonin.

·         Inflammation

·         Insulin resistance

·         Deficiencies

·         Now obviously you would want to eliminate the stress factors but if that’s not exactly an option for your situation then you can at least assist the body with all of its processes.

·         Veganism: So many have to denounce it for health reasons (Alex O’connor). The most common causes of vitamin B12 deficiency vegetarianism/veganism (Kapoor et al., 2017):

3.      Possible Treatments

•      Vitamin B1

•      Vitamin B3

•      Vitamin B9

•      Vitamin B12

•      Vitamin D3

•      Zinc

•      Magnesium

•      Fasting

•      Rhodiola

•      Green Tea

•      Ashwagandha

•      Choline

•      Omega 3’s

•      Curcumin

•      Keto

•      Cold Showers

•      L-Tryptophan

•      Lactic Acid

•      L-Theanine

•      Exercise

•      Gut restoration

•      L.Reuteri

•      L. Bifidobacterium 

4.       Why Would These Help?

·         Most of the vitamins are critical for oxidative stress or myelin protection or reducing inflammation or creating neurotransmitters or supporting mitochondria and their deficiencies can easily imitate depression. And their deficiencies can be caused by overconsumption of refined carbs and sugars which leads to insulin resistance which is why keto and fasting can be of benefit.

·         Then there’s a handful of other herbs and compounds that are your classic adaptogens that modulate hormones and neurotransmitters and reduce fatigue, improve resilience to stress, enhance relaxation, improves mood, reduces inflammation, enhances neurogenesis. Curcumin alone was shown to be as effective as SSRI’s. In this side by side comnparison, the only thing curcumin doesn’t have is the side effect of suicidal ideation. 

·         All or many of these work synergistically so do all of them and then you can complain. Life is hard. If you’re going to stay alive this is what you have to start with.

 5.       Gut

·         Depending on what you know about gut health this one might sound like a curve ball.

·         90% of data goes from gut to brain through the vagus nerve which is an information highway. If your gut is not right, it can be of absolutely no surprise that your head isn’t either. The gut makes tons of neurotransmitters. This is why it’s not uncommon for people to develop depression after they’ve taken antibiotics and nuked their gut biome. 

·         In people with major depressive disorder, they’re seeing patterns in bacteria of higher amounts of clostridium, streptococcus, klebsiella, oscillibacter, alistipes, gelria, turicibager and lower amounts of bifido, lacto, dialister, faecalibacterium.

·         So after selling everyone on anti-depressants that work as well as tumeric based on a lie, we can also look at how they are actually WORSE for you because they inhibit the growth of friendly bacteria and decrease diversity of your mirobiome creating alterations and increasing inflammation. All 3 of those things increase the need for SSRI’s. Explaining why all the peope who take them get hooked and its an uphill battle trying to get off them.

·         5-7 keystone species that you need that have probably been nuked by antibiotics or contemporary food. There is Prevotella that is missing from 70-80% of the population. Akkermansia, 40-60% of people missing it. Faecalibacterium, 30-50% missing this. Ruminococcus. Bacteroides fragilis-most people have this but you need enough Vit D which most people don’t. And of course L. Reuteri. 

·         To restore: polyphenols (green tea, garlic, onion, asparagus). Fermented stuff. Colostrum, bone broth, zinc carnosine, l-glutamine. Intermittent fasting, probiotics, prebiotics.   

6.       Evidence:

·         (Valizadeh & Valizadeh, 2011) (Oh & Brown, 2003; Dommisse, 1991). 

·         Zinc has anti-anxiety and antidepressant effects, and is critical for regulating excitatory glutamate and NMDA receptor activity in the brain. (Andrews, 1990; Joshi, Akhtar, Najmi, Khuroo, & Goswami, 2012).

·         There’s a condition known as brain insulin resistance. Diabetes folks 3x more likely to get depression. Insulin nasal sprays have been shown to decrease feelings of depression. Also explains why fasting can also improve moods and according to many heal from depression.

·         In one study, drinking 4 cups of green tea per day reduces depression by 51%. Unfermented. Its an adaptogen. Can affect hippocampus. Has L-theanine amino acid. Promotes neurogenesis, lowers stress. Neuroprotective.

·         Dr Georgia Ede psychiatrist. Diet and mental illness.

·         In a randomized controlled trial with 60 people they compared prozac to curcumin. Curcumin is AS effective without the side effects (nausea, headaches insomnia, diarrhea, fatigue, weakness, chest pain, painful erection. Curcumin can increase BDNF. Depression and many brain disorders are linked to low BDNF. 

 7.       Why You Shouldn’t Trust Doctors

·         Because they havent fixed anything. The rates of suicide and depression are ever mounting and every atheist and their grandma is in therapy achieving nothing but a depleting bank account. Everyone is numbing reality still with prescribed and unprescribed drugs and societal happiness continues to plummet.  

·         They sat by while Big Pharma screwed everyone. The chemical imbalance theory was an unscientific lie that was propagated by the same people who came up with a drug to “correct” that imbalance. And after decades the theory was quietly debunked and people are still taking these anti-depressants because doctors keep giving them out. These same anti-depressants that were clinically equivalent to placebos and curcumin! And did you also know that unlike anti-depressants, curcumin doesn’t have suicidal thoughts and haviors as a side effect? Serotonin and depression: pathophysiological mechanism or marketing myth? – ScienceDirect This is why there was a time where people said there’s no such thing as depression. Because sadness became clinically diagnoseable and unproven theory was used to sell an addictive drug that led to astronomical profits!

·         Doctors are actually MORE likely to be hoodwinked by big pharma! Don’t reject this position just because you think outliers disprove rules. There ARE doctors out there successfully using natural remedies and ignoring big pharma but they ARE the outliers.

Ø  Intelligent people are not LESS biased and prone to being deceived than dumb people. The stats are in: (Richard F West “Cognitive Sophistication Does Not Attenuate the Bias Blind Spot” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology). In fact, the smarter you are (or think you are) the more likely you are to have another bias-the blindspot bias. It is actually easier to trick them because they think they are above being tricked! 

Ø  In another paper (Bias Blind Spot: Structure, Measurement, and Consequences) it showed if you believe you are less biased, then unconsciously, you are more likely to believe your judgements and decisions are less in need of correction and therefore less likely to take advice or criticism from someone different to you. When one’s worldview is rarely challenged in an envrionment, it requires less intelligence to hold the view. What do you think medical school is?

Ø  Physicians and scientists are VERY different. Scientists question everything and figure out why everything is how it is. Doctors of all types are MEMORIZING information. The implicit presumption at medical school is that what you’re being taught is correct. Virtually impossible to foster a critical mind in that setting. The whole system is “This is true now learn it.” Simone Gold (very well respected and well educated doctor) points out that there isn’t really this mystery about health and medicine that certain people try to create. The science actually can be explained to the average person (if there actually is scientific backing) “100% of diseases can be explained in 3 mins or 15 mins.”