In American Journal of Psychiatry, investigators at the University of Melbourne in Austria, led by Dr. Felica Jacka, Ph.D., published significant research findings on the role of whole foods on depression and anxiety. This study with 1,046 women ages 20 to 93 years showed that women, who regularly consume a so-called traditional diet were more than 30% less likely to have major depression, dysthymia, and anxiety disorders compared with their counterparts who consumed a Western diet. In addition, the Western diet was associated with a 50% increased likelihood of depression.
What is the traditional or whole diet that helps prevent mental illness, according to the study? It is characterized by eating regularly vegetables, fruit, whole grains, and high-quality meat and fish. The Western diet, on the other hand, is high in refined or processed foods and saturated fats. All of which may increase the risk of depression, the research suggested. Dr. Jacka defines high-quality meat as red meat such as beef and lamb from pasture-raised animals as opposed to feedlot grown animals eating only a corn-based diet commonly found in the United States. The naturally raised animals produce red meats higher in omega-3 acids, which support general brain development and, more specifically, learning and memory.
Dr. Gomez-Pinilla, PhD, at University of California Los Angeles’ Neurotrophic Research Laboratory, agrees with Dr. Jacka on the profound impact of the study: “The psychiatric community has been somewhat reticent about advocating diet as a preventive and/or treatment strategy for mental illness. However, this research, as well as other recent studies may help convince clinicians about the ‘profound impact’ diet can have on mood and psychiatric disorders in general and perhaps they may even shift clinical practice.”
In my clinical practice at Dynamic Paths, when a person can successfully change his/her diet to consume appropriate amounts of high quality protein, fruits, vegetables, and grains, as well as become aware of the processed foods he/she has been eating, their lives change—emotionally and physically. The need for antidepressant medication to help manage emotions decreases and some people can discontinue the antidepressant medications. This makes sense. Antidepressant medication is working to alleviate the inability to make neurotransmitters, such as serotonin or the physical aspects of depression. Good food and appropriate nutrients also can help make serotonin and help the brain to heal. As the client continues to see a therapist, “brain re-wiring” for the emotional causes of depression can effectively take place. What mental health professionals and clients report to me is that as diets improve, clients can begin to work on harder concerns in therapy. If a person has a history of anemia, weight gain, quick loss weight loss programs, he/she may have nutrient deficiencies that nutrition alone will not correct.
At Dynamic Paths, my associates and I will evaluate individual diets to make sure that it is balanced for maximum mental and physical health. I can order blood panels to check to see if the individual has enough iron, B vitamins, and other minerals to make dopamine and serotonin.
Tips for moving more real foods into your diet:
1. Start by adding real foods rather than taking away your favorite treats.
2. Read all labels and notice if you can pronounce all the words and have some idea what it is. If you don’t know what it is, you have in your hand a processed food. Can you replace it with something that has fewer ingredients? For example, breads should have flour, yeast, water, sugar, and salt. More than that and it is a synthetic food.
3. Do experiments. For one week have a fruit or a veggie at every meal. What happens? Which fruit or veggie did you like? Which one did you not like? Did you try something different? Where were the difficulties in that one-week commitment? Can you miss once and then get back onto the experiment? Sure, we all do.
During my “How Food Affects Mood” lectures, people often ask for my opinion of artificial sweeteners. My reply has been, “I am a naturalist; I am skeptical of anything that did not exist 500 years ago.” Now, with the results of a long-term study sponsored by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, my doubts are confirmed. The study shows that artificial sweeteners cause the very things—obesity and diabetes—that people are trying to prevent by using sugar substitutes.
The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA) looked at the affects of daily consumption of diet soda, among other factors, on the health of over 6,000 study participants. The study found that the relative risk of type 2 diabetes increased 67% and the risk of metabolic syndrome increased 36% in people who drink diet soda on a daily basis. Type 2 diabetes is caused by an excessive level of glucose in the blood stream due to insulin resistance. Metabolic syndrome is a combination of health concerns that many Americans struggle with, including type 2 diabetes, obesity and hypertension (high blood pressure).
So why would something with no sugar, like diet soda, cause weight gain and glucose regulation problems? To find the answer, let’s first look at what happens when you drink a glass of freshly made lemonade (½ lemon, 2 tsp white sugar and 12 oz. water). The sucrose (white sugar) is converted into glucose and enters the blood stream. The pancreas releases insulin when the taste buds sense sweetness on the tongue. Insulin’s job is to open the glucose gates on cell membranes so the glucose can enter cells and then be burned as fuel. This is how the body naturally processes sugar.
Now, let’s look at what happens when you drink a diet soda. The taste buds register that you are consuming something really sweet and the pancreas releases insulin expecting glucose to arrive shortly in the blood stream. The insulin starts unlocking the gates to let fuel into cells, but there is no renewed fuel supply because there is no sugar in the soda. The cells absorb the limited supply of glucose in your blood stream left over from your last meal, causing a critical deficit. Typically, when the level of glucose in the blood stream gets dangerously low, the body has over ten hormones that mobilize glucose to fuel the brain. However, the diet soda has triggered the release of all that insulin, which turns off the mobilizing hormones and causes the body’s glucose regulation system to fail. Long term exposure to these insulin spikes from artificial sweeteners in diet soda causes the body’s muscle cells to ignore insulin prompting and put up a big “Closed for Business” sign, causing insulin resistance. Once the body’s natural process has broken down like this, the glucose rejected by the muscles is absorbed by adipose tissue (fat cells) and the rest accumulates in the blood stream, causing obesity and insulin resistant type 2 diabetes.
Another problem caused by artificial sweeteners is when insulin is released to clear calories from the blood stream and there are no calories, the body begins burning muscle mass as fuel to keep glucose feeding the brain. Losing muscle mass through this process increases health risks since muscle mass is what consumes calories and helps prevent diabetes and obesity. Additionally, our brain and body with the low fuel supplies will say, “Feed me, feed me”. Often setting up the likelihood to binge on sweets later in the day or the next day. The calories in the binge will be a lot higher than in the lemonade.
The ingredients of diet soda, particularly caffeine and amino acids, for a few hours will help improve the symptoms of fatigue and depression. However, in the long term the same metabolic processes that cause obesity and diabetes will also cause depression and fatigue.
Take home message: Artificial sweeteners don’t deliver! To help keep your body functioning properly, avoid unnatural alternatives. Eat real food, and if you are going to have a sugary treat, have it in small amounts. Stop and really enjoy it.
Due to the warm response to the PESI seminars that I taught in Washington last spring, PESI has scheduled seminars in Tacoma and Lynnwood, Washington in July. Is there any possibility that I will see some of you and/or some of your clients, friends or families at one of these seminars? That would be terrific! Make your plans soon and enjoy an early registration discount for your participation in the seminar, “Nutritional and Complementary Treatments for Mental Health Disorders: Non-Pharmaceutical Strategies that Work!”
Thursday, July 19, Tacoma, WA
Best Western Tacoma Dome, 2611 East E Street, Tacoma, WA 98421 Street
http://pesi.com/search/detail/index.asp?eventid=12881
Friday, July 20, Lynnwood, WA
Lynnwood Convention Center, 3711 196th Street SW, Lynnwood, WA 98036
http://pesi.com/search/detail/index.asp?sessionid=&eventid=12883
May 30th-June 1st in Seattle, Washington
Last year, I attended this conference and discovered a comprehensive exploration of complex issues on the physical, emotional, public and spiritual dimensions of mental illness and addictive disorders. The numerous educational and networking experiences proved well worth my time and investment.
I am returning again this year, wearing an additional hat, that of presenter. Perhaps, we will run into one another at the conference. I hope so. Meanwhile, for greater details here is a link to the conference
http://www.usjt.com/news/12-25th-annual-northwest-conference-on-behavioral-health-and-addictive-disorders.aspx.
I am including this article today for your reading because it is informative, comprehensive, and concise. In short, it is one of the best I have read recently regarding the prevention of breast cancer.
http://www.mnn.com/health/fitness-well-being/stories/the-10-best-ways-to-prevent-breast-cancer
When you are ready to ask the next questions concerning changing lifestyle patterns to support healthier living, let Heather Brummer and me know. Creating practical life changing plans with those who want them is one of the things we enjoy doing the most. You’ll get one of us at 206.579.2757.
moving toward fitness . . .
New research findings suggest that all of us should be less focused on calorie counting and weight loss efforts and more focused on improving and maintaining fitness, if we want to live better and live longer.
Dr. Duck-chul Lee and his associates at the University of South Carolina in December of 2011, published online at Circulation a study looking at how fitness and BMI, body mass index, affected cardiovascular disease and all causes of death. During the all-male study conducted over eleven years, men who became or remained fit had a 47% and 48% lower risk of all-cause mortality compared to men who remained unfit. Becoming normal weight did not appear to have any benefit in terms of reducing the risk of all-cause and cardiovascular death. Furthermore, becoming overweight did not appear to increase the risk of mortality.
Basically,” Dr. Lee continued, “to increase or maintain fitness levels, physical activity is the most important factor that people can modify.”
In other words, one very significant key to living a long life appears to be continuing to move–walking, gardening and yoga. And, don’t forget dancing!
For a full text see www.circahajournals.org.
Some Do’s and Don’ts to get you through the holidays and beyond from Heather Brummer, MS, L.Ac.
DON’T eat everything.
DO budget your treats and make them count.
DON’T forget to eat.
DO eat protein every 3 hours, or at least for breakfast.
DON’T stop moving.
DO modify your routine if it helps to keep you moving.
DON’T make any major lifestyle changes.
DO bring attention and awareness to your life as you live it right now.
DON’T WEIGH YOURSELF.
Really!
DON’T panic!
DO pace yourself, and be kind to yourself.
No doubt, with a little intentionality by January 1, you and I can be well on our way to a healthier 2012. Do you have a nagging health issue that it is time to solve? What is your health plan for 2012?
I am considering making January a month for doing one thing each day for my good health. That’s right: one thing each day for a month. For example, in January I’ll use a pedometer and begin writing down the number of steps I take daily. In February, I will include more dark green vegetables in my meals. I will do each activity for 30 days and then add another small step the next month. I will also find someone who can compassionately help me with accountability and the tracking of my activities.
Does this sound like a plan you could adopt with me?
You know, it is my long-term patients who make small changes and achieve over time the most progress towards reaching and maintaining their health care goals. They may not be consistent with daily exercises; they may not be consistent staying away from sugar; and they may not even be consistent in maintaining a balanced life. But, they are consistent about having a support person. That person reminds them when they get off track and of the benefits they have known in the past and will experience again. With time the binges look a bit healthier and the space between periods of no movement become shorter.
What do you say; will you join me in a plan of little changes?
Let’s decide this year to pay attention to our holiday eating, so that in January we do not suffer with sad cases of holiday regrets. The following are four simple no-regret actions for holiday eating:
1. CHOOSE 3 DAYS. During these 3 days, you will eat anything your heart desires! Perhaps you might pick Thanksgiving Day, a holiday feast and New Year’s Day–anything does! On the other 59 days, you maintain your normal healthy eating.
2. MOVE EVERYDAY. Take a quick walk around the block; jump rope for 15 minutes; follow a yoga video workout, or complete your usual 30 minute daily routine.
3. WATCH ALCOHOLIC INTAKE. Alcoholic beverages spike calorie counts higher than we ever image.
4. START PLANNING January’s re-commitment to healthier living in 2012. What will that mean for you? Make your plan and find a consistent support person to help you implement it.
On Tuesday, October 11, 2011 from 5:30-6:45 PM, I am really looking forward to a discussion with students at Bastyr Natural Health Clinic Ground Rounds. The discussion centers around important considerations health providers make for patients with addictions. I will focus on the challenges of prescribing medical marijuana, screening for addictive behavior, and cross addictions. Hopefully, the discussion will be very practical and will include several research and case studies.
If you are interested , please join us by coming to the Bastyr Center for Natural Health room 192.
Directions are at http://www.mapquest.com/maps?address=3670+Stone+Way+N.&city=seattle&state=wa
