Depression: The Hidden Nutritional Links

Here is a basic fact of pathology. By the time you can diagnose something, whether it be a lump, growth, x-ray change, blood test etc, your biochemistry has changed from normal to abnormal. This makes sense when you think about it. ALL disease including depression, blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, osteoporosis and osteoarthritis must follow this long established medical fact. The body makes a slow change from normal to abnormal often without us being aware of it.

The interesting part is when you stop and ask the question how and why did I get from NORMAL to ABNORMAL?? How and why did my body stop producing enough insulin? How and why did my serotonin or cholesterol get unbalanced? Again when you stop and think about it there would have been very early biochemical changes that were happening that you simply weren't aware of. This early detection and the reversal of many disease processes is what I want to share with you.

We all know that lifestyle stress whether it be physical, emotional or chemical is the cause of most disease. A very interesting aspect to stress though is that regardless of whether it is physical, emotional or biochemical stress the body reacts the same to it, with an arsenal of stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol.

WHAT THESE STRESS FACTORS DO IS TO INDUCE CHANGE AT THE BIOCHEMICAL LEVEL, EITHER THROUGH NUTRITIONAL IMBALANCE, EXCESS, DEFICIENCY OR TOXIN.

Here is an example with depression. Serotonin is the happy chemical that anti-depressants work on by blocking the breakdown of it in the brain. Let's stop and look at the process of what's involved in making it and consider the alternative hypothesis that maybe we just aren't making enough of it. Let's start with protein in the diagram below.

If you don't eat the protein , (turkey with the amino acid tryptophan in it for example) you can't make serotonin. That's the first observation. The next is that to break up the protein you need proper stomach acid. The number one selling drugs in the world are for digestion so it is a very safe assumption that MILLIONS have problems here. The next observation or possible problem is that we need zinc, B1 and B6 to even make the stomach acid. Zinc is very deficient in our soils and there is a very large percentage of our population (at least 25%) that does not have enough. No zinc, no stomach acid, no serotonin. Tryptophan is the amino acid you end up with when you break down the protein. Unfortunately it is the least abundant amino acid that we get in the diet. Can you see potential problems here?

Next, to break down tryptophan to 5-hydroxytryptophan you need adequate amounts of folate, iron, calcium and B3 to work as cofactors and enzymes. If you don't have them, you won't produce the 5-hydroxytryptophan. The same is true for the next step. To produce the serotonin you need B6, zinc, magnesium and Vitamin C. Notice zinc is needed again. Notice you need magnesium, iron and calcium in these steps. There is a lot of deficiency in these minerals isn't there?

The second diagram is a summary chart. As if a lack of vitamins and minerals isn't enough, notice the heavy toxic metals across the top of the chart. In today's toxic environment they are a huge issue. Let's use mercury as an example that you may have taken in with fish consumption. Even at low levels the mercury cancels the effect of iron, zinc, selenium and Vit B12 at the cellular level. What this means is that even IF you have enough zinc in the blood stream, the mercury will BLOCK the zinc at a ratio of 1000:1. One molecule of mercury will block 1000 zinc. Not good. This is identical to how people die of carbon monoxide poisoning. All the oxygen in the world is available to them but they can't use it and they suffocate to death.

In summary, if a person has nutritional deficiencies, poor stomach acid or toxic metals in the system, serotonin won't be adequately produced and depression will be present. This also applies to all the other brain neurotransmitters we need such as dopamine, gaba and noradrenalin. Drugs won't fix this but proper nutrition and detoxification often can. This is basic biochemistry but very few people are aware of this or use it clinically.

I hope it is now clearer how stress causes disease whether it is of a physical, mental or nutritional nature. As it turns out our physical, emotional and chemical wellbeing are all interlocked. All diseases can be looked at from a stress and lifestyle perspective and virtually all can be improved upon. The reason for this is that by and large we have gotten away from some of the most basic concepts in health and well being. What we often forget is that ALL cells need nutrients (minerals and vitamins) to function properly and ALL cells function better when the levels of toxins are LOW.

For more information, or if you have any specific questions please contact us. If you would like to assess your nutritional and toxic metal status or have a hair tissue analysis performed please contact us or visit our website at www.lifestyleintegration.com.au This very simple inexpensive test can give insight into many chronic degenerative diseases and can help us to understand how our biochemistry has shifted over time from normal to abnormal.

Yours in Health,

Dr. Todd Lizon, B.P.H.E., D.C.
Nutritional Balancing & Hair Mineral Analysis