Diet and Mental Health - Part 2

Four years ago our youngest son, Brandon, had a piece of cake at a neighbor's home. Within minutes he was hyperactive and uncontrollable.

It was the first time I noticed what I suspected. Refined sugar impacts Brandon's behavior.

Since that time I have continued to study the relationship between diet and mental health. (See this previous post.) I wrote an article recently for HandPicked Nation speculating about the link between incidences of violence and our modern diet. The article is excerpted below.

Mental illness is clearly an issue of our day. A World Health Organization fact sheet estimates that more than 350 million people suffer from depression, making it the number one cause of disability worldwide. Drugs used to treat depression, anxiety, and other mental disorders have therefore entered the spotlight. These drugs, while offering hope for some, offer serious side effects for others—including a propensity toward self-inflicted and/or homicidal violence. According to Dr. David Healy, psychiatrist, author, and founder of the website RxISK:

"Violence and other potentially criminal behavior caused by prescription drugs are medicine's best-kept secret."

RxISK offers The Violence Zone, a page devoted to the issue of prescription drugs and violent thoughts and behavior. The Violence Zone also helps individuals identify these thoughts before acting on them.

With the established epidemic of mental illness, coupled with the link between psychotropic drugs and acts of violence, the question must be asked: Why are we seeing this trend? Why are so many suffering from depression and anxiety?

There are a myriad of possibilities: Isolation due to technology. Urbanization. Sedentary lifestyle. Heightened social pressures.

What about the role of food? Is it possible our modern diet of processed and chemically modified food is contributing to the prevalence of mental illness? Drugs, taken orally, clearly impact the body and brain through the digestive tract. Why not consider the potential for artificial dyes, GMOs, trans fats, high fructose corn syrup, and other alterations to impact our emotional well-being?

Ascribing a connection between digestive health and mood is not a new idea. In the late 18th century, Philippe Pinel, the father of modern psychiatry, concluded:

"The primary seat of insanity generally is in the region of the stomach and intestines."

In the 1860s, German physician Hermann Senator suggested a link between melancholia and intestinal self-infective processes.

In the early 1930s, Cleveland dentist Dr. Weston Price traveled the globe asking why primitive people groups subsisting on traditional, whole-food diets were maintaining their good health while those introduced to a highly refined diet were experiencing physical and mental degeneration. Price noted the reduced incidence of crime among these primitive groups.

In more recent years, researchers discovered that 90-95% of the "happy" neurotransmitter, serotonin, is located in the gut—a finding with significant implications.

No doubt the issues surrounding the mass shootings, suicides, and other acts of violence are complex. There are no simple answers. However, let's consider all possibilities as we seek to make sense out of these senseless crimes—including the impact of our modern diet.

To read the article in its entirety, check out From Gun Control to Gut Control at the HandPicked Nation website.

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Diet and Mental Health

The first time I realized that the digestive tract is connected with mental health was the second day of a juice fast. In the fall of 2009 I felt I had nothing to lose by taking a break from food. For the first time in many years, I experienced mental clarity. I was shocked. The clarity didn't last as I resumed eating, but I determined to learn more about the gut/brain connection.

The more I learned, the more I realized that poor digestive health affects more than mental clarity. It affects mood, energy, memory, vision, and virtually any other function related to physical and emotional well-being. Dr. Bernard Jensen, a pioneer in the field of alternative health, has written extensively about the critical role of the digestive system, going so far as to call it "king" in much the same way Mozart called the pipe organ "the king of instruments."

The digestive tract is the great console of the body. It can be the creator of harmony or disharmony. Disharmony occurring in the digestive tract has its sounding board in areas of the body removed from the gut. The nervous system, via countless pathways, connects the walls of the digestive tract to every corner of the body. Because of this neurological and anatomical fact, the bowel reigns supreme.

I experienced a jolting reminder of this truth recently when I suffered a dramatic relapse in my mental health. My sleep became disturbed. I was anxiety-ridden and depressed. The renewed symptoms reminded me of the many years I spent in a constant state of emotional unrest. My journal looked like this:

• My brain feels like it will explode.
• Something must change.
• It's never enough.
• I feel hopeless.

After nearly two weeks of this, it dawned on me to take note of recent diet changes. Was I having too many fermented foods? Too many sprouted almonds? Even the best of foods can be disruptive.

I decided to fast. Aside from the known health benefits of intermittent fasting, spiritual benefits are noted throughout the Bible. Consider Daniel's determination to fast from the king's food, as recorded in the first chapter of Daniel:

At the end of the ten days they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food. (Daniel 1:15)

Another apparent implication of Daniel's determination to choose his diet carefully? Mental clarity. He was given "knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning." (Daniel 1:17)

I decided to go with a GAPS fast. The Gut and Psychology Syndrome Diet is a digestive healing plan utilizing fresh, whole, nutritionally dense foods. I've benefited from the diet for more than three years now. (Read about the start of our GAPS journey in this previous post.) A return to the Introduction Diet of meat stock made sense, even in the Arizona summer.

My body responded with an immediate healing crisis. Thankfully I have an established protocol for die-off, including vitamin C, charcoal, zeolite, colon cleansing, and more. Within a few days I rebounded. My outlook on life improved. My clarity returned. My family commented on the change. "Your eyes even look clearer!"

It's been several weeks since I began the fast. I'm adding foods slowly, watching for emotional responses. My sleep has returned. My brain is lighter. So is my mood.

I have no doubt my mental state will continue to ebb and flow, much like life itself. But I have a fresh reminder that diet matters. Especially when it comes to my emotions.

   

This post was shared on Healing With Food Fridays!

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Anxiety Saga

We haven't had cashews in the house for several years. We enjoy sprouted almonds, as well as sprouted pumpkin and sunflower seeds, but we rarely eat nuts. Recently we were given some raw cashews and decided to enjoy them.

I thought of soaking them first, but my kids were too eager to try them. I took several handfuls as well and went on with my day. Our son with type 1 diabetes enjoyed them as a bedtime snack.

I experienced no ill effects. I felt no digestive disturbance.

I did experience a sudden increase in anxiety, but didn't make the connection.

We went to my kids' school play, where I found myself socially ill at ease. I felt depressed and paranoid.

My anxiety became worse. My heart and mind were racing. I was awake all night wondering why I was suddenly struggling.

"Am I crazy?" "Why am I like this?" These thoughts, as well as curse words, swirled in my head throughout the night.

I checked our son's blood sugar at five a.m. and it was a whopping 325. I reported the number to my husband.

"Must have been the cashews," he said groggily.

I remembered the four handfuls of cashews. Relief. A reason for my madness.

It turns out cashews carry a natural toxic oil called cardol. Roasting the cashews generally takes care of the problem. Raw cashews may or may not contain remnants of the oil. Cardol is a known allergen and irritant.

It took a full day for the anxiety to pass.

The incident reminds me of the intricate connection between the gut and the brain—something often overlooked when diagnosing mental disorders.

French physician Dr. Philippe Pinel noted the connection when he penned these words in 1807:

"The primary seat of insanity lies generally in the region of the stomach and intestines."

Pinel was not only a physician, he was also a psychiatrist and is often described as the "father of modern psychiatry."

More recently, Dr. Michael D. Gershon describes the independent functions of the gut or enteric nervous system, which he says "is a vast chemical warehouse representing every one of the classes of neurotransmitter found in the brain." In his book The Second Brain, Gershon says:

"Cures come when diseases are understood. Malfunction of the enteric nervous system may be resistant to therapies aimed at the head, but therapies aimed at the gut just might work."

I wish I had known this connection earlier in my adult life. Anxiety was my daily companion for many years. I never once considered diet or environment.

Thanks to a radical lifestyle and diet change, I have found relief for my anxiety. Unless, of course, I have a handful of cashews.

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K's Tragedy

She was two months shy of her 42nd birthday. A single mother with three children, living on the East Coast.

I first "met" K on July 8 of 2011. She commented on a blog entry, then emailed me directly.

Wow, thank you so much—you are an inspiration!!! I could not tell if my comments were going through. My brain fog. I have read your timeline on your website about all that happened to you and the kids in Colorado and I am devastated for you and the kids. Thank God you have your husband to help you in this battle, because I am alone. I just don't know what to do and I want to leave the house ASAP because of my kids and their health. To think I am putting them at a cancer risk or other risk is terrifying.

K went on to describe her symptoms. All common with mold exposure.

In retrospect my health has been failing for years and now I have weird thoughts and psychosis/depression/wanting to commit suicide episode a few months ago. My psychiatrist who has treated me unsuccessfully for over a year said it was inflammation and sent me for Lyme testing. I found a great inflammation specialist but of course he does not take insurance. I tested super high for mold allergies. My kids and I are not having as serious reactions as your family but I am terrified. I have the swollen joints, weird thoughts, fatigue, neurological issues with tingling in the hands and feet, profuse panic and anxiety, depression, heart palpitations, brain fog, food allergies, frequent urination, inability to organize and make decisions, liver pain, every little thing makes me upset and stressed, and my cortisol levels are sky high.

She also described issues with her three children.

One has reading trouble and nervousness, another has dizzy spells, anxiety, bed wetting and a few seizure-like occurrences (that happened a few years ago). Another child has anger problems and swelling in the joints. If this is mold our exposure must be less in comparison to your exposure. I think we have a genetic predisposition because I have had asthma and weird rashes as a child. My asthma is better at this stage in my life which is perplexing. I look like the picture of health but I know something is not right and the frustration and stress are also making me sick with worry. I know I have the panic issue and it is so good to talk to someone and get some support.

I am 41 and I feel like my life is over. I was hoping to be remarried, have more kids, get my Masters degree and have a full life. Now I am devastated because what I can do now is limited and I have to take care of the kids. Can there be full recovery from this? Is it okay to exercise since that helps to remove toxins? In this world it is so hard to get the kids to stick to an anti-inflammation diet, and organic is so expensive. Can mold be fully remediated? I guess it depends on the mold. We live in a very humid area. I was always active and fun loving and now I'm not sure if I can even hold a job, and I cry so much. I have been out of work for over two years and when I go on interviews I am all over the place because of the brain fog and I do the dumbest and weirdest things. Really inappropriate and I am having trouble with anger. Should I go back on an exercise regimen? Did you move to Arizona because of the arid environment and to get away from mold as much as possible? I guess that is for the best to be out of a moldy environment because even the outdoor mold can be a trigger. The house is a mess because of my anxiety and disorganization. Is it safe to clean? Please pray God reveals if this is a mold issue as soon as possible and that the kids and I can find a safe place to stay for now until this is all figured out. Also my finances are in collapse because I have lost all my financial resources being out of work for so long and having to pay for testing.

This is so sad because my best friend and the Godmother of the kids lives next door and I hate to move away from her. I attached my resume in case you know of anyone to circulate to in Arizona.

I am going to call the insurance company and let them know over the years I had pipes leak in the house and the toilets overflowed a few times.

Thank you and God Bless!!! I will be praying for you too and I apologize for my upset, but I know you know I am overwhelmed having to fight this. I am trying to give it over to God.

Blessings to you and your family.

K and I spoke soon after this email. She was calm and collected. Kind. Smart. She didn't sound desperate, but in retrospect I know she was. She was willing to do anything to help her kids.

She and the kids left the home. I received this update on September 6:

I am struggling to find a mold-safe place to stay for me and the kids until I can get the house sold. My health seems to be deteriorating with all the stress. I was staying at a neighbor's and I started to have a reaction at her house. My tests for my house came back positive for lots of molds but nothing super toxic like what you have experienced. However with my allergic reaction and immune system it is super toxic. I seem to be most sensitive to aspergillus and alternaria, which are outside plant molds all over here in Maryland. I think God wants me to move to the desert and I am finally figuring this out. It is not healthy to live in this environment given my susceptibility, it will just keep running my immune system down since I am so allergic to outdoor environmental molds. Do you know of any network or anyplace I can stay in Arizona with my kids so we can get well and resettled? This is such an urgent situation and I know you understand this. Thank you and God Bless.

I can't recall if K moved back to the home, but I received this email on February 20, 2012:

Hi Andrea,
How are you? It would be good to touch base with you. I am still having these health/mold struggles. Has your phone number changed?

Indeed my phone number had changed. We connected and she asked if we could offer her and her kids a temporary home. Did we know of anyone who could help? Would I be willing to keep her youngest daughter to help her detox? This conversation took place at the end of March. I ached for her.

I did not speak with K again. Last week I received notice that she had taken her life on April 24. Her sister sent an email to all of her contacts.

I don't know all that went into K's decision to end her life. I do know that toxicity and depression/self-destructive thoughts and actions are connected. I've seen this in my own family. I also know that mold/health battles are lonely ones.

We need an awakening in this country to the reality of environmental illness and its link with mental health. I hope and pray K's story moves us toward that end.

Thank you for reading this. And sharing in the deep pain of this tragedy.

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Toxicity and Mental Health

Heightened anxiety was one of my first clues that something was wrong in our home. Of course I didn't pick up the clues. It's only in retrospect that I see how the growing level of toxicity adversely affected my children.

Suddenly my elementary school age children were obsessed over quizzes, worried about being late, anxiety-ridden over homework. Other symptoms emerged. Paranoia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, personality changes, and depression. Emotional meltdowns became a daily part of our life. We found it difficult to make decisions, even small ones. We had a tough time filtering out various types of sensory stimulation.

Only now am I seeing how clearly toxicity is related to mental health.

Dr. Laura Mark, a Board Certified psychiatrist, writes about this in the book Surviving Mold. Her health began to deteriorate in 1995 at the age of 40, when she joined the staff of a state-run psychiatric hospital. Over the next five years she developed stabbing headaches, itchy rashes, joint swelling, fatigue, irritable bowel syndrome, carpal tunnel syndrome in both hands, abdominal pain, mood swings, difficulty concentrating, and memory loss. Others in her workplace complained of similar symptoms. She left the position and experienced improved health, until she took a job at a 200-year-old satellite clinic in a rural town. Her story continues from there. A story of compromised indoor air quality, declining health, and the impact of musty, moldy conditions on the clinic's patients.

Dr. Mark writes,

How much of patients' anxiety, apprehension, irritability, mood swings, explosiveness, cognitive dysfunction, neurologic (i.e. seizure and movement disorder) symptoms may have resulted from pre- or post-admission exposure? In the worst-case scenarios, how many of our long-term folks inevitably became long-term patients, with their life confined to an institution's four walls as a consequence of exposure to the water-intruded, chemically-saturated indoor air quality of the very institution charged with facilitating their recovery in a "safe" setting?

Dr. Mark has a passion to share the medical evidence linking inflammatory responses, and the resulting mental health impairments, with compromised indoor air quality.

She even looks back and sees that her health issues began during her childhood, long before her toxic encephalopathy was diagnosed in July 2007.

Might my genetic susceptibility to a whole host of toxic triggers (particularly musty, moldy, moist places) have contributed to the years of stuttering, crying, shyness, intermittent brain fog, irrational anxieties, and sleep disturbances? Were these things due to an underlying inflammatory response syndrome? Was I a "crybaby," or were those things a result of where I lived and went to school, what foods I ate, or what air I breathed?

Imagine what was happening to my patients' children, so often misdiagnosed and mislabeled, pigeonholed. If a teenager had an episode of suicidal gesture at age 15, that history was the first thing recited in a subsequent psychiatric evaluation. Yet if her gesture was due to frustration, sadness, chronic pain, and cognitive issues from exposure to a moldy bedroom, would we still label her as an adult with depression just because she had ideation of suicide years before?

I'm learning. I see so many themes now, starting from the need to educate physicians, the need to get the word out, the need to protect my patients from moldy buildings, and to preserve my own health. The learning has so many dimensions.

Indeed, education needs to happen at so many levels. It's easy to miss the signs of toxicity and focus on behaviors and mood issues. Who better to help us learn than a psychiatrist with the experience and dedication of Dr. Laura Mark?

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