What if your depression, anxiety, flatness and/or brain fog are not caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain but instead by blood sugar imbalance, inflammation caused by sensitivity to gluten and dairy and side effects from medicines like antacids, antibiotics and birth control pills? That’s what Dr. Kelly Brogan tells Marie Forleo in this interview, above.
According to Dr. Brogan, if people were willing to avoid gluten, dairy and sugar and eat a diet high in natural fats (seeds, nuts, coconut oil, olive oil, etc.), get some B vitamins (eggs, seafood, red meat and/or nutritional yeast) and a little sun and exercise (just 20 minutes a day), they wouldn’t need meds.
NO MEDS?!
She mentions a “37yo psychotic woman” who was found to have a sensitivity to wheat, stopped eating it, and is now okay. WOW. In her holistic psychiatric practice, she asks patients to try her 30-day diet and, assuming they find it beneficial, she helps them taper off of meds. If you want to factor in a lot of dissenting opinions on why people shouldn’t get off meds, read the Comments section under this video on YouTube. Some people maintain that certain issues can only be solved with meds. Whomever you believe, seems like people should not get off meds if they’re not able or willing to eat a diet that reduces inflammation, which understandably, a lot of people aren’t. Like Brogan says, most people’s attitude is, “you’ll have to pry wheat and dairy out of my cold dead hands.”
I WANT TO READ “THE GRAIN BRAIN” BUT IT LOOKS SO BORING
(When I mentioned this inflammation-mental health connection to a friend, she said all of this is covered in the bestselling book, “The Grain Brain.” I have the book but haven’t read it and I still am not interested. I figure I don’t need to read it since I already don’t eat wheat and barely ever eat other grains. But because I’ve never read the book, I’ve never known why exactly so many people are intolerant to wheat/bread now, when years ago they didn’t used to be. My friends says it’s because it’s made differently now. It’s not as digestible as it once was because wheat is harvested too quickly or something, to increase production/profits, and now bromide is added and it’s bad for us, etc.)
YOU’LL GAIN MORE WEIGHT FROM SKIPPING BREAKFAST THAN YOU WOULD IF YOU ATE TWO BREAKFASTS! (RESEARCH SAYS!)
Dr. Brogan says that a simple way to start to make a change is by eating a healthier breakfast, because it can significantly affect your performance the rest of the day. She says when you eat a bagel, it causes the body to oversecrete insulin (to deal with the sugar in the bloodstream) and then you crash and then you’re “hangry”–hungry and angry. This word has stuck with me.
I WAS A PAIN IN THE ASS WHEN I WAS IN MY 20S
I ate a ton of sugar and white flour when I was young. I remember being angry a lot. For example, I was always flipping off other drivers. For a while, I went to a good therapist, but I wish I could’ve gone to Dr. Brogan.
IF YOU WANT PEOPLE TO TAKE YOU SERIOUSLY, TRY TO SEEM SANE
Her robot-like demeanor has grown on me. I guess if you are challenging people’s deeply ingrained beliefs and if you’re talking to people about the brain, you have to be as professional and unemotional as possible.
Marie Forleo’s phrase, “Nuggets O’ Wisdom,” kills me.
Honestly, this seems too good to be true–the idea of mental health stuff being solved by diet and lifestyle. But maybe years from now, this will be the accepted wisdom.
How f-ed up is this–I just thought to myself, “Hey, maybe in the future there will be a pill specifically designed to eliminate inflammation!”
But seriously. That would be great.
