Kidney Cleanse & Rejuvenate - Weekly Tonic

The kidneys are probably one of the most under appreciated organs in the body. Perhaps, the least most talked about organs, where silently regulating so many bodily functions without us even realizing it. When asked most people to name one function of these vital organs, you would be lucky to have 1 out of 50 people able to provide the answer correctly. These organs are delicately powerful are considered as the last stop for filtration and part of detoxification pathway. It's a cleansing organ. 

We eat and eat all the time, gulp down beverages loaded with sugars and chemicals on daily basis. Have often we think about our detoxification organs such as liver and kidneys? The kidneys are working hard every single day to cleanse and detox your body by filtering anywhere from 180-200 quarts of blood. They collect excess fluid and waste and excrete them out as 1-2 quarts of urine daily. The nephrons first filter fluid and waste, while preventing blood cells and large molecules like proteins from passing through. The filtered fluid then goes through a tube that adds needed minerals back into the bloodstream and removes wastes. Urine is the final product.

The kidneys are crucial organs because they have the job of keeping blood composition stable, which allows the body to function well. When your kidneys are in good shape, they:

• Prevent the buildup of wastes and extra fluid in the body
• Keep levels of electrolytes stable, such as sodium, potassium, and phosphate
• Produce an active form of vitamin D that promotes strong, healthy bones (if you have chronic low vitamin D and you supplement with it, look to tune up kidney health)
• Release hormones that help make red blood cells and regulate blood pressure

Symptoms of congested kidneys:

• Low libido
• Weak nails
• Brain Fog
• Lower back Pain
• Edema
• Poor Balance
• Poor Physical Development
• Bladder conditions/dsyfunctions
• Kidney stones
• Infertility

The Recipe:

1 cup unsweetened cranberry juice

A teaspoon of chlorophyll (chlorella)

Quarter cup of raw apple cider vinegar (organic)

Juice of two freshly squeezed lemons (use mixture of lime if desired)

Optional: a few drops of liquid stevia



Why These Ingredients?

Cranberry Juice

Cranberries prevent bacteria, primarily E.coli from attaching to the wall of the bladder. This means that infections cannot stick around inside your body. Most people know this, but what they don’t know is that a lot like a full-bodied red wine, cranberries are high in tannins. Tannins are an active ingredient in cranberries that work by helping your liver remove excess cholesterol out of your blood while flushing out bacteria and toxins from your kidneys. So, cranberries can help your other major detoxification system, the liver, to do its job better as well.

Chlorophyll

Chlorophyll is just a powerful nutrient for health and a health food that often gets overlooked. It has many benefits for the human body well beyond the kidneys. It’s essential to the process of photosynthesis known as 'the building block for life'. Chlorophyll contains the trace element of iron which is helpful for anemia, low energy, and headaches.

Chlorophyll has an affinity for blood; indeed chlorophyll has been shown to increase oxygen uptake in the blood, which can increase energy, relieve fatigue and improve many blood disorders.  There are tons of heavy metals polluting our environment on daily basis.  Mercury is one of the common heavy metals, a potent toxin in its own right that can damage your brain, central nervous system and kidneys, and is especially dangerous for children, fetuses, pregnant and nursing women and people who have high levels of mercury.

Chlorophyll also contains vitamin C, inorganic salt, and is alkalizing. The combination of these things allows chlorophyll to assist in toxin removal, especially from the kidneys. Studies show it has kidney-protective properties and may also reduce the risk of kidney stones.

Raw Apple Cider Vinegar

It helps detoxify the liver because it helps break down fats. Apple cider vinegar also helps prevent kidney stones from forming and helps remove bad bacteria E. Coli is usually at the root of a urinary tract or bladder infection. With adding both apple cider vinegar and cranberry juice together, bad bacteria will be depleted because they work synergistically together.

Lemon Juice

Good old-fashioned lemon juice has been shown to increase citrate levels in the urine. Citrate is a known inhibitor of calcium stone disease. This means plain lemon juice is a powerful tool to discourage kidney stones from forming.

** This can be made and consumed on weekly basis, or couple of times per week, depending on your diet, lifestyle, exposure to toxins and status of your detoxification pathway, especially the kidneys. 

Photo courtesy from MedicineNet

Depression : Is it seratonin or SSRI deficiency? (Part 4)

As we have learned in previous post of how toxins and inflammation can derail the health of our brain and triggering depression, today will be something different. We will get to know how our master metabolic gland can cause depression and symptoms as such. And yes, I'm referring to thyroid gland. This very important gland is much more well known amongst women, especially the ones who are suffering from thyroid disorders or diseases. 

People of all sorts, from an obese individual who easily feel cold, to hair loss and dry skin classic group of females, and not to mention the ones who have hard time trying to lose weight and maintain it long term. All these common thyroid symptoms are becoming more prevalence amongst the population, especially the last decade or so. You would easily see a 40% bodyfat woman in your workplace or cinema wearing long sleeve sweater, or the same old faces of 'treadmill buddies' in the gym all year round unable to shed off those fats in the body. 

Some are 'officially' diagnosed with hypothyroidism, and for others, an autoimmunity condition called Hashimotos Thyroiditis or Graves. Either or, if you are one of these patients, you could say good bye to feeling great. Apart from that, the conventional diagnosis and treatment is way far off from effective or helping the thyroid related condition. For most cases, treatments using pharmaceutical drugs, it create more problems then fixing anything at all.

Today, we will discuss about thyroid, and how its' conditions can mimick the symptoms of depression. As most people know what thyroid gland is and it's functions, let's just call it the master metabolic controller. And yes, for whoever concern about losing bodyfat and looking good, this gland is your best friend. Once you finish reading today's post, you will learn to show care for it much more, then years of thrashing it with chronic stress levels, fluoridated and chlorinated water and substances, sugars, wheat (gluten) and other thyroid destroying compounds. 

The thyroid gland is kind of a master gland. It affects just about every single cell in the body. What I like to think about what the thyroid does, in very simple terms, it actually speeds us up or slows us down. If we have an overactive thyroid, our metabolism will be quicker. Our heart rate is going to be faster. We are going to feel a little bit irritable, a little bit edgy. On the other hand, if we have an under-active thyroid, that's going to slow us down. We are going to be digesting slower, our metabolism's going to be slower. We are going to be thinking slower too. We might not be as motivated, we might be more tired. We are not going to feel as excited about life as we normally would have.

The question is, can thyroid be one of the root cause of depression? Basically, an under-active thyroid is associated with symptoms of slowing down. You think about people who maybe have brain fog. People will have symptoms of depression. They will have symptoms of fatigue. Of course, that sounds a lot like depression. Other things that happen is they may not be as motivated as they normally were, so that's apathy. That is another symptom of depression. Often times, thyroid disorders can be misdiagnosed as depression.

Thyroid working too slow or too fast. Now, let's jump a little bit into autoimmune disease for this particular gland. There are two main things that can go wrong with the thyroid. You can either have hyperthyroidism. The most common cause of that is going to be Graves' disease. This is an autoimmune condition. The other spectrum is Hashimoto's, which is the primary reason for having an under-active thyroid. That’s also an autoimmune condition.

People who have Graves disease will be more likely to have anxiety and panic attacks. They might be very, very irritable. Some patients might be even hospitalized for psychotic disorders. With Hashimoto's, in the early stages of it, what's happening is as the immune system begins to attack the thyroid gland, we have an initial transient hyperthyroidism because a lot of the thyroid cells are being dropped into the blood stream. All of these thyroid hormones are going to be too high. Then, all those get cleared out, and then all of a sudden the thyroid is no longer producing enough hormone. Then, you will be hypothyroid or you will have an under-active thyroid. This can mimic the symptoms of bipolar disorder.

In the advanced stages of Hashimoto's, people are going to feel more depressed. But in the early stages they might feel the ups and downs. Some of these patients are on heavy-duty psychotropic medications. They were hospitalized. Where in fact it was their thyroid disorder that was causing this.

The other interesting thing about Hashimoto's is that it's not really necessary to have an impaired function of the thyroid gland. Just having the Hashimoto's antibodies can be associated with feeling unwell and feeling depressed and feeling anxious and schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder. People with mental health issues have been found to have greater rates of thyroid antibodies.

The immune system basically makes antibodies to recognize foreign invaders such as bacteria, viruses, different kinds of pathogens of that sort. In autoimmune disease what happens is the immune system mistakenly makes self-antibodies. In the case of thyroid disease, the immune system will start making antibodies to the thyroid gland. Thyroid peroxidase antibodies, thyroglobulin antibodies, are the two main antibodies in Hashimoto's.

What's causing the body to trigger the antibodies? Some of the causes are going to be, if I can put them in the main categories, are food sensitivities, nutrient deficiencies, impaired ability to handle stress, impaired ability to handle toxins, gut permeability or a leaky gut, as well as chronic infections. A very good example would be someone ingesting loads of gluten in almost every meal, causing severe immune reaction and release of antibodies. Cereals for breakfast, sandwich for lunch, pasta or pizza for dinner, that would sum it up for a chaotic immune reaction in terms of dietary factor. 

For certain groups of medical professionals, it is known as molecular mimicry. That's one of the leading autoimmune theories, where the immune system recognizes something, a foreign enemy in the body, and kind of takes a snapshot of what that protein structure looks like. Then, basically it will walk around with that little snapshot. It’ll look for cells that look similar. If there's a protein sequence that is found in gluten or on a pathogen, that is similar to that of the thyroid gland, then the immune system will be attacking both.

You must be asking, "Are the doctors just not being trained on this?". Well well, if you are consulting or getting help from conventional medical doctors, good luck to you. One of the things that doctors are trained to do is just do a screening test for thyroid disease, which is known as the TSH test, thyroid stimulating hormone. This is actually a pituitary test. It doesn't measure what's happening in the thyroid gland exactly. It just measures the communication pathway. If everything is normal with you, with your communication pathways, the TSH test, if you have an underactive thyroid, is going to be elevated. For many of the alternative or holistic/clinical practitioners, TSH test is regarded a very ineffective approach and waste of time. 

We want to look at thyroid antibodies, because these can be elevated for sometimes decades before you see a change in TSH. They can actually cause a lot of their own set of symptoms, even if you have normal thyroid function. Thyroid peroxidase antibodies, TPO antibodies, and thyroglobulin antibodies are two of the biggest ones that are going to be present in about eighty to ninety percent of people with Hashimoto's.

It would be wise to get levels of free T3 and free T4 checked, which are the thyroid hormones. Those should be somewhere in the upper half of the reference range. Those are going to have slightly different reference ranges depending on the lab that you go through. Sometimes, those numbers can uncover if you have a thyroid disorder before the other numbers can. Also, looking at reverse T3 is another test that sometimes may be implicated in an under-active thyroid where all of the other labs may be normal. 

In reality, thyroid disorders are one of the most misdiagnosed of all health conditions. Most patients are not aware that thyroid medications are fluoridated and some of them contain fillers coated with gluten. If you do your own research, you will find out some shocking truths about these drugs.

Depression : Is it seratonin or SSRI deficiency? (Part 3)

In 1955, there were 38,000 people in the United States that were diagnosed as depressed. In recent years, the latest statistics showed 9 million people suffered from depression. That's a huge rise from just decades, less then 60 years of gap. We're not talking about a little bit depressed. Depressed enough that they're disabled, unable to go to work. It's the number two leading cause of disability now in terms of people not being able to show up for work anymore. It's clearly on the rise. This is happening all over the world, in many industrialized countries. 

When we talk about mood issues or depression, serotonin is the first word usually comes into mind. But how many people or even health or medical professionals know who the word serotonin means? Sero, serum, like blood, and tonin or tonifier. When they first discovered serotonin, one of its actions is that it constricts the blood vessels. Before they understood that it was a neurotransmitter, it was operating in your brain, they could see it outside the brain in the blood vessels causing things to constrict.

Serotonin is both inside your brain and outside your brain. Now we're talking about the serotonin outside the brain. It's mostly made in your gut in these enterochromaffin cells in the digestive tract. They produce 95-96% of all the serotonin in the body in the digestive tract. Your gut or also known as your second brain makes it. In the gut itself, it causes peristaltic action or contraction of the gut. That's its job there. You get tons of serotonin, you would get loose stools or diarrhea.You don't have enough serotonin you could get constipated. This again is just the serotonin in the gut.

In today's post. let's talk about toxins and free radicals affect on the brain and depression. First off, there is report from  American Academy of Pediatrics that 74 billion pounds of chemicals that are being imported or produced in the United States every single day! Is it possible then that the rise in chemicals could be associated with the rise in many of the chronic diseases we're seeing today? 

When you look at these chemicals and each and every one of them has some component of degrading mitochondrial function, whether it's in the electron transport chain, complex 1, complex 2, or whether it's in the Kreb's cycle or intermediates or co-factors. 

Let's go down to the basics. What is the mitochondria? It's the energy powerhouse of the cell. What it means is it's where you take in your outside sources of fuel. Your carbohydrates, your amino acids. your fatty acids, and you turn them into what would be considered cellular currency, something called adenosine triphosphate or ATP. It's the powerhouse. It takes in the nutrients and makes energy out of them. I'm not going to explain too much of details as you can do further research on mitochondria from the internet. 

Now, let's discuss about oxidative stress. Oxidative stress basically means destabilization, stealing of an electron from the outer orbital of a compound. Let's say you had alpha lipoic acid. Alpha lipoic acid normally has a very generous ability to give somebody an electron. When it gives somebody an electron, it's missing an electron. Alpha lipoic acid doesn't behave badly when it's missing an electron but if you have a toxin. Another example could be some benzene compound from cigarette smoke, and you're missing an electron, that substance will circulate around in the body. It will find a tissue and it will steal an electron from that substance. In doing so, it causes instability. Think of someone who always borrow money from you. Let's say your colleague or friend who always come to you and say " I need to borrow 30 bucks from you", and this loaning money activity keeps repeating again and again and causes instability. And of course, you know that something is really wrong here.

On the other hand, then there is the 'anti-oxidant' groups of people. These people often very generous and offer a helping hand. They are often giving and reduce the damage caused by the borrowers. Basically, oxidative stress means there are too many environmental people or constituents in your cell that are stealing all the time, these electrons.

The question is, what oxidative stress has to do with depression? What you can do is you can cause oxidative stress by exciting the immune system. Sometimes the immune cells will go around and attack constituents, let's say harmed cells, or let's say bacterial invaders. They’ll actually form oxidants in order to combat that particular damage or that particular organism. You can actually form radicals, what they call free radicals, that are unstable and steal electrons by activating the immune system constantly.

One good example, inflammation itself can cause that. If you don't have enough of the antioxidants around, you can destabilize in so many different ways. Any chemical that comes in that can pull off an electron. Mercury, another example, is a known toxin that everybody knows about. It can rob really, really quickly, destabilize the cell and form free radicals.

Think about it for a second. Digestion is the key for activating the inflammatory response, for activating the immune cells. You have more then 70% of your immune cells in your intestinal tract. All you have to do is excite them and then they'll secrete those inflammatory cytokines which will then end up next stop in the liver, activating the Kupffer cells there.The next step after that is the brain, activating the microglia and opening up the blood-brain-barrier. We now see there is a tight association with intestinal permeability and blood-brain-barrier permeability.

Lifestyle factors such as poor diet, smoking tobacco, things of that sort all cause oxidative stress. Now what does the oxidative stress have to do with depression? So many different ways. Let's take a simple one that everybody will understand. Let's take, for example, tryptophan metabolism. Many people when they're depressed, they'll take something called an SSRI, a selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor. This is to keep serotonin around in the synapse longer so you will actually have activation from serotonin, the feel-good neurotransmitter. That feel-good neurotransmitter has to be made from something right?

There are building blocks for serotonin. The prime building block is tryptophan. Tryptophan is the
least common amino acid in the human body. You're lucky if you're getting couple of grams per day. It's tough to have it around so you really want to be efficient at turning tryptophan into things that you
need for proper mood like 5-HTP and serotonin but, guess what? The first step in the metabolic process, the biochemical step from taking tryptophan into 5-HTP needs a co-factor.

The co-factor is called BH4. This co-factor is very prone to oxidative stress and unstable. BH4 is also needed for other neurotransmitters such as dopamine. Phenylalanine to tyrosine and tyrosine to L-Dopa, and this very co-factor is needed but extremely prone to oxidative stress. Dopamine is known as the reward neurotransmitter. You feel accomplished in life. You feel secure with yourself.

So, if you have high level of inflammation and oxidative stress, a basic math calculation and common sense will tell you that you may not feel as happy and secure in your life due to depleted BH4 co-factor. The end products of needed neurotransmitters are low and insufficient. You may suffer from mood swings or feeling lousy most of the time.

On the other side of the coin, In states of inflammation, in states of oxidative stress, you will up regulate certain enzymes, an enzyme called IDO. This IDO enzyme actually will degrade tryptophan. Instead of pushing tryptophan through the serotonin pathway, when you have a lot of inflammation, when you're activating the microglia in the brain, for example, and you have chemical exposures, you've got stress, you have whatever it is that's activating the microglia, then you'll actually turn on these cytokines, and in turn, it turn on IDO enzymes. Cytokines is inflammatory, can activate IDO enzymes, and cause oxidative stress.

This IDO enzyme then will, instead of taking tryptophan to serotonin, will take tryptophan down this kynurenine pathway. The kynurenine pathway can actually end up producing something called quinolinic acid. It is neurotoxic and a toxin that actually binds to a very excitatory receptor in the brain called NMDA. It can lead to anxious and depressive type symptoms. In a nutshell, inflammation, oxidative stress play a crucial role in brain health and arguably one of the most important variables in determining if one is at risk of depression.

References/Journals: 
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26130057
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26028548
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25900439
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25865484
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25825158
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26083579
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25907742

Depression : Is it seratonin or SSRI deficiency? (Part 2)

As we have witnessed in recent years (till present time), there are much more cases of mental disorders amongst the population. From depression to bipolar disorders and even ADHD which is common with children nowadays, how often we ask ourselves why is this happening? Instead of popping pills like candies without proper extended diagnosis and functional investigation in a more holistic approach, the medical condition diagnosis and treatment look hopeless and broken. In this case, we are referring to mental health and depression.

As we walk into a doctor's office, most of the patients have less then 30-45 seconds before the medical doctor interrupt you and reach for that prescription pad. How often does a medical doctor really listen to a patient? Not to mention thorough assessments and find out about your digestion, sleep quality, hydration, movement or even diet and nutrition. The problem is, most conventional medical doctors are not trained to do such investigation and assessments, and legally speaking, these medical professionals are concern of being sued or stripped off their doctors' licenses if practice any other approaches which is against the code of conduct or agreement. 

In today's post, let's discuss how certain genes may play a vital role in susceptibility of mental disorders or depression. Before we continue, or if you are on SSRI medications, please take note that this is NOT a medical advice nor treatment. Do consult your medical doctor for advise before you take any action yourself. Although the facts presented here are primarily based on research and literatures, always work with your medical doctor especially if you are on anti-depressant drugs. 

As we have all heard about how genes may affect our body and health and susceptibility of diseases and medical conditions, how much truth in that? Well, according to the largest human genetics research (The Human Genome Project), the scientists have concluded that our genes could affect our health and susceptibility of disorders or diseases, but only 5% in most individuals. In a minority, some people may inherit up to 10% of gene makeup from their ancestors. What does that tell you? Does it mean that you are born to develop diabetes or depression? Do you have to give up your life because your parents or grandparents died of heart disease or cancer? Of course not. Yes, if you inherit certain genes which may increase the susceptibility of certain medical conditions, you can still take control of your life and health, by determining and controlling other variables and factors in life, such as diet, environmental stressors, stress levels, toxins exposure, exercise, etc.

As it is easy to give up on taking control and ownership of our lives, blaming others and playing the finger pointing game, many of us are living in  'Child's mind in an adult's body'. These individuals tend not to take responsibility of their lives and bodies, and often stay in comfort zone in most of the time, looking for quick fixes and ignoring what is happening around them and not listening to the body's signs and symptoms. 

Now, let's bring up the discussion of MTHFR. For most people, it is something new, but in the field of medicine, more and more medical doctors are aware of this, thankfully. MTHFR genetic mutations has been critical in terms of susceptibility of long list of diseases including depression and other mental/neurological disorders. This will be one of the three genes I will discuss in this post today.

What is MTHFR? Well, you can google many different websites with similar elaborations and explanation what it is all about. Yes, I have to admit that the entire MTHFR understanding is very complex, but I will try to make it easy to understand for you readers out there. Before I continue, let me make it clear that I'm NOT the expert of this field. Based on my own intensive research and reviewing literatures conducted on MTHFR, I'm hoping to share this important awareness to more people especially my own clients. 

Let's think of it as 2 different phases of 'ball passing' for the entire MTHFR process to complete successfully. The methylation process in the body is so complex, that I think intensive and thorough research with hours and hours of reading medical journals is required to fully understand how it actually work. the acronym of MTHFR is methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase. Forget about the scienfitic name, but you have to realize that folate is the key nutrient needed to produce the end phase of methyl-folate before being passed on to 2nd phase. 

Please take note that we are still discussing about how MTHFR could affect mental health and depression. Although there are other long list of medical conditions such as cancer, heart disease, autoimmune disease, etc which are more susceptible if one inherit one or two of the copies of MTHFR mutated genes.  If an individual inherit one copy of the mutated genes, he or she is associated with 30-40% of reduced capacity of enzymes activity for the body to do its job. And if you inherit both the mutated copies of MTHFR genes, the association is 60-70% and that's bad news. 

Let's zone in abit on phase 1 for MTHFR process. Think of walking down the stairs or passing the ball from one end to the other. There are few (primarily 5) steps in phase 1 prior to successfully making the end product of methyl-folate. Think of first step of the stairs where folate needs to bind to its receptors and making its way to final step in order to successfully become active form of methyl-folate. The are other factors why certain people unable to successfully produce sufficient amount of methyl-folate in the body. One of the reasons are due to synthetic supplement form of folic acid. Most people have heard of this nutrient as it is prescribed by medical doctors to patients especially women. Bear in mind, folic acid is NOT recognized by the body and is not bio-available. None of us should be taking this synthetic form of supplement. Folic acid from supplements will block the receptors of folate in the cells and disabling natural folate from binding into its own receptors. This will cause problems as it will reduce the body's capacity to produce the end product of methyl-folate.

You must be asking, "What if my doctor tell me to take folic acid?" Well, do your homework and research, bring the concern to your doctor and work with him. Always remember, your doctor is suppose to work with you on your medical condition, and you have every right to fire your doctor if you feel he or she is incompetent and refuse to look at the medical literatures you are presenting right in front of him.  

Now, assume that your body can make methyl-folate with flying colors, you still need another nutrient called Methylcobalamin (B12).  Both of these bio-available B vitamins are then passed on to next phase with involved SAMe. What is SAMe? First of all, it is a powerful natural anti-depressant, and also pre-cursors to neurotransmitters such as serotonin, melatonin, dopamine and norepinephrine. It is needed to produce these vital neurotransmitters that keep us happy, optimistic, mentally focused, calm and able to sleep well too. It is the body's primary methyl donor, which does tons of critical stuff.

For some people, the first phase of methyl-folate and B12 production may be ideal, but they have problem producing sufficient SAMe in the body, the crucial methylation pathways will also suffer, resulting in long list of biochemical and physiological disorders. These methyl donors are critical for the completion of both phases to successfully do its job. Please note that methyl-folate gets handed off along with methylcobalamin, which is B12. It’s the body’s number one active form of B12. There’s three of them. To keep it simple, methylcobalamin is number one, most active in circulation. It tag teams with the methylfolate.

Next, we then have genetic variable called MAO-A. Monoamine oxidase A, known as X linked genes, a 'fast-reacting' genes which produces enzymes to clear out or destroy serotonin neurotransmitters in the brain. What that means is women have two genes for MAO, because it’s X. They have two X chromosomes. Men, have an X and a Y. Women can burn through their 5-HTP faster because their MAO-A enzyme, they have twice as much as men. Bear in mind, women typically have twice the amount of these MAO-A enzymes in the body/brain then most men do. What that means is women are more susceptible to depression because that MAO-A is clearing out that 5-HTP faster than the men. Thus, the rate of serotonin depletion in women is much higher then men. Other neurotransmitters such as dopamine may also be depleted in some people with higher amount of MAO-A enzymes. Wonder why more women are suffering from depression compared to men?

Another genetic variable which is CBS genes. It is arguably the number one gene which is associated with high level of homocysteine. If someone has elevated homocysteine, their ability to make neurotransmitters and have them work goes way down. If you have the CBS problem, and that’s a slow down of the gene, same with MTHFR. Now, you must be asking yourself, with all these concerns about possible genes mutation which may increase the susceptibility of depression, where can I get tested? Or what should I do? I have list down couple of websites which provide these specific genetic profile testing and I will be back soon for next post on other variables which can play a role in depression. Stay tuned.

Where can I get tested?
http://moleculartestinglabs.com
https://www.23andme.com



MTHFR, MAO, CBS journals:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1810582/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18370582
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26021967
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24123968
http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/gene/MTHFR
http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=207557
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25828849
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25961058
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26028548
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24443391
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24577139
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24091066
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25528761

Depression : Is it seratonin or SSRI deficiency? (Part 1)

Have you ever feel depressed or anxious from time to time? Have you ever been diagnosed with depression or any mental disorders? As more people are being diagnosed with depression, it is the world’s second biggest cause of disability, according to a study by researchers from The University of Queensland. If you are one of victims and seeking for alternative solutions or knowing more about this condition, this topic series may well be your life safer.

As experts predicted that this condition will likely be the number one cause of disability globally in years to come, the statistics are not looking good, in terms of conventional diagnosis and treatment, and many more people are suffering from this illness, as of present time and future. Is there one approach or treatment for every different individual? It is often easy to apply the same 'one size fits all' approach to every patient when he or she walks into the doctor's clinic. But, many of us now realized that in terms of disease diagnosis and treatment, conventional paradigm of medical drugs may well be a huge failure, accompanied with side effects which cause more problems (side effects) to the body then attempting to fix anything.

In a similar analogy, conventional approach for patients who suffer from fever to go on paracetamol or aspirin, or in the field of dietary, or cancer patients undergo chemotherapy/radiation for a hopeful treatment. Most authors of diet books will claim that their own diet protocol is healthy and suit everyone else and there is no difference between many fitness professionals who proudly endorse their own workout DVDs and claim to be the best weight loss program ever. 

We humans, are biochemical individuals, and with our own unique physiological adaptation and built, genes are being expressed constantly, be it from our diet, lifestyle or environmental stressors. Thus, 'one size fits all' approach by treating all depressed patients with SSRI drugs seemed to be an easy puzzle to solve. Does it really work? How effective is SSRI drugs? 

In conventional medicine, SSRI (anti-depressant) drugs are prescribed to patients primarily diagnosed with depression or showed any symptoms of anxiety or similar mental disorders. It is primarily based on a neurotransmitter model. The idea is to recycle and use the available seratonin neurotransmitters in the brain for a longer period of time. However, this approach failed to assess other factors or possibilities for triggering or increase the likelihood of depression in an individual. As for some patients, it may worked for a short period, but the root cause was never investigated, and in most cases, the condition worsen and new sets of symptoms may appear overtime. Same apply for most alternative treatments, where patients are given Tryptophan or 5-HTP supplements to treat depression. For most people, it may improve the condition and make that individual feels better, but still, the underlying cause is yet to be identified, although this approach is a natural and less side effects. 

Some of the possible factors we will learn in this topic discussion includes gut to brain axis, co-factors function of primary neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine, the role of chronic inflammation in depression, toxins and diet as one of the culprits in making an individual become depressed, and also certain genes which can deplete one's serotonin faster then others or block production of neurotransmitters. If you have read my earlier posts on Brain Chemicals, this would be an extension and updated version of brain health and depression.

As statistics have shown that up to 60% of total patients have unsuccessful results or effect from anti-depressant drugs during 1st prescription from doctors. For some, they may feel better but it is not a long term fix and will never address the root cause of the problem. The general idea of anti-depressant drugs is meant to use and recycle the available serotonin in the brain longer, but what if certain people naturally have low serotonin production? How many conventional doctors actually dig deeper and ask the question why this is happening? Or is it solely serotonin deficiency?

There are so many variables and factors which could cause depression. For the ancient tribes or population, they believed that depression is a gift from god, a visitation of guardian angel to look at your life, what is wrong with your life. Why are you depressed? How are you living your life? Going for a pill prescribed by a doctor sounds so simple and aiming for a quick fix, and that merely mask the symptoms of what is actually going on physiologically and psychologically.

Stay tuned. 

Reference/Journal: 

http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001547

Vitamin E: What you need to know

Supplements are selling better then ever, in pharmacies, health food stores and online supplement websites too. Many of us, are consistently relying on supplements to support our health and body and spending big bucks monthly on some of the so called 'supplements'. The questions is, how much do you know about the quality, ingredients and effectiveness of these supplements? Do you know that some of these supplements may do more harm then good? 

Today, I want to discuss about Vitamin E supplement. Yes, the ones which are widely sold and available in almost all pharmacies and health stores. As few have good knowledge about nutrition and how the body works, we tend to be influenced by commercials and so called health experts, and rely on paying for supplements hoping to slow down the decline of our health, or tackle some of our health symptoms along the way. But, how many of us, really know that the almost all of the Vitamin E products sold in the market are synthetic, partial and low quality? 

Many clinical trials unfortunately use synthetic (man-made) vitamin E on participants, which do not confer healing benefits. Would you expect it to? They use a fraction of the whole molecule of vitamin E called “ALPHA” tocopherol, and for this reason their results are bad. Well of course!! What do you think happens to a human being when you cheat them out of 7 other parts of vitamin E? Think about it, seriously, take  a moment to think. How far can you possibly get building that puzzle with one piece? I would say, not very. 

What do you think happens to humans when you give them lab-created compounds that do not match what naturally occurs in nature? Vitamin E is awesome, and it’s just as awesome as vitamin A, vitamin D and other essential nutrients that your body requires for optimal health. Vitamin E is a fat-soluble nutrient so it feeds and nourishes fatty tissue, especially your heart, pancreas, liver and brain. Your brain loves E, especially if you’ve had a TBI (traumatic brain injury).

Vitamin E is like super fuel for your brain but if you take a low-quality form. Sadly, there’s a lot of junk out there. Unnecessary fillers, binders, colors, excipients, even the isomer of your E.  Same with other nutrients such as ketones (from coconut or palm oil), choline, curcumin, and healthy fats.  Now, check this out. Do you see “dl- alpha tocopherol” on your label? All synthetic forms of vitamin E are labeled with a dl- prefix. The synthetic form is generally 50% less bio-available to human body. Natural E has the d- prefix only (not dl) and is easily recognized by your cells.

Natural E, as it occurs in nature is part of a family of 8 compounds, alpha tocopherol is just one of them! So when you take conventional E supplements you are getting one-eighth of what you should be getting. Worse than taking one-eighth of pure vitamin E, when you take poor quality supplements of E, you are flooding your body with one isomer, and thus depleting the other 8 forms of E. Eventually, it will get tilted out of balance. 

Now, let's talk a bit about tocotrienols. This is the less talked about puzzle piece of natural E. Collectively speaking, the tocotrienols (all four of them)  have very strong antioxidant activity. Tocotrienols are 50 to 70 times more potent than tocopherols and penetrate deeper into fatty tissues like your brain, and liver. Tocotrienols are found in mostly in palm oil, soybean oil and rice bran oil with trace amounts in wheat, rye and barley. Please do take note on the contamination of gluten in these products.  Other sources of tocotrienols include oats, grapefruit seed oil, nuts especially walnuts and hazelnuts, high quality olive oil, flax seed oil, sunflower oil. Again, do take note on the vegetables oils which may do more harm then good to the body due to oxidized fats (trans fat) and other chemical compounds during processing. 

Meanwhile, did you know “gamma” tocotrienol protects mammary tissue? That is huge news to women who live in fear of breast cancer or those who have recovered. There is also another brand new study on asthma, comparing tocopherols with tocotrienols, where the researchers come right out and said, “Clinical trials of tocopherol supplementation to assess the impact of antioxidant activity in asthma have yielded equivocal results. Tocotrienol exhibits greater antioxidant activity than tocopherol in several biological phenomena in vivo and in vitro.”  The favorable results were just published (May 2015) in Pulmonary Pharmacology and Therapeutics. I have included both studies in the links down below. 

There are many studies which showed positive results which tied to this awesome nutrient. It is crucial that our body assimilate sufficient amount of Vitamin E for bodily functions on daily basis. Diet and nutrition is crucial, and ensuring the gut health for optimum digestion and assimilation is the key prior to investing on any of these supplement products. Although today's post is about Vitamin E, but the message here is to be aware of the supplement products you buy in the market or any pharmacies. The end goal is still to focus on your diet and lifestyle factors especially stress levels. Chronic stress will depletes most of your anti-oxidants levels and neurotransmitters as well. And if you would to purchase any Vitamin E supplement, ensure it is non-synthetic and contains not only a single form. 

Complete Vitamin E:

alpha tocopherol

beta tocopherol

delta tocopherol

gamma tocopherol

alpha tocotrienol

beta tocotrienol

delta tocotrienol

gamma tocotrienol

Studies/references:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25956071

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15792944

Statin Nation II - A documentary everyone MUST watch, if you are concern about heart disease and real cause

If you have watched Part 1 of Statin Nation, you will enjoy this documentary for sure. Statin Nation II reveals the truth about heart disease, and the culprits behind this silent killer, which have killed millions of people around the world. This second installment of the documentary explains and shows the viewers of the real cause of cardiovascular disease, interviewing top scientists, doctors and researchers all over the world.

In 1961, Ancel Keys adopted the idea of saturated fats causes heart disease. And in 1984, cholesterol was then to be blamed for heart disease as published by TIME magazine. Till now, in June 2014, TIME magazine admitted that we were wrong the whole time!  From 1961 to 2014, more then 50 years of flawed science and screwed up made by so called scientists or health professionals, we are now back to square one, where our ancestors ate lots of saturated fats and cholesterol and were super healthy.

As I have just received my copy of this documentary,  I have to say that it's brilliant, yet mind blowing. It's a documentary which you will want to watch it over and over again, and share it with your loved ones. 

Short clip of Professor Sultan from Statin Nation II

Video link: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/sn2/119674349



Short clip of Familial Hypercholesterolemia from Statin Nation II

https://vimeo.com/122587702