part0019

‘You can’t just take an aspirin and sit around and have 12 donuts and think, “I took my aspirin so I’m not going to have a heart attack.” It’s really important each person take personal responsibility for their health. You can’t keep thinking that someone else is going to take care of it. You have to be part of the solution.’

We need to completely rethink the way we think about food. Sure, food can be one of life’s great pleasures – it’s incredibly enjoyable and sometimes only a chicken korma or pizza will do. But instead of unconsciously reaching for the first thing that we can find or the quickest or easiest meal we can create, we need to ask ourselves what that food is going to do to our body and how it’s going to make us feel.

Instead of doing what the experts say or the government guidelines stipulate, or even what our doctor may recommend, we need to question those ‘facts’ and make better choices for our health. We need to take our power back once and for all. Of course, I’m not saying that everything we are told is a lie, but a lot of the most common ‘conventional wisdom’ when it comes to food and health has been shown to be incorrect over time. And yet we don’t upgrade our information or seek out new knowledge when it comes to our mental and physical well-being. Instead we accept blindly what we are told, eat the poor-quality or heavily processed food because it’s easy, or we just keep taking the pills.

But what are you deficient in? Ideally the best first step is to make an appointment with your doctor and ask for some medical tests. Specifically ask your doctor to test for thyroid function and carry out a nutrient test on your blood. In particular, ask your doctor to check your magnesium, omega-3 and vitamin B levels, as these are three of the ‘Big 4’ for mental health (more on them in the next chapter). In addition, check your calcium and vitamin D levels because calcium, vitamin D and magnesium are interconnected and the proper balance of all three is essential.

Another important measure is to have your urine tested for HPHPA (bad bacteria levels) as this test will indicate whether you need more probiotics to keep your gut flora in balance (the fourth member of the ‘Big 4’). It is also a good idea to check for food allergies as any allergic reaction in the body causes inflammation and a growing number of scientists now believe this may be a contributing factor in depression.

While many medics are still stuck on the theory that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain (a theory that has never been proven) and continue to prescribe SSRIs, a growing number of studies demonstrate the role of allergies and allergic reactions in mental illness. One study published in the Journal of Affective Disorders found that both depression and mania are associated with pro-inflammatory states and that cytokines increase when people are depressed. Cytokines are proteins that are produced when our immune system is fighting off a foreign substance – similar to when we have an infection or when we are allergic to something.

For many years as a small child my son suffered from asthma and eczema. After that horrible allergic reaction while riding a pony on holiday I took him back to our NHS GP and asked for a range of tests to help us identify exactly what he was allergic to and what might be causing his health problems. My doctor said that he ‘couldn’t test for everything’ and needed to know exactly what to test for. Not knowing what my son was allergic to or what nutrients he was deficient in I didn’t know what to say, so we left the surgery without a blood test or appointment for allergy testing. Instead we were ushered out of the door with a prescription for an EpiPen should he have another severe allergic reaction, a prescription for Ventolin inhalers and steroid syrup!

As any mum will tell you, it’s no fun watching your child suck on an inhaler or having to give them medicine every morning, so I decided to bite the bullet and take my son to a private clinic to test for his allergies. They took a sample of his hair and blood to test micronutrient levels and also conducted a biofeedback test on a medical device and then used kinesiology – where different foodstuffs were placed in his mouth to gauge the body’s reaction. The results that came back shocked me. He was deficient in a whole bunch of micronutrients. And, he was also allergic to citrus and dairy! The freshly squeezed orange juice I prepared for him every morning, the milk on his cereal, macaroni and cheese for dinner, yoghurt in his lunch box – all foods that I thought were good and healthy for him but were actually the source of his health problems . You can imagine my guilt and anger that this had not been discovered earlier. My NHS doctor did very little to help other than provide pharmaceuticals to manage the symptoms. To be fair to the doctors, most are doing the very best they can. Often their hands are tied due to lack of funding for what are usually considered ‘unnecessary tests’ or they simply don’t have access to up-to-date data and new evidence to help them heal their patients, especially when it comes to nutrition. It’s as if doctors have been forced into being managers of health, controlling symptoms (with lucrative drugs from the pharmaceutical companies), rather than getting to the root cause of disease and actually healing the symptoms.

You need to put your foot down when you visit your doctor and state clearly the tests you want. If you live in the UK your GP or NHS doctor may try to resist conducting tests unless you meet certain criteria. With NHS budget constraints doctors are often under pressure to cut costs and told only to conduct tests where there is a ‘need’ for them. That means only for patients showing symptoms of a particular deficiency, imbalance or other criteria which merits spending money on laboratory tests.

Magnesium tests can be carried out on the NHS if you have symptoms of nausea, weakness or an irregular heartbeat. The criteria for testing vitamin B levels are light headedness, fatigue or symptoms of anaemia. Omega-3 tests can be carried out but you may find this harder to secure on the NHS. If your doctor initially says no, you need to stand your ground otherwise you won’t get the tests done, or you will have to pay for them privately, so it’s worth persevering or seeking an accommodating GP.

You will need to have another conversation with your doctor if you are currently on antidepressants, but focus on securing the tests first. When making changes it’s always best not to start changing too much at once, otherwise it can become overwhelming and you may just pack it all in! Once you know what your test results are and have started to make dietary changes to increase your nutrient intake and/or supplement your diet with essential minerals and vitamins, you will be in a much better ‘head space’ to then wean yourself off the medication.

Once you’ve started to make progress with your diet and have increased your micronutrient level, it’s time to reduce your dose of antidepressants if you are currently on them. When I raised this subject with my doctor he was unwilling to do it, but if you are following the guidelines in this book and vastly increasing your micronutrient intake as well as reducing toxins and stress levels in your life, there is no reason why your GP should not support your desire to get off these addictive drugs. And if he or she doesn’t support you then you may want to consider finding another doctor who will.

For the most part antidepressants are supposed to ‘tide people over’ during times of bereavement, acute stress and chronic depression. But once on them, it’s all too easy to stay on them because we are terrified of feeling the way we used to feel. Taking them becomes a habit, and it never crosses our mind that we could actually stop taking them, with guidance from our GP and feel better than we have in years.

Once you start eating a nutrient-rich diet or taking supplements that support proper brain function (more on that in the next two chapters) you will become less reliant on the antidepressants and can take down the dosage a little at a time. Many people are on 20mg per day so reducing by 2mg will minimise withdrawal symptoms. See how you get on and really tune into your body to see how you feel. If manageable, reduce your dose by another 2mg the following week and every week thereafter, until you are antidepressant free.

You may find that when you get down to the lower dosage level (under 10mg) that you experience some withdrawal symptoms. This is totally normal – these drugs are, after all, highly addictive. Your withdrawal symptoms may include sleep disruption, sickness and increased anxiety. If this happens you should increase the dose back up to where you last felt OK. Consider engaging in relaxation techniques (more on those in chapter 11) – and, when you feel ready, try reducing the dose again.

If you are taking multiple antidepressants it is usually best to come off them one at a time, reducing the original drug first. You will, however, definitely need your doctor’s help in doing so, as reducing one drug may affect the impact of the others and create unwanted additional side effects. You must be very careful in this situation and take strict instructions from your GP on weaning yourself off the antidepressants.

Focus initially on improving your micronutrient level so you are in the best possible position – physically and mentally – to come off the drugs. And remember, reprogramming your behavioural patterns can be challenging, so it’s best to do a little at a time. The good news is that behavioural change only takes 12 weeks to bed down and become the new ‘norm’. You may have read shorter time frames in women’s magazines or other ‘quick fix’ self-help books – but this isn’t true. Psychologists have studied the length of time it takes to form new habits and the average is 66 days via something known as ‘context dependent repetition’. For example, imagine that each time you get home in the evening you pour a glass of wine. When you first drink the wine upon getting home, a mental link is formed between the context (getting home) and your response to that context (drinking the wine). Each time you subsequently drink wine in response to getting home, this link strengthens, to the point that getting home comes to prompt you to drink wine automatically, without giving it much prior thought – thus a habit has formed. We all have numerous habits – especially around food. We need to break the bad ones and replace them with new healthier habits that will support our long-term physical and mental well-being.