Reclaim Your Happiness: How the Gut-Brain Connection Can Help with Depression

[HealthAndHomestead]

Our 4 plus hour on the Gut-brain connection and reversing depression, anxiety, etc.

DVDs

[froginprogress]

My son is low-functioning autistic with a lot of gut issues. Leaky gut, SIBO, gluten intolerance, et cetera. He loves vegetables as long as they're fresh, but is very picky about everything else. Growing what I can.

[yakangler]

I’ve heard this and agree, but it’s daunting to start and organize meals to breed success. I’d almost need a total meal plan - thanks for your work on this video

[marylamb]

I had severe depression caused by four foods--eggs, turkey, milk, and sunflower seeds. Eggs also gave me asthma attacks, and sunflower seeds gave me severe, unlocalized back pains. As long as I avoided these foods I was okay. There were times I would slip and have to wait three days for the depression to leave. I was cured with antibiotics thanks to a Chinese doctor. She traced the problem to bad gut bacteria. I have not had any depression since. Certain foods may be behind depression and other symptoms.

[erikahuxley]

You are correct about the fruit and vegetables, and not being too high in fat. There are nuances in how you incorporate them based on an individual's gut and metabolic health, so there isn't a one size fit all diet. Gut health is a key in all this, so it's about eating the foods that you can easily digest, This is controversial as it means having a balance and avoiding eating too much foods that are hard and slow to digest, and not being excessive with fermented foods and probiotics which can disrupt the microbiome balance. Each person have different microbiome make up based on their diet, environment and lifestyle, so the approach has to be per individual basis. But I would agree the general rule of thumb is whole foods unprocessed, healthy living environment, outdoor in nature and sunshine, and fruits added.

Keto and carnivore are very popular right now which purport that carb is evil and must be avoided. With the Ray Peat's bioenergetic framework, he recognized that you should eat food that are optimal for metabolic health. Glucose is required for optimal function of various organs, thyroid (which regulate metabolism), and the nervous system/brain. By restricting glucose, the body have to down regulate these important functions such as thyroid hormones. Being on prolonged low carb causes the body to upregulate glucagon and other stress hormones such as cortisol, these stress hormones raises the fasting blood sugar as this is the body's protective mechanism when it recognize it is in a state of stress or famine. We can see anecdote of people who go long term low carb but have their fasting blood sugar creeping up, and various carnivore and keto gurus who profess to have/had issue with low thyroid function and low testosterone level. (disclaimer: not all, if you're doing well, great)

Now the argument from the low carb side will say the body can create glucose without eating carb, so carb is not needed. However, this is an inefficient process, while it is creating enough glucose for one to stay alive, the debate is whether the amount is optimal for thriving. Oxidative phosphorylation is an efficient process that converts one glucose to 30-36 ATP. Where as if you don't eat glucose, you rely more on gluconeogenesis to convert amino acids and fat to glucose, but it is a less efficient and energy demanding process, "Glucose is made from pyruvate in gluconeogenesis at the cost of 4 ATP, 2 GTP, and 2 NADH. The breakdown pathway of glucose in glycolysis yields 2 ATP and 2 NADH. So it takes 4 more energetic triphosphates of energy to make each molecule of glucose than can be obtained from glucose breakdown."

The other argument is that carb causes insulin resistance, but from the bioenergetic view that is due to damage in cellular metabolism, meaning the mitochondria have decreased ability to burn glucose so the glucose builds up in the blood, and this can be from many factors which has to be looked at holistically. So the idea is to fix the mitochondria so it can process the fuel efficiently, not avoid the fuel completely which is just side stepping the issue but not fixing the root problem. One thing that is logical is you can't improve the mitochondria ability to use a certain fuel by completely avoiding that fuel, in fact the result long term will be reduced ability to use that fuel.

And yes, you will be happier eating some fruits.

[bluesquidny]

Thank you for the explanation of neurotransmitters. I didn't even realize people had a brain much less neurotransmitters. After your video I'm quite capable of throwing around the word neurotransmitters. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter? I'm going to throw that into conversation. Cathy said, "I've been feeling quite morose lately" and I casually replied, "Ya don't have enough serotonin " and she was like " what's that" and I looked away, gave her my back like I was in a story on Telemundo. "It's a neurotransmitter"

Cut to black. We made love.

[selfcontrol]

Daniel 1 & Genesis 1 2 great chapters in the Bible. Ezekiel 4 is Ezekiel 🍞 Bread.

[sebastiansilverfox]

So I would push back on your conclusion just a bit (without actually saying it's incorrect). Correlation is not causation. Just because those who are happier eat more fruits and vegetables does not mean that those who eat more fruits and vegetables will be happier. While certain foods may certainly have some affect on this, it is far more likely that by avoiding certain things and certain processed food products, you will have a much greater impact. The happiest people tend to be those who live a more rural lifestyle and part of that means they are eating real foods exercising, and doing all the things that will naturally make a person more content. It is also true that this group tends to be more religious which also has a positive impact. All of these factors give a person a sense of place and purpose while also letting them see the (often literal) fruits of their labor. Furthermore, those who suffer most from depression tend to lack all of the above factors. Because of all the variables, it makes it difficult to determine how much impact fruits and vegetables have in isolation. We can look at chemical analysis and infer that some value is there but it is difficult to know the full extent.
In the case of Daniel, Hannaniah, Michiel, and Azariah, we cannot claim this as a clinical trial or even say that the food itself was the reason for the improved health of the men because the reason stated that they had improved health was divine in nature and not natural. Even if you subscribe to the belief that the event took place while denying any divine aspect, the men firmly believed that they were being obedient and doing the right thing and this freedom from guilt would have had a major impact on their overall health given their situation in particular. As for your reference to Eden and Adam being given fruit to eat, let us not forget that vegetables being consumed came after the fall and meat was also given after the flood. Now one could argue that there are genetic factors at work here and that the gradual degradation of the human genome combined with the destruction of the perfect soil conditions that predated the flood. All this to say that the case for what you're saying is a bit more cloudy. This, of course, does not make it wrong but I wanted to point out potential discrepancies because the more information people have, the better.

[shawnsullivan]

This is interesting. They say carnivore diets reduce many of your gut bacteria strains considerably. Is there higher depression or anxiety levels on carnivore?