And I thought I was happy after eating at Delhi Palace because the food was so good!

Turmeric is a spice commonly used in Indian cooking that is gaining attention for its health properties. Curcumin, the ingredient in turmeric that provides its yellow color, is thought to be a very powerful antioxidant and anticancer agent.

In Alzheimer's patients, not only can it prevent the accumulation of destructive beta-amyloid proteins, but it is thought to even break up already existing plaques (when I saw this, it made me wonder if this is why the oldest man in the world always seems to be living in some small Indian village.)

Now it's looking like curcumin may also have antidepressant properties. When tested on rats, it had activities mimicking that found in three different categories of antidepressants--monoamine oxidase inhibitors, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and dopamine reuptake inhibitors. Specific medications it was compared to included fluoxetine (Prozac), venlafaxine (Effexor), and bupropion (Wellbutrin).

When rats were already on medication, curcumin seemed to enhance the activity of the medication. Which has me thinking that psychiatrists should be handing out coupons to the closest Indian restaurant along with their medication scripts.

It appears that curcumin absorption is better in the presence of piperidine, a component of black pepper. Curry powder, readily available in most grocery stores, is a combination of coriander, cumin, black pepper, white pepper, turmeric and chillies). Not a bad item to keep stocked in your mental health cooking arsenal.

If you like to cook, Indian food is fun and easy. To get you started, here's a link to some curry recipes. Be sure you cook with olive or canola oil to get the best brain bang for your buck.

Kulkarni SK, Bhutani MK, Bishnoi M. Antidepressant activity of curcumin: involvement of serotonin and dopamine system. Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2008 Dec;201(3):435-42. Epub 2008 Sep 3.

Yang, F; Lim GP; Begum AN; Ubeda OJ; Simmons MR; Ambegaokar SS; Chen PP; Kayed R; Glabe CG; Frautschy SA; Cole GM (February 2005). Curcumin inhibits formation of amyloid beta oligomers and fibrils, binds plaques, and reduces amyloid in vivo. Journal of Biological Chemistry (American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology) 280 (7): 5892–901.

Information for aviation professionals

If any of you know anyone who is a flight attendant or a pilot, I wanted to let you know I've launched a new endeavor to address their specific needs. In all the years I've done my work, this profession consistently stands out as one at great risk for health issues...and when mental health issues hit they can end an aviator's career.

My partner in this business and I want to provide ideas and support to help lengthen some of those careers and enrich the lives of those who sacrifice much so we can get where we need to. We'll be covering everything from eating well to conquering sleep disorders to stress management.

If you are interested, or know someone who might be, please check us out!

N-acetyl-L-cysteine: use with hope, use with caution

N-acetyl-L-cysteine is an up and coming supplement, which is gaining popularity among body builders. What's interesting is that it's also showing promise as a natural antidepressant.

It makes sense that it would work for both, since NAC is an antioxidant. In the case of exercise, it helps to repair the damage created in the process of metabolizing energy to fuel the exercise. When it comes to depression, it helps to slow down the oxidative process that has been destroying neurons.

Other potential mental health issues it is showing promise for include: bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. It may also help with polycystic ovary syndrome, another issue I specialize in treating.

NAC is to be treated with respect, however. In mice, in large doses it has been found to increase blood pressure in the lungs and right ventricle of the heart, creating symptoms similar to what is seen in animals subjected to an oxygen-deprived environment for 3 weeks.

While this supplement may have some very useful potential, it is important to work with a professional who knows how to dose it in order to maximize your benefit from it without putting yourself at risk. The guy at the corner bodybuilding store, who makes more money, the more you use, is likely not this person. A registered dietitian with specific training ins sports nutrition is your better bet.

Ferreira FF, Biojone C, Joca SR, Guimarães FS. Antidepressant-like effects of N-acetyl-L-cysteine in rats. Behav Pharmacol. 2008 Oct;19(7):747-50

Zinc KO's Prozac in the fight against depression

Zinc is an essential mineral that can cause depression when it is deficient. In a recent study, scientists produced depression in a population of rats by creating a zinc deficiency. They went one step further and tried to reverse the depression with an antidepressant. Turns out, the rats did not respond to the medication.

Makes me wonder about another relationship. The fact that medical schools often give as little as one hour of nutrition to medical students in a four year curriculum. Could that be why, the first thing physicians think of when a patient is depressed, is to use the therapy on which semester-long courses are created, rather than to recommend something mentioned in passing in that long lost hour?

If you want to do something about your own zinc intake, remember that the highest levels of the best absorbed kind of zinc is found in protein-based choices such as beef, lamb, pork, crabmeat, turkey, chicken, lobster, clams and salmon. If you're vegan, your best bets are milk and cheese, yeast, peanuts, beans, and wholegrain cereals, brown rice, whole wheat bread, potato and yogurt.

Interestingly, pumpkin seeds are a great source of zinc. I keep running across pumpkin seeds for a lot of different pieces I'm writing these days. They just might be one of those foods you should never let yourself run out of. Trail mix, anyone?

Tassabehji NM, Corniola RS, Alshingiti A, Levenson CW. Zinc deficiency induces depression-like symptoms in adult rats. Physiol Behav. 2008 Oct 20;95(3):365-9. Epub 2008 Jul 3.

I coulda had a V8--er--fish oil pill

There's a part of me that knows that as long as science continues to do things the way it does things, I have journalistic job security.

But the heart inside me really wishes they'd get it so I could trash this blog and head for an isolated Costa Rican beach until I find another pressing issue to blog about.

What I mean by "getting it" is that the reason we're so sick as a culture is not because we're not taking enough medicine, or that we haven't created the perfect medicine. It's because the perfect medicine is sitting right under our noses and we refuse to acknowledge it because it won't give the people who make money off of people being sick...a patent or a respectable profit margin.

Someone who sees things the same way finally got his words into a peer-reviewed journal.

He reports that you can reduce the incidence of heart attack if you get people to take, in combination,
a statin medication,
three different blood pressure medications,
a folic acid supplement, and
an aspirin.

This brave new concoction has been called the "polypill". Yikes! It doesn't take long even for someone who hates math to figure out how many people THAT marketing...um..."treatment" approach employs.

In the words of the author delivering this breaking news,

Unlike the proposed "polypill", EFAs are endogenous molecules present in almost all tissues, have no significant or few side effects, can be taken orally for long periods of time even by pregnant women, lactating mothers, and infants, children, and adults; and have been known to reduce the incidence cardiovascular diseases including stroke.

I propose that a rational combination of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids and the co-factors that are necessary for their appropriate action/metabolism is as beneficial as that of the combined use of a statin, thiazide, a beta blocker, and an angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor, folic acid, and aspirin. Furthermore, appropriate combination of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids may even show additional benefits in the form of protection from depression, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease, and enhances cognitive function; and serve as endogenous anti-inflammatory molecules; and could be administered from childhood for life long.

Sigh...wonder how many pharmaceutical company trash cans that brilliant idea ended up in?

Fortunately, you can decide if you want to support your own health with this idea. It is available over the counter. It's totally up to you.

Das UN. Essential fatty acids and their metabolites could function as endogenous HMG-CoA reductase and ACE enzyme inhibitors, anti-arrhythmic, anti-hypertensive, anti-atherosclerotic, anti-inflammatory, cytoprotective, and cardioprotective molecules. Lipids Health Dis. 2008 Oct 15;7:37.

Fatty aspirin: a new perspective in the prevention of dementia of Alzheimer's type?

One of the reasons many nutritional therapies don't get much research attention is that research studies need to be funded. And the biggest bank accounts to be accessed for those funds are those held by companies who can get a return on their investment for supporting that research. In other words, if a company can invest research in a project that results in a chemical that can be patented and sold at a profit, there's a motivation to spend money in that way.

You can't patent a salmon.

And if you saw the way my pecan farming friends managed their businesses here in Arizona...a few pecans here, a bed and breakfast there...not really multi-million dollar enterprises.

So it makes sense that some of the best answers to medical problems are likely not going to show up in medical journals. For all their good intent and peer reviews, these journals are often promotional venues for the companies funding the studies they report on. Those promotions just aren't formatted as advertisements.

But I always wonder when reading all these studies, why the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Effect hasn't happened. What I mean by that is, if there is a little bit of (very strong) evidence to support natural remedies such as fish oil and herbs, why these drug companies don't come up with combinations of supplements and medications that (1) increase the effectiveness of the treatment, (2) reduce the side effects that minimize drug compliance, like weight gain, and (3) engage the interest of people who don't necessarily want to take medications but might consider them if the natural remedies they DO trust were somehow incorporated into the treatment? Just like the old, "You got chocolate in my peanut butter" ads.

Here is a reference for such a combo, a "fatty aspirin", or fish oil-aspirin combination, that could be used to delay the development of Alzheimer's disease.

OK, in that case I can't say you heard it here first, but when you guys start coming up with fatty antipsychotics, fatty antidepressants, yadayada...and you know it's eventually going to happen...you know where to send the royalty check!

Pomponi M, Di Gioia A, Bria P, Pomponi MF. Fatty aspirin: a new perspective in the prevention of dementia of Alzheimer's type? Curr Alzheimer Res. 2008 Oct;5(5):422-31.

Biochemical and brain differences in bipolar disorder--that nutrition might be able to help

These guys think like me. Instead of coming up with a pill that fixes what appears to be wrong on the outside...why not start on the inside and figure out what's really causing the problem?

This group of researchers started out looking at tissue samples of people who had had depression. What they discovered was that these individuals had low levels of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA, if you read this blog you know that's fish oil and marine algae) in their red blood cells and their cortices. The cortex is the part of the brain that does logical, rational problem solving.

They decided to poke around some brains that had been under the influence of bipolar disorder in their time and discovered that there were several abnormalities. As with depressin, DHA levels were low. Arachidonic acid and stearic acid levels were also low. Brains of individuals who had been on mood stabilizing or antipsychotic medications were not as deficient. The deficiencies appeared to be more severe if alcohol abuse had been an issue.

It's not clear whether or not the issue is totally dietary, or if there is some kind of abnormal metabolic process that alters fatty acid ratios, but it does seem that researchers in this area are leaning toward the possibility that nutrition is extremely important to brain function--as well as to the management of psychiatric disorders.

It causes me to wonder why dietary controls are not a standard protocol in psychotropic drug studies, but that's a topic for another blog post. I'm sure you'll see that soon!

McNamara RK, Jandacek R, Rider T, Tso P, Stanford KE, Hahn CG, Richtand NM. Deficits in docosahexaenoic acid and associated elevations in the metabolism of arachidonic acid and saturated fatty acids in the postmortem orbitofrontal cortex of patients with bipolar disorder. Psychiatry Res. 2008 Sep 30;160(3):285-99. Epub 2008 Aug 20.

Oh! Why the graphic? Just some random thinking...all this writing about fish, and brains, and fish for brain health kind of has me wondering...if fish might not be more intelligent than we give them credit for, if fish ever get depressed...and if there is such a thing as a manic salmon?