The Depression Sessions officially starts on Sunday June 14th.
To give you a taste of what is to come, this week is a pre-summit kick-off with some great interviews airing RIGHT NOW!
TODAY (and the next few days), you can watch Sean Croxton’s excellent interview with Dr. Datis Kharrazian, author of Why Isn’t My Brain Working.
Dr. Kharrazian’s full-length session is available for EARLY BIRD viewing and downloading (video, mp3 and transcript).
Dr. Datis Kharrazian: How to Figure Out What’s Causing Your Depression
- Why there is more to correcting mood disorders than only boosting neurotransmitter levels. A lot more!
- Why traumatic brain injuries often show up as depression … years down the road.
- How chronic gut inflammation can cause brain inflammation, leading to depression.
- How the “other” symptoms presenting with depression — anxiety, insomnia, brain fog –can help determine its cause.
This free EARLY BIRD viewing will be available until Sunday morning June 14th at 8am PST/11am EST when the Depression Sessions online event officially kicks off.
Here are a few gems from this interview:
- Depression is decreased frequency of firing of areas the frontal cortex, pre-frontal, orbitofrontal, and the cingulate gyrus. At the end of the day, someone’s clinical depression is that part of their brain not firing. Then our goal as a clinical workup is why? What’s not making that area of the brain fire?
- Every single case of depression is uniquely different
- If you have depression and you notice it and you want to change it, that’s a really positive sign. If you have depression and you don’t even care anymore, you don’t even recognize it, that’s when things get really scary for us. That’s where all the neurodegenerative diseases have to be ruled out.
I’m so pleased to hear that Dr Kharrazian is not in favor of urinary neurotransmitter testing and do agree that depression (and anxiety) is often a lot more than only neurotransmitter deficiencies.
I see such incredible results with amino acids that I must say I do disagree with him on this one: “If you take an amino acid, like 5-HTP or tyrosine you do get a boost of brain function that doesn’t last.”
It may just be that he is working with people who have very complex issues like a history of brain injuries and neurodegenerative diseases. The whole discussion on head injuries is so interesting! And the wonderful thing is that there are certain nutrients that can help so much (fish oil, turmeric and others)!
The GABA blood-brain-barrier discussion comes up later (and I get a mention!) so be sure to listen out for that section. I’m still not convinced about the leaky brain GABA information but I am planning to have to look into the Cyrex blood-brain-barrier test Dr. Kharrazian mentions. I’m also going to look into the Cyrex GAD autoimmunity test he talks about.
My interview on the amino acids (GABA and tryptophan) and pyroluria/social anxiety/introversion airs on Day 1 so be sure to tune in for this one too. You can see a preview snippet on this blog called: Can Social Anxiety Be Reversed with Nutrition?
If you haven’t yet registered you can simply register here:
https://at105.isrefer.com/go/
I do hope you enjoy this one and all the others in the Depression Sessions!
In Dr. K’s other lecture I heard, referring to the use of GABA, how it “shouldn’t” work (and a practitioner should be very concerned if it does) because it can’t really pass the blood brain barrier…
How do you feel about that and what’s your explanation?
Does this mean that people who do well on GABA have a pretty severe permeability to the gut?
Hi Kari
I talk about this in my interview with Sean and am not sure I agree with this reasoning. As of now there there is no study supporting this.
I propose that GABA may have a calming effect by working in other areas of the body ie peripherally. There is much research showing that we have GABA receptors in many parts of the body: muscles, fascia, ovaries, adrenal glands etc (you can see some of the research here https://www.everywomanover29.com/blog/anxiety-summit-targeted-individual-amino-acids-eliminating-anxiety-practical-applications/). We know that low GABA causes physical anxiety so this makes sense.
You’ll also see some research on the above blog showing that GABA is relaxing (these were with pharmaGABA) .
Dr K does talk about the Cyrex leaky brain test and I’m going to look into this to see if folks who do respond to GABA also have this marker. I also need to do some research on this marker and how effective it is for measuring a leaky BBB. Up until now no-one has been able to confirm this or seen a correlation.
Dr K also talks about autoimmunity and the GAD gene and I suspect this may affect your response to GABA as will many other factors like zinc levels, B6 levels, gluten sensitivity and other genetic polymorphisms.
Dr K also writes about the GABA challenge in his book – the amount he uses is so high I would expect most people to feel calmer/sleepy and wiped out, so don’t really think this is a good test to use. He uses 1000 mg for the challenge and I find most people do well starting on 125mg.
I think the work Dr K is great but we do disagree on this one. I am always open to learning more and having my mind changed so would love to hear your thoughts on this. Do you use GABA with your patients? and how much? what results do you see? do you know if they have leaky gut? and have you done any of the Cyrex tests? what have you heard about this from other practitioners?
Hi Trudi,
Thank you so much for your blog review of Dr. K’s talk. I actually was thinking it would be great for Sean to have a conversation with the both of you together.
I wanted to follow up on your endorsement of Dr. K’s lack of faith in urinary neurotransmitter testing. What do you do in your clinical practice instead? Dr. K went over his team’s initial workup, I wonder if yours is similar or different? How can you tell if someone is deficient in dopamine, for example, without a test? Is by test and trial with amino therapy?
Thank you!
Michelle
Michelle
Great idea! I love the idea of a panel with Dr K, me and a few others like Dr Dan Kalish, Dr Kelly Brogan and Dr Hyla Cass! I do plan to invite Dr K (and Dr Kalisg) to speak on a future Anxiety Summit too.
And yes, I use the amino acid questionnaire (https://www.everywomanover29.com/blog/amino-acids-mood-questionnaire-from-the-antianxiety-food-solution/) and response to targeted individual amino acids
Trudy, I love this. Here’s my favorite: Every single case of depression is uniquely different If you have depression and you notice it and you want to change it, that’s a really positive sign. If you have depression and you don’t even care anymore, you don’t even recognize it, that’s when things get really scary for us. That’s where all the neurodegenerative diseases have to be ruled out.
Every single case of depression is different and wanting to change it is a good thing. Not caring anymore about how you feel is a huge issue. I wonder how it impacts people when they do care about their depression but part of them feels hopeless; like they can’t do anything about it.
Great interview here and I’m going to share with a depression support group I’m a board member of.
Tandy – I love this quote too!
For folks who do care but feel hopeless I say there is always an answer/solution/root cause and don’t give up until you find it! It’s a matter of putting the puzzle pieces together to find it.
Also, it’s important to realize that many people say I’d tried every single approach under the sun but most of those people have not looked into all the possible nutritional/biochemical causes. I talked about in the last anxiety summit and shared 60+ possible causes for anxiety that folks can use as a checklist to go thru. These same causes could be used for depression, arthritis, cancer, heart disease, diabetes – any health concern.
As Dr K says, “every single case of depression is uniquely different” and this applies to other health issues too.
Here is the link to that blog https://www.everywomanover29.com/blog/60-nutritional-biochemical-causes-of-anxiety/
Thanks for sharing with your depression support group
What a fascinating interview Trudy – thanks for sharing this – as a member of the foundation of a medical research institute I am constantly intrigued by what we now know about the brain. In fact I have heard just as he now acknowledges that there has been an explosion of information and research as 85% of what we know about how the brain works has been discovered only in the past 3 years!
Heidi – yes, so much new research and we are learning more and more each day! How wonderful that you are a member of the foundation of a medical research institute!
Another amazing information packed item for anyone to check out and learn from. You always provide topics with discussion points which many people would not remotely understand until becoming exposed to your material.
Depression is such a huge issue in this country I’m sure this information will be met with great enthusiasm. It is very interesting to me that there is even a “gut” connection to depression. Once again, good nutrition is huge!
Yes Mary Ellen, the “gut” connection to both anxiety and depression is huge
I’m sorry I missed this, Trudy. I always enjoy listening to the resources that you share.