Natural Treatments for Mood Disorders

Many of our patients want to reduce their use of medications, and move to a more natural regimen, utilizing herbal medicine, dietary supplements, and other traditional or less invasive methods of controlling mood swings and increasing stability. However, we have to recognize that “natural” medicine is still a form of medical treatment, and requires patient participation and discipline just as …

Can a Change in Diet Cure Psychological Illnesses?

Can a change in diet cure psychological illnesses?  What dietary changes or interventions may be effective in treatment or management of mental or mood disorders? Diet is more than weight loss, and has been invoked, modified and studied for a wide variety of physical and mental ills and conditions.  Yet there is surprisingly little hard data available to tell us …

Supplements – Use Caution

We are once again reminded that it’s important to be cautious when using supplements since they are essentially unregulated in this country. There is only one company that does independent testing  and we strongly encourage people who are using supplements to subscribe  to Consumer Lab. In an article from Consumer Reports about “Supplement Seals” (July 28, 2016) a comparison chart …

Phosphatidylserine

Phosphatidylserine may help protect the body against stress and may improve memory and prevent Alzheimer’s dementia. For the last month I have been examining some of the literature on this topic and working with some people in my practice to see if phosphatidylserine seems to be a useful natural supplement. The research literature on phosphatidylserine is intriguing. But first a …

S-Adenosyl-Methionine Update

SAM-e S-adenosylmethionine, or SAM-e for short, is one of the few nutritional supplements that has good clinical research to support its safety and effectiveness. Although SAM-e is used for many purposes, we are particularly interested in it as a compound that may have antidepressant properties. Clinical Significance S-adenosylmethionine (SAMe) is involved in many reactions that involve methylating chemicals (transferring a methyl …

A Healthy Diet

We are glad to have recently added a page to our “Topics” section that discusses a healthy diet and also reviews some information about nutritional supplements. This is a huge topic, and none of us are dietitians, but it is an important issue and so, with the caveat that we approach the topic from the standpoint of what helps people …

L-Methylfolate for Depression

Methylfolate is the active form of folic acid – which is an essential B vitamin. Methylfolate is essential for the brain to make the neurotransmitters that prevent depression (norepinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine). In other words, a low level of depression can cause or worsen depression because it leads to lower levels of serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine. Most of us are able to get plenty …

Zinc Might Prevent Depression

In several animal studies, zinc deficiency can cause behavior that looks like depression. In other animal studies, giving  zinc can have antidepressant-like activity if the animals are zinc-deficient. And there is some clinical evidence that zinc might boost the effectiveness of antidepressants in humans. Now a large meta-analysis of studies that looked at zinc blood levels in people with depression (Swardfager, et …