In his book, “The Heart of Man,” Erich Fromm wrote about two modes of being – one he called biophilia (the love of life and living things) and the other he called necrophilia (a love of order, control, and, ultimately of death). Fromm was very much affected by the experience of Nazi Germany. And much of his understanding of the …
Creatine for Depression in Women
In a small study of depressed women the dietary supplement creatine significantly boosted the response to an SSRI (serotonin antidepressant). Creatine is an amino acid that is made from other amino acids in the body, so it is not considered an essential amino acid – meaning one that you have to get from diet. Creatine is widely used by body …
Reward the Effort
Why is it so hard to make positive changes in our lives? A woman we have been working with came in yesterday and told us about all of the things that she had been doing – making a serious effort to find a satisfying job and career, beginning to get healthy by exercising and joining weight watchers, working on her …
Stress Eating
Weight gain may be not only a psychological (“I hate how I look, it makes me depressed”) but also a biological (overweight people have elevated levels of inflammation that may increase depression) factor worsening depression. Great, but what to do about this? Most of us already knew that we should lose weight, and more guilt doesn’t help. One very interesting …
Vitamin D
Vitamin D is one of the fat soluble vitamins, and along with other fat soluble vitamins, it is possible to take too little, but it is also possible to take too much. And taking too much can have negative health effects, just as taking too little can. For many of us we get enough vitamin D naturally from exposure to …
Supplements – Overview
Supplements are drugs that are found in nature (note: supplements don’t have to be any more “natural” in terms of how they are made than prescription drugs). Because they are found in nature they are not, in the United States, subject to review and approval by the Food and Drug Administration. Also, because they are found in nature, they tend …
Natural Supplements for Depression
There are many, many supplements that people have suggested are effective treatments for depression. How do you decide what is worth trying? Here we will list the much smaller list of supplements that have been shown to be effective in clinical trials. S-Adenosyl Methionine. SAMe was recently shown in a well designed (but small) clinical trial to help people who …
Mood and Food
Many people have an intuitive sense that a good diet is a foundation stone of good mental health. We don’t disagree, although the evidence for dietary manipulation’s effectiveness is not overwhelming. There are a couple of things that we have noticed over the years about food and its effect on mood that might be useful tips. For one thing, simple …
Diet and Weight Loss
The topic of weight loss is one that is charged with emotional significance for many individuals. Perhaps in keeping with that fact, and certainly due to a lack of clear research in this area, there is an incredible amount of misinformation available on this topic. We have recently completed an exhaustive review of the available clinical research relevant to this …
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