Antidepressants are pharmaceutical drugs used in the treatment of mood disorders, which are commonly defined as psychiatric or psychological abnormalities of emotional state, not caused by an organic abnormality. But, if they're not organic—which means caused by bacteria, viruses, chemical changes in the nerves or glands, structural or other physical impairments or changes—what are they caused by?

Society at large is familiar with the concept that poor diet leads to heart disease and many other physical ailments. Less well known is that poor diet can cause mood disorders, and that moods can indicate problems long before physical symptoms present themselves.

Vitamin depletion from poor choices (eating too much of the wrong foods, or not enough of the right foods) can clearly result in various psychoses. In the early part of the last century, 100,000 people were released from Southern Institutions when it was found that they suffered only from pellagra, a dietary deficiency disease that causes skin lesions and insanity, and is completely cured by sufficient niacin^1,2.

Everybody knows you should have the Recommended Daily Allowance of vitamins. However, today's RDA is set at a level just barely high enough to prevent diseases such as pellagra³ scurvy⁴ and rickets⁵. No food label says "you may need more vitamins based on your personal biochemistry." And, according to a 3-day study of 21,500 people, not one person achieved the recommended daily allowances⁶. Awareness is growing that diets with high sugar (simple carbohydrate) content lead to depression, ADHD, agression, and lack of energy.⁷ This means that extra vitamins are necessary in a daily diet, in addition to quality food, to bring about emotional and physical wellness.

Tryptophan is an amino acid, and amino acids are building blocks of protein. Many diets are deficient in tryptophan, which leads to irritability, sleeplessness, and depression as well as other health problems. Diets which provide adequate tryptophan may be imbalanced by having too many other amino acids which out-compete tryptophan. Such an imbalance will manifest the same symptoms of irritability, sleeplessness and depression as a lack of tryptophan. This is a case where supplementing may have to be combined with dietary corrections in order to create the necessary balance.

Many books are written about the treatment of mood disorders with nutrition:Mood Cure Diet, by Julia Ross; Dr. Michael Lesser's Brain Chemistry Diet; Michael Murray's Natural Alternatives to Prozac; Dr. Michael Norden's Beyond Prozac; and Dr. Richard Brown's Stop Depression Now, to name a few. It is clear from the work of these authors that natural alternatives are effective and do not introduce the toxicity and undesirable side effects of pharmaceutical medications.

We do Lab Testing to ensure the root cause of biochemical imbalance is found. (To learn more about this click HERE). Once found, an individual nutritional program is established by our doctor, an Orthomolecular Medical Doctor who seeks to achieve optimum brain function by ensuring that the brain receives the naturally occurring substances it needs in the correct amounts. Naturally means using vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and other elements found in high quality foods rather than in drugs. Naturally also means orchestrating a diet that complements good brain function.

The client begins to taper their medication. The stepdown is approximately 10% per week. As the medication levels come down, the natural alternatives levels go up. This allows the client's neurology to adjust to each level.

It is a real priviledge to see clients make the transition from scared  numb and medicated to clear headed--and confident that they will remain that way.

Nothing on this Web-site is intended to be taken as medical advice, and always consult with your doctor before altering your medications.

NOTE: Adding nutritional supplements may alter the effect of medication.Any medication changes should be done only after proper evaluation and under medical supervision. Please call the intake number to schedule an appointment referral.

However, in many—in fact most—cases, a detailed history of the person's diet will reveal poor nutritional choices. Often, sugar consumption will play a large role in creating a vitamin deficiency that has been proven, on grand scales, to make a person psychotic. White flour (such as pastas, donuts, white rice and refined cereals) has the same effect as sugar. These simple carbohydrates, sugar and white flour, require vitamins to metabolize.¹ In commercial foods, vitamins have been stripped out during the refining process. For example, when you have a carbonated soft drink, which has no vitamins, your body must use vitamins it already has to convert the sugars in the soda for food. If all the vitamins are used up in this way, your brain won't have enough to do its work.

And this is a new theory as to the cause of schizophenia: local avitaminosis².

It has been demonstrated that supplemental vitamin C, zinc, manganese, niacin, folic acid, B6 and B12 help remedy brain deficiencies, even if those deficiencies result from genetics. A diet high in protein can often help to provide mental stability due to protein's ability to stabilize blood sugar.

In fact, in the early part of the last century, 100,000 people were released from Southern mental institutions when it was found that the reason for their insanity was a diet lacking in niacin.³  In the 1950s, America's first double blind study of schizophrenia was conducted by Abram Hoffer and Humphrey Osmond. They gave niacin to the participants and 82% showed improvements. More than half of the people in this study were 5-year cures, and many more of those remaining were 3- and 4- year cures that would certainly have become 5 year cures had the study continued.

With specific supplements, such as niacin, and a diet high in protein which excludes refined sugar and flour, medication may be unnecessary.

We do Lab Testing to ensure the root cause of biochemical imbalance is found. (To learn more about this, go to the Lab Testing icon on the home page.) Once found, an individual nutritional program is established by our doctor, an Orthomolecular Medical doctor who seeks to achieve optimum brain function by ensuring that the brain receives the naturally occurring substances it needs in the correct amounts. Naturally means using vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and other elements found in high quality foods rather than in drugs. Naturally also means orchestrating a diet that complements good brain function.

Then the client begins to taper their medication. The stepdown is approximately 10% per week. As the medication levels come down, the natural alternatives levels go up. The allows the client's neurology to adjust to each level.

It is a real privilege to see clients make the transition from scared or numb and medicated to clear headed--and confident that they will remain that way.

Nothing in this Web site is meant to be taken as medical advice. Always consult with your doctor before altering your medications.

Benzodiazepines are commonly called 'benzos' and are pharmaceutical drugs used as antianxiety agents, muscle relaxants, sedatives¹, hypnotics², and sometimes as anticonvulsants. These include drugs such as Valium, Xanax, Clonazepam, Librium, Lorazepam, and various others. These drugs are highly addictive, and need to be tapered off of slowly. Our addiction medicine specialist may choose to taper the client using the drug they are currently on, or switch them to a medication that has the same effect, yet is safer to taper off.

If a person has had a long standing issue with anxiety, they of course may have misgivings about stopping their medication. They may have tried to quit before, only to have a resurgence of their symptoms since the cause of the anxiety is still present.

Whether it is a complete mystery as to why they are anxious, or the person can identify a traumatic life incident in the past, or there is an obvious current stressful situation, they are suffering from an altered biochemistry. For example, stress raises cortisol³, which acts on other glands to produce hormones like adrenaline (the fight or flight hormone). High cortisol causes someone to be anxious, not able to sleep and can also cause heart disease, memory problems, chronic headaches, and obesity. Cortisol is the hormone a person gets a dose of when they have, for instance, just avoided a car wreck, or which influences a person who is experiencing road rage.

A person can achieve more optimum brain chemistry and succeed at lowering their stress level without being drugged. We use a diet that produces a calming effect rather than a stimulating one, and cortisol-suppressing supplements, which are made from substances normally found in food. Once the internal environment is in balance, a person can better handle external factors such as traffic jams, relationship woes, or whatever causes their inappropriate or unwanted emotional responses.

Insomnia can also be a problem for patients on benzodiazepenes, whether caused by the medication, or by the underlying condition for which the person was taking medication. We use additional supplements to help the chemical reactions that allow for sleep, which do not drug the person. Instead, they build the natural pathways in the production of it's own sleep hormones.

Tryptophan is an amino acid, and amino acids are building blocks of protein. Many diets are deficient in tryptophan, which leads to irritability, sleeplessness, and depression as well as other health problems. Diets which provide adequate tryptophan may be imbalanced by having too many other amino acids which out-compete tryptophan. Such an imbalance will manifest the same symptoms of irritability, sleeplessness and depression as a lack of tryptophan. This is a case where supplementing may have to be combined with dietary corrections in order to create the necessary balance.

We do Lab Testing to ensure the root cause of biochemical imbalance is found. (To learn more about this, go to the Lab Testing icon on the home page.) Once found, an individual nutritional program is established by our doctor, an Orthomolecular Medical Doctor who seeks to achieve optimum brain function by ensuring that the brain receives the naturally occurring substances it needs in the correct amounts. Naturally means using vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and other elements found in high quality foods rather than in drugs. Naturally also means orchestrating a diet that complements good brain function.

Then the client begins to taper their medication. The stepdown is approximately 10% per week. As the medication levels come down, the natural alternatives levels go up. The allows the client's neurology to adjust to each level.

It is a real privilege to see clients make the transition from scared or numb and medicated to clear headed--and confident that they will remain that way.

Nothing in this Web site is meant to be taken as medical advice. Always consult with your doctor before altering your medications.

Our addiction medicine specialist uses Suboxone for opiate replacement. This eliminates most all of the sickness involved in opiate withdrawal. The client is placed on Suboxone, and then the Suboxone is tapered to zero over the course of two weeks. This is a comparatively painless process, and highly successful. More can be learned about the addictive medicine specialist doctor on the home page icon Professional Support

Opiates include drugs such as Heroin, Morphine, Hydrocodone (Vicodin/Loracet), Oxycodone, and Codeine. These drugs act in the same way as our natural endorphins do in order to mediate pain, emotional and physical. Endorphins are produced in the brain by the pituitary and the hypothalamus glands, and act as analgesics (pain blockers) and provide a sense of well being. Many people are in fact self medicating when they use opiates for emotional pain. Their diet, their metabolism, their genetics, or emotional circumstances may be placing them in a situation where they are producing a low amount of natural endorphins.

People attracted to opiates tend to "feel" more than others and wind up labeled "sensitive". While it is important to be able to experience the full range of emotions including sadness, it is quite another thing to be emotional most all the time. A person who is in this situation would quite naturally seek to self medicate. They also would draw aberrated conclusions about what was making them sad all the time, thinking it was some traumatic mark from the past haunting them in the present, or some external factors. When a person raises their threshold for physical and emotional pain, without being drugged, they can more easily process those old haunts and confront those present time problems easier.

We also use acupuncture to stimulate the release of endorphins. Current medical research supports our efforts in this way. More can be learned about this in the acupuncture section of the home page or by visiting http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s27924.htm

Nothing in this Web site is meant to be taken as medical advice. Always consult with your doctor before altering your medications.

Our addiction medicine specialist uses Suboxone for opiate replacement. This eliminates most all of the sickness involved in opiate withdrawal. The client is placed on Suboxone, and then the Suboxone is tapered to zero over the course of two weeks. This is a comparatively painless process, and highly successful. More can be learned about the doctor on Professional Support

Opiates include drugs such as Heroin, Morphine, Hydrocodone (Vicodin/Loracet), Oxycodone, and Codeine. These drugs act in the same way as our natural endorphins do in order to mediate pain, emotional and physical. Endorphins are produced in the brain by the pituitary and the hypothalamus glands, and act as analgesics (pain blockers) and provide a sense of well being. Many people are in fact self medicating when they use opiates for emotional pain. Their diet, their metabolism, their genetics, or emotional circumstances may be placing them in a situation where they are producing a low amount of natural endorphins.

People attracted to opiates tend to "feel" more than others and wind up labeled "sensitive". While it is important to be able to experience the full range of emotions including sadness, it is quite another thing to be emotional most all the time. A person who is in this situation would quite naturally seek to self medicate. They also would draw aberrated conclusions about what was making them sad all the time, thinking it was some traumatic mark from the past haunting them in the present, or some external factors. When a person raises their threshold for physical and emotional pain, without being drugged, they can more easily process those old haunts and confront those present time problems easier.

We also use acupuncture to stimulate the release of endorphins. Current medical research supports our efforts in this way. More can be learned about this in the acupuncture section on the home page or by visiting
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s27924.htm

Nothing on our Web-site is intended to be taken as medical advice, and always consult with your doctor before altering your medications.

Our addiction medicine specialist uses Suboxone for opiate replacement. This eliminates most all of the sickness involved in opiate withdrawal. The client is placed on Suboxone, and then the Suboxone is tapered to zero over the course of two weeks. This is a comparatively painless process, and highly successful. More can be learned about the doctor on the home page icon Professional Support

Opiates include drugs such as Heroin, Morphine, Hydrocodone (Vicodin/Loracet), Oxycodone, and Codeine. These drugs act in the same way as our natural endorphins do in order to mediate pain, emotional and physical. Endorphins are produced in the brain by the pituitary and the hypothalamus glands, and act as analgesics (pain blockers) and provide a sense of well being. Many people are in fact self medicating when they use opiates for emotional pain. Their diet, their metabolism, their genetics, or emotional circumstances may be placing them in a situation where they are producing a low amount of natural endorphins.

People attracted to opiates tend to "feel" more than others and wind up labeled "sensitive". While it is important to be able to experience the full range of emotions including sadness, it is quite another thing to be emotional most all the time. A person who is in this situation would quite naturally seek to self medicate. They also would draw aberrated conclusions about what was making them sad all the time, thinking it was some traumatic mark from the past haunting them in the present, or some external factors. When a person raises their threshold for physical and emotional pain, without being drugged, they can more easily process those old haunts and confront those present time problems easier.

We also use acupuncture to stimulate the release of endorphins. Current medical research supports our efforts in this way. More can be learned about this in the acupuncture section of the home page or by visiting http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s27924.htm

Nothing on our Web-site is intended to be taken as medical advice, and always consult with your doctor before altering your medications.

Our addiction medicine specialist uses Suboxone for opiate replacement. This eliminates most all of the sickness involved in opiate withdrawal. The client is placed on Suboxone, and then the Suboxone is tapered to zero over the course of two weeks. This is a comparatively painless process, and highly successful. More can be learned about the doctor on the home page icon Professional Support

Opiates include drugs such as Heroin, Morphine, Hydrocodone (Vicodin/Loracet), Oxycodone, and Codeine. These drugs act in the same way as our natural endorphins do in order to mediate pain, emotional and physical. Endorphins are produced in the brain by the pituitary and the hypothalamus glands, and act as analgesics (pain blockers) and provide a sense of well being. Many people are in fact self medicating when they use opiates for emotional pain. Their diet, their metabolism, their genetics, or emotional circumstances may be placing them in a situation where they are producing a low amount of natural endorphins.

People attracted to opiates tend to "feel" more than others and wind up labeled "sensitive". While it is important to be able to experience the full range of emotions including sadness, it is quite another thing to be emotional most all the time. A person who is in this situation would quite naturally seek to self medicate. They also would draw aberrated conclusions about what was making them sad all the time, thinking it was some traumatic mark from the past haunting them in the present, or some external factors. When a person raises their threshold for physical and emotional pain, without being drugged, they can more easily process those old haunts and confront those present time problems easier.

We also use acupuncture to stimulate the release of endorphins. Current medical research supports our efforts in this way. More can be learned about this in the acupuncture section of the home page or by visiting
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s27924.htm

Nothing on our Web-site is intended to be taken as medical advice, and always consult with your doctor before altering your medications.