Psychiatric disorders have been particularly challenging to treat in our medical paradigm with many diagnoses thought to be incurable without a known cause. In conventional medical training, whether its to be an medical doctor, nurse practitioner, nurse, physician assistant etc, we are taught that vitamin and nutrient balance bears little to no relevance to how our bodies function.
This conventional training could not be further from the truth…Our vitamins, minerals and nutrient status are vital to our systemic health….
As medicine has progressed we can now link nutrient imbalances to brain imbalances allowing for effective long term treatment options.
So let’s dive in!
How do nutrient imbalances affect our brain?
The production of our neurotransmitters are essential for our brain to function appropriately. For our neurotransmitters to be made we have to have raw materials to produce them. What are those raw materials?
Drumroll please….
NUTRIENTS!!
What nutrients exactly? It takes many nutrients PLUS strong borders in the body for our brain to function correctly. For example to make dopamine we have to a tyrosine, an amino acid. PLUS we need vitamins and minerals to make the enzymes work that convert our amino acids into neurotransmitters. Vitamins and minerals like zinc, copper, vitamin c, b vitamins…
Let’s talk copper and zinc…
The balance of zinc and copper is essential to maintaining brain homeostasis. The standard american diet (SAD) is high in copper when compared to zinc. Copper and zinc work inversely with each other. As copper goes up, zinc goes down. This is important because zinc is required for many important reactions in the body such as:
immune function
DNA synthesis
cell growth and replication
*production of neurotransmitters
Wait a minute? Zinc is needed for the production of our neurotransmitters?
YES! Without sufficient zinc we do not have the raw materials we need to make our calming neurotransmitters like serotonin, GABA, and even dopamine. In fact, when zinc is low that means copper is high causing our dopamine to rapidly turn into norepinephrine through stimulation of an enzyme known as Dopamine-β-hydroxylase1.
We know that norepinephrine is stimulatory and is used in traditional medicine to treat conditions like attention deficit disorder (ADD/ADHD) because of its ability to increase focus and attention2.
Medications used to treat ADD/ADHD work to increase norepinephrine…
But…excess norepinephrine leads to symptoms of ADD/ADHD, autism, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, anxiety, and sleep disturbance.
What is norepinephrine and is it all bad?
Norepinephrine is an excitatory neurotransmitter and is in the category of adrenalines. Short term norepinephrine production or adrenaline release is very useful in times of stress. In short bursts, increases in adrenaline make us more focused and alert and even agile….
But…when our nutrients are imbalanced and there is a high toxic or infectious load leading to excess adrenaline production all the time its like we are running from a tiger all the time…. This literally breaks down the tissues in the body such as our borders…
What are the borders in the body and why are healthy borders important?
So, I stated earlier that excessive stress breaks down the borders in our body or our cell membranes. Everything in our body is made up of cells, including our borders (gut mucosal lining and our blood brain barrier). These borders keep our body systems strong by keeping our bugs (bacteria) where we want them, and by keeping toxins and infections out of our cells. This is key because toxins and infections literally rewire our body for their own survival if they are allowed to stay…
How do we keep our borders and cell membranes healthy?
Our cell membranes are made up of a lipid bilayer, literally fat, call phospholipids. We have to be taking in enough fat (healthy fat) and be digesting and absorbing our fat (insert gut health) to maintain our cell membranes (our borders). This keeps our bugs (bacteria) where they should be and toxins and infections out of our cells .
Our cell membranes protect the internal structure of our cells, our mitochondria (the engines of our cells) and the nucleus, from being penetrated by toxins and infections. Excessive stimulation from catecholamines or stress breaks down our borders (cell membranes), alters our microbiome and leads to brain immune cell (microglia) activation by allowing toxins and infections to penetrate our cells.
Toxic and infectious overload leads to nutrient imbalances. The combination of toxic and infection overload and subsequent nutrient imbalances leads to conditions like ADD, OCD, autism, schizophrenia, bipolar.
What causes nutrient imbalances?
This is the most important question to answer. The top contributors of nutrient imbalances are toxins and infections. Toxins and infections damage our cell membranes allowing for their own penetration into our cells.
Toxins and infections literally work to hijack our cells to allow for their own survival. As they do this, our toxic cup fills, and our ability to digest and absorb our nutrients declines leaving us without the raw materials we need to make the neurotransmitters our brain needs to function and/or an excess of certain neurotransmitters.
Is this making sense yet?
The balance of our neurotransmitters play a crucial role in how our brains function. Our nutrients play a vital role in the production of our neurotransmitters and therefore our brain function and the development of neuro-cognitive diseases and symptoms like ADD/ADHD, OCD, autism, schizophrenia and bipolar as well as our ability to sleep and relax. Finding the cause of the nutrient imbalance is the key to long term symptom resolution.
If you struggle with symptoms of ADD/ADHD, OCD, autism, schizophrenia, bipolar, restlessness, insomnia, anxiety, depression or if you know someone who does SCHEDULE A FREE CONSULT to see how we can help you go from STUCK to LIVING 🙂
References:
- Herat LY, Schlaich MP, Matthews VB. Sympathetic stimulation with norepinephrine may come at a cost. Neural Regen Res. 2019 Jun;14(6):977-978. doi: 10.4103/1673-5374.250576. PMID: 30762006; PMCID: PMC6404498.
2. Rahman MK, Choudhary MI, Arif M, Morshed MM. Dopamine-β-Hydroxylase Activity and Levels of Its Cofactors and Other Biochemical Parameters in the Serum of Arsenicosis Patients of Bangladesh. Int J Biomed Sci. 2014 Mar;10(1):52-60. PMID: 24711750; PMCID: PMC3976448.
