The book offers a good introduction to functional/integrative-style medicine and the practice of treating the body holistically. It's also a useful guide to understand certain structural problems of standardized Western medicine, in particular its tendency to medicalize/pathologize symptom clusters and treat them with "approved" pharmaceuticals.
The UltraMind Solution is long and very detailed, but it also boils its central ideas down into simple rules and conceptual frameworks. You'll walk away from this book with a set of relatively simple keys and rules for living a healthier life.
The author also has quite a gift for persuasion. When he asks, rhetorically, "Is depression a Prozac deficiency? Is ADHD a ritalin deficiency?" these striking meta-questions reveal how conventional Western ("allopathic") medicine often merely pokes around the edges of disease, treating specific symptoms with meds, while not knowing (or even caring, really) about the underlying causes--and certainly not caring all that much about how these all-too-easily prescribed pharmacological "solutions" may negatively affect your body and mind in the long run.
This is one of many books I've read on my journey to let go of most conventional, specialized, allopathic medicine. To those readers considering a similar journey, you're in luck! I have a reading list for you right here:
H. Gilbert Welch, MD: Less Medicine, More Health
Ivan Illich: Medical Nemesis
Robert S. Mendelsohn: Confessions of a Medical Heretic
Dr. John Sarno: The Divided Mind
Nassim Taleb: Antifragile
Daniel Amen, MD: Change Your Brain, Change Your Life
Atul Gawande: The Checklist Manifesto
Why Can Doctors Not Diagnose Medical Injuries? (post on iatrogenic harm and medical gaslighting at The Forgotten Side of Medicine blog)
******************************************
What follows are all my notes from the book, and it's way too long! Please, for your own sake, stop reading now. :)
Notes:
1) Foods to add to your diet:
* sardines
* beans
* nuts, seeds
* poultry
* fish
* eggs
* fish oil, cod liver oil
* "Colorful plant pigments" blueberries, grapes, sweet potatoes, cruciferous greens, etc.
Note that this author is generally anti beef, probably to his discredit.
2) It's interesting to note that author Mark Hyman has not commented much publicly on increasingly obvious safety and harm signals from novel mRNA vaccines. Aside from doing a fairly consensus-thinking podcast about them back in January 2021, he's been relatively quiet about the topic, judging by a survey of his social media posts over the past year or so. This is highly intriguing, because this author has in the past openly linked autism to traditional vaccines, and has been criticized roundly for it in mainstream/approved media articles (see for example this one at Vox).
3) The book at times overwhelms the reader with all sorts of stats, details and things to know.
5) On the epidemic of broken brains; the myth of modern psychiatry and neurology; and seven keys to wellness. "Broken brain" as a catch-all term for depression, anxiety, memory loss, brain fog, ADHD, autism, dementia. They all seem like separate problems, but they are manifestations of a few common underlying root causes. Note that conventional medical treatments are the wrong model to heal these disorders.
6) "Is depression a Prozac deficiency? Is ADHD a Ritalin deficiency? Is Alzheimer's an Aricept deficiency?" Again, these are great meta-questions that uncover the fact that we are poking around the edges of the real cause of these things and only treating symptoms, not attacking or even searching for the root causes, and in fact tinkering with complex systems we do not understand.
7) Note also the highly selective editing/selected publishing of studies biased to showing effectiveness of these meds when they actually have far less efficacy in real-world use; we underreport studies showing lack of efficacy (nobody wants to publish a study finding a null hypothesis!); these meds can cause harm, they have side-effects; worst of all, even the positive studies rarely show a meaningful benefit in the first place: something that's true for almost all depression meds, certainly true for cholesterol meds, and virtually certain for Alzheimer's meds.
8) None of this even matters (!) because we haven't asked the real question, which is: what is causing these chemical imbalances in the first place and how do we get them back to how they should be? The drugs cover the symptoms, nothing more.
Chapter 2: The Accidental Psychiatrist: Finding the Body-Mind Connection
9) More useful meta-questions here that help you think about the mind-body problem: for example how is it that stress worsens illness, regardless of the form that illness may take?
10) See also the interesting paradox of late stage liver disease, how it causes hepatic encephalopathy or temporary insanity from liver failure; "the treatment is not antipsychotics, but antibiotics to clear out the bacteria in the intestine which produce brain-destroying toxins that can no longer be detoxified by the liver." Again a good meta-question: why would we treat insanity with antibiotics? Because it tells us something about the source of brain health, and that antipsychotics are a band-aid dealing with a tertiary symptom, and do not get at the actual underlying problem in the least!
11) Anyone who's followed the trajectory of mRNA therapies and COVID early treatment protocols (and the heavy-handed sequestering and censoring of contraindicatory data over the past two years) will not be surprised that this is a feature not a bug of the modern healthcare industry, and it's been something the healthcare industry has been doing for decades, resulting in enormous medicalization, pill pushing for millions of patients of medicines that show very little benefit and often produce harm; study/trial information is arranged and manipulated to cover up this central truth. [The discussion of the widely cited "Porter and Jick letter" in Sam Quinones' book Dreamland is a great example of such a process, in that case eventually enabling nationwide mass-prescribing of opiates.]
12) "The brain is mostly downstream from the real causes, which are found in the biology of your whole body. Brain problems or 'disorders' are almost always systemic disorders, and the cure will be found outside the brain--in your body."
13) Eliminating the mercury from your body; also gluten and casein intolerance; one takeaway is to pay attention to what these things do or do not impact you as part of your diet.
14) Note the case study with young boy named Clayton where the treatment process was to identify the source of the irritation to his system, identify missing "ingredients" like specific nutrients. As the author puts it "take out the bad stuff then add the good stuff."
15) Rejecting the "one-disease, one-drug" model of medical thinking, which is reductionist and misses the systemic aspect of how the body works.
16) Provocative new discoveries "tell us that there is no such thing as depression" but rather that symptoms of depression reflect interconnected imbalances in the body that have nothing to do with any specific medical specialty (as we dogmatically separate/hyperspecialize them out); depression is a systemic disease not a psychiatric illness the way we think, and we lack knowledge about how the whole body; and instead can't actually treat the full cluster of symptoms. Thus the emergence of holistic or functional medicine.
17) The seven keys, think of them as a dynamic fluid web of interconnected and interacting keys:
1: optimize nutrition
2: Balance your hormones
3: Cool off inflammation
4: Fix your digestion
5: Enhance detoxification
6: Boost energy metabolism
7: Calm your mind
18) "Nutrigenomics": your genes are the software running your body; the foods are the keystrokes that tell the genes what to do; basically get your food right and send the right messages to your body.
19) "Take out the bad stuff" (junk food, toxins, allergens, irritants, disstress) and "add in the good stuff" (whole foods, light, sleep, exercise, love, meaning and purpose).
Chapter 3: Myths of Psychiatry and Neurology
20) "The myth of diagnosis: if you know the name of your disease, you know what's wrong with you" [this is a tremendously helpful quote here].
21) "One disease, many causes--one cause, many diseases"
22) The myth of medication: that drugs are the answer to mental illness (depression is not a Prozac deficiency, ADHD is not a ritalin deficiency, etc)
The myth of psychotherapy: that you can talk or meditate away your mood or brain problems
The myth of brain-body separation; the myth of the impermeable blood brain barrier
The myth that once you lose brain cells they're gone forever
Chapter 4: Why You Are Suffering From Brain Damage
23) Learn what harms and what enhances your brain:
Toxic foods to avoid:
* High fructose corn syrup, sugar, refined carbohydrates
* Hydrogenated fats
24) Avoiding head trauma
Good sleep
Don't be sedentary
Avoid excess stress
Avoid toxins and drugs, including sugar, caffeine, alcohol, nicotine
25) Avoid:
* Medications, particularly statins and glutathione-lowering medications like Tylenol (see Part 2 for more on this, but note that glutathione levels can be boosted by eating broccoli and garlic)
* Avoid B vitamin-lowering medications like acid blockers, also aspirin and ibuprofen (the author, understandably, is very concerned about what we don't know about meds and their long term impact on our bodies; also given the litany of meds that have been yanked off the market or belatedly discovered dangers, which meds given out freely today will be the next to be yanked off the market?
* Avoid metal-containing medications: antacids, deodorants (aluminum), thimerisol in vaccines, also avoid other toxic chemicals like phthalates, flame retardants
* Avoid food additives and toxins in our food, preservatives, food coloring, sodium benzoate, etc.
26) On heavy metals: see chelation therapy: an underused medical treatment to help the body bind and excrete metals; also "the smaller the fish the less mercury" (e.g.: sardines versus tuna or swordfish)
27) Avoid EM radiation: [note here that as much as fear of EM "radiation" bugs me and seems needlessly paranoid to me, the author does make the partially reasonable argument that "absence of evidence (of harms) is not evidence of absence"]
Part II: The Seven Keys to UltraWellness
Chapter 5: Your Mood and Brain Power Are Not All in Your Head
28) Seven key systems, a review:
* Nutrition
* Hormones
* Inflammation
* Digestion
* Detoxification
* Boost energy metabolism
* Calm your mind
[The next seven chapters will deal with each of these seven keys]
Chapter 6: Key #1: Optimize Nutrition
29) 1.1: Fats
Note that this book is FILLED with "self test" that are all structured so you automatically have a "problem": here, regardless of your answers to the quiz, it results in showing you have a "deficiency" in fatty acids (just like those depression tests that indicate everyone is depressed...). We will see this issue come up in most every chapter, unfortunately.
30) Add: omega-3 fats,
Avoid: seed oils, soy oils, omega-6 fats
Eat: eggs, flax, nuts, cod liver oil, sesame seeds
31) "Getting an oil change": on the values of omega-3 fats and phospholipids PS and PC, useful for boosting cognitive function, mood, stress reduction, attention. Organ meats are a source of PS although the author does not like them because they "store toxins"... See part 4 for alternative supplements for PS. Sources for PC include eggs, sardines, soybeans, nuts, peanuts.
32) 1.2: Protein and Amino Acids
Essential amino acids, eight of them:
tryptophan
methionine
phenylalanine
threonine
valine
leucine
isoleucine
lysine.
33) "The only source of these amino acids is the protein you eat in your diet. Ideally the majority of this comes from fish, chicken, beans, nuts, and seeds... Taking individual amino acids is extraordinarily effective and safe." See part 4 for amino acid supplements.
34) "Most of psychiatry and its tools--the drugs or psychopharmacology on which psychiatry is largely based--focus on mimicking or increasing the effects of these neurotransmitters in some way that works against the body's natural processes." Antidepressants increase the availability of serotonin or norepinephrine, stimulants effect dopamine, Alzheimer's drugs increase acetylcholine, anxiety drugs increase GABA. We should be asking why are these neurotransmitter levels too low or too high in the first place? Instead, we develop and tend to rely on SSRI drugs that block the reabsorption of serotonin.
35) The four key neurotransmitters: dopamine, acetylcholine, serotonin, and GABA. Dopamine and acetylcholine are excitatory neurotransmitters, GABA and serotonin are inhibitory neurotransmitters. Like a gas pedal and a brake.
36) Low dopamine indicators: hard to wake up, hard to get motivated, hard to concentrate or focus, sleeping a lot, needing caffeine etc. Dopamine is made from phenylalanine, found in beans, nuts, seeds, poultry, fish and eggs. For helping your dopamine receptors: folate, B6, B12, also L-tyrosine, see Chapter 22 for more on this.
37) Drivers of low serotonin levels:
* Too little protein in your diet particularly tryptophan deficiency
* Stress, high cortisol levels
* Inflammation from cytokines
* Too many carbs/sugars
* Blood sugar imbalances like diabetes
* B6 and/or magnesium deficiency
38) "When Prozac came on the market, most of the research in the use of tryptophan or its byproduct, 5-HTP, to help the body naturally produce serotonin, slowed way down or was stopped."
39) GABA: this is the brake on the overstimulation of the brain from epinephrine and norepinephrine.
You can take GABA supplements directly or take taurine supplements, also theanine from green tea, inositol, B3, B6 and B12, magnesium, also calming herbs like valerian hops and passionflower.
40) Acetylcholine: remembering and learning. Note that Alzheimer's meds are analogously like SSRIs but for acetylcholine, but with "worse side effects and not much benefit." Acetylcholine enhancers include: choline, pantothenic acid, eggs, lecithin from soy.
41) 1.3: Carbohydrates
Avoid refined carbs, focus on veggies, fruits, beans, whole grains, nuts, seeds, herbs and spices; slowly released source of glucose, also fiber to normalize digestion and slow sugar absorption; see also phytonutrients in plant foods.
42) 1.4: Vitamins and Minerals
[This chapter strikes me as relatively unrigorous, too much "studies show" science, too much dependency on non-Lindy treatments, too much discussion of studies show science-type claims about heart disease risk, cancer risk and Alzheimers risk ("XYZ supplement reduces your heart disease risk by X%" which ironically sounds like the same suspect logic behind statin meds for example), none of which can probably be trusted, just like most pharma drug trials are suspect.
43) "Will they give you a metabolic tune up or just make expensive urine?" That is hilarious.
44) Basically because nobody eats a diet perfect enough for this author, there is therefore a need for vitamin and mineral supplements.
45) Note that enriched foods are only so because they're impoverished by so much processing; thus it's better to have nutrient-rich unprocessed food in the first place; still, many Americans eating a standard diet are deficient in one or more vitamins.
46) "You never think of overweight people as malnourished, but they can be!"
47) Basic vitamin recommendations are discussed in more detail in Part 3, here's a preview:
* A high quality multivitamin
* Calcium and magnesium supplement
* Vitamin D
* Fish oil
* B vitamin complex including folate, B6 and B12
48) "I recommend that everyone take a full compliment of essential nutrients every day." (Note the potential fallacies in such a dictum.)
49) On moving from an "avoiding deficiency" model to an "optimized cellular function" model; having enough of a nutrient to prevent a deficiency disease can still lead to long-latency deficiency diseases like heart disease, cancer, depression etc; see for example folic acid: if you're severely deficient in folic acid you will have anemia after a few months, or you'll have a baby with birth defects, but if you don't have enough folic acid for optimal function over 30 to 40 years you double your risk of Alzheimer's (allegedly "studies show" this).
50) The author continues to appear to be pro-poultry and anti-beef.
51) Another quiz where there's no right answer: note the methylation quiz on page 127 where there's only two possible scores--one that's too low and one that's too high. There's no way to get a "good" score!! See photo:
 |
| No way to win here |
52) Prescription folate called Deplin; used to treat depression and improve the effectiveness of antidepressants, "if you have folate deficiency it is unlikely that antidepressants will even work." Likewise see also B12 shots.
53) Also notable that essentially all of the people that come to this guy with any kind of psychological problems also have some sort of digestive issue too--usually a serious one. It's interesting... The author also tries to get his patients off as many medications as he can, if not all of them.
54) [Also worth noting how certain meds interfere with the absorption of certain vitamins and nutrients, a typical example here would be an acid-blocking med that prevents B12 absorption, also increased age affects absorption as well, so a combination of these things can be a cumulative problem. Very interesting to think about these latent/unexpected second-order effects of long term med use.]
55) Methylation and sulfation as "train tracks for the brain"; "problems with methylation and sulfation are involved in all mental illness and neurological dysfunction."
56) Another quiz with no right answer! The vitamin D quiz, see photo. Again, just like those depression quizlets where everybody's depressed who takes the test. Just gross. See also the quizlets on magnesium and zinc (and many others yet to come).
 |
| Jeez, I just can't pass any of these quizzes! |
57) Below 400 IU a day of vitamin D and you get rickets, but we need to have 5,000 to 10,000 IU per this author.
58) Vitamin D dietary inputs would be sardine-type fish, being in the sun. 80-100% of vitamin D requirement comes from exposure to sun.
59) Magnesium sources: beans, leafy greens, seaweed, kelp, wheat bran, wheat germ, almonds, cashews, buckwheat
60) Zinc sources: ginger root, egg yolks, fish, kelp, lamb, legumes, pumpkin seeds
Chapter 7: Key #2: Balance Your Hormones
61) On "living out of harmony with our natural biological rhythms"
62) PNEI, the psycho-neuroendocrine-immune system, a large integrated system of our bodies which includes three main communication systems: neurotransmitters, hormones, and cytokines; these handle our hormonal/endocrine system, our nervous system and our immune system. (Cytokines, inflammation and the immune system are discussed in the next chapter)
63) Hormonal problems in the United States tend to be from too much insulin (usually from sugar), too much cortisol and adrenaline from stress, and not enough thyroid hormone.
64) Still more quizzes where you can't have a result that's not negative! Here, your insulin level is imbalanced no matter what; likewise you thyroid is definitely low, and you definitely have at least some level of sex hormone imbalance (mild, moderate or severe), there's no other answer available from the test.
65) On insulin resistance: excess fat around the midsection (which is both a driver and a result of insulin resistance), a diet with excessive amounts of carbohydrates and refined carbohydrates, driving ourselves to need more and more insulin to keep our blood sugar even. "Metabolic syndrome" or prediabetes.
66) We're pouring refined carbohydrates into a body with pre-agricultural genes, our body was designed for vastly lower levels of sugar... See also the (pathetically misleading) low-fat movement which made things worse...
67) Excess insulin drives:
* Fat storage, insulin as a storage hormone
* Mood and behavior disturbances
* Insulin drives appetite levels
* Messes up your cholesterol, increasing LDL and lowering HDL
* Increases blood pressure
* Increases inflammation response, etc.
68) Thyroid: low thyroid drives fatigue, sluggishness, trouble getting up in the morning among other things; thyroid levels respond to/are sensitive to: chemical toxins in our environment (like chlorine, fluoride, bromine, which negatively influenced thyroid function), food allergies (like gluten sensitivities) can affect thyroid function; thyroid function responds well to selenium, zinc, fish oil, iodine and tyrosine supplements.
69) Sex hormones, adrenal glands, menopause and andropause: not that these aspects of aging don't require medical intervention with serious meds to the extent the healthcare industry wants to try to sell you.
70) Note the value of topical bioidentical testosterone, even women can benefit from it in some cases.
71) On the importance of sleep: as a hormone regulator, how artificial light and the light bulb has affected our sleep, now further affected by various other forms of artificial stimuli which overstimulate us right until the moment we get into bed; how these things have changed our normal rhythms of day and night;
72) On creating a sleep ritual, see Part 3 for more on sound and restful sleep.
Chapter 8: Key #3: Cool Off Inflammation
73) Once again another quiz, this time on inflammation which gives three options, all of which are positive findings of low, moderate or severe inflammation, there is no possible set of answers to this quiz that yields negative findings. It's funny yet also gross because this is just another form of screening risk.
74) On brain inflammation, as well as inflammation and other systems of the body: autoimmune, allergy, asthma, cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, all of these are to some extent inflammatory conditions. "We are all on fire." Finding the source of the fire and stomping it out.
75) Inflammation is a balance between helping with infections/injury versus being overly sensitized and attacking your own body.
76) On the role of inflammation in autism, Alzheimers, other psych conditions: essentially brain swelling due to allergens, toxins, infections and nutritional deficiencies.
77) Also highly intriguing that among autistic children, up to 95% of them have some sort of secondary problem of gut immune or other toxicity problems that are likely causal rather than secondary problems of autism, this is from the famous paper from Martha Herbert. "Treat the body, and heal the brain."
78) Depression as a low-grade inflammatory disease of the brain: likewise other psych conditions like bipolar, OCD, anxiety, which are collections of symptoms likely from a range of causes depending on the person. See also unusual discoveries like finding juvenile OCD caused by strep infection (PANDAS, pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with strep)... The point is here that many mood disorders might be related to infections or inflammation; thus the psych condition is not necessarily "one thing" (as in a "Prozac deficiency").
79) "Hundreds of my patients with mood disorders improve simply by addressing the inflammation. It is an 'accidental' side effect of treating their other problems."
80) C-reactive protein or CRP: a major marker for inflammation found in the blood.
81) Inflammation causes:
* An inflammatory diet, enormous amounts of sugar, refined flours, trans fats
* Food allergens
* Imbalances in digestive function and the immune system that have widespread systemic effects
* Toxins like mercury
* Low-grade chronic infections
* Stress
* Sedentary lifestyle
* Inadequate sleep
* Nutritional deficiencies
* A "sweet brain": inflammation via sugar or refined carbohydrates
82) On food allergies that impact the brain, "Allergies are an inflammatory response." See also acute versus delayed food allergies, the one is obvious and visible, the other is usually ignored by conventional medicine.
83) "Leaky gut" and "leaky brain": we easily can perceive or understand the idea of food, pollen, mold, chemicals, or whatever causing inflammatory reactions in our skin or lungs or digestive system, but many people incorrectly hold the idea that our brain is somehow insulated from this inflammation too.
84) Gluten and casein allergies.
85) The PNEI again (the psycho-neuroendocrine-immune system): this is the communication network between your brain, immune system, gut and hormones; this is why we nickname the gut "the second brain"; thethree systems communicate; "And it governs how food triggers a cascade of events through the body and the brain. ....we have an undiagnosed epidemic of people whose lives are affected by low-grade, delayed food sensitivities or allergies. What they eat causes allergic reactions that make them feel badly, but no one is making a connections."
86) Simple measures you can take on your own: take away substances that most often cause allergic reactions for a few weeks and let your immune system cool down, then systematically reintroduce these foods to see which ones you are allergic to, basically an elimination/reintuction diet.
87) Most common food allergies: gluten, dairy, corn, eggs, soy, nuts, "nightshades" (such as tomatoes, bell peppers, potatoes, eggplants), citrus, yeast. Specific steps for how to do this come in Part 3, with strategies in Part 4.
Chapter 9: Key #4: Fix Your Digestion
88) The Second Brain: the brain-gut connection, ENS (enteric nervous system) as opposed to the CNS or central nervous system.
89) Doctors diagnosing patients with "functional bowel disorders"--there's nothing to see on a scan, so there's nothing "real."
90) Factors for poor gut health:
* unfriendly bacteria in the gut (or yeasts that produce brain toxins)
* fermentation of starches from your diet (producing gas or ammonia)
* activation of the immune system because of a digestive imbalance (damaging the gut's protective barrier)
91) "Bad bugs below":
See the case study of the woman who had a type of subclinical hepatic encephalopathy, she had ammonia levels that were not enough to create the temporary insanity common in patients with liver failure, but enough to create various other psychological problems. An example of how abnormal bacteria can affect your thoughts and cognitive function: things like brain fog. fatigue. etc., with patients who have IBS or some sort of digestive disorder. "A bloated belly leads to a bloated brain."
92) Per the author, "good" gut bugs love plant foods, lots of fiber; "bad" gut bugs love sugar.
93) See also the case study of the young girl with disruptive, almost crazy behavior driven by gut bug producing toxins that actually modulate brain chemistry: this is just one way by which the gut can affect the brain.
94) Odd neuropeptides: peptides from inadequate digestion of gluten or casein-producing proteins called gluteomorphines and caseomorphins, driving mood and behavior problems. Peptides can be measured in the urine.
95) On paying attention to the "total load of insults to your system."
96) The gut as the center of the immune system: See Dr. Andrew Wakefield assessing inflammation in children with autism, as well as heightened food allergies and inflammation from other allergens; see also some autistic children found with live measles viruses detected in samples of their intestinal tissue, an indirect connection between measles vaccines and autism, but by way of a weakened immune system, not a direct impact of the vaccines. They can't handle an attenuated virus from a vaccine: note also that the DNA of the measles virus came from vaccine strains of measles, not from wild measles types that would have come from community infection. [This is a very striking section of the book here.]
97) You are what you absorb: leaky gut or "increased intestinal permeability" causing partially digested food particles to leak into the bloodstream, which creates an inflammation or immune reaction to attack and defend, and this creates antibodies to common foods. Thus eliminate food allergens from your diet; for six weeks let the damaged intestinal lining repair itself, and then bring the whole thing back into balance by gradually reintroducing these foods one by one.
98) The dangers of acid blocking drugs, long term side effects; when these drugs first came on the market we were warned about how "powerful" they were, not to use them for longer than six weeks, etc.; now they are available without prescription, see Prilosec for example. Shutting down stomach acid is not natural, obviously, it plays a role in absorption of calcium, magnesium and B12. Long-term use of these meds can cause overgrowth of clostridia in the gut and other digestive problems.
Chapter 10: Key #5: enhance Detoxification
99) Toxins and how they affect our brain, how they lead to breakdowns that contribute to almost every brain and mood related problem.
100) Here's yet another quiz where there's no way to win, you have either a low, moderate, or severe level of toxicity--there's no other result!
101) The author talks about his experience in China and exposure to coal smoke, also his lack of the GSTM1 gene that plays a role in detoxification of mercury and other toxins, a gene that half the population is missing. The author gets chronic fatigue syndrome, then learns that many people with CFS are toxic, and he checked for his mercury levels via urine test which came back high.
102) Genes that influence brain health. See photo page 227:
104) Chelating agents DMPS and DMSA: to both measure and drive excretion of heavy metals from the body (you then test the urine to measure the amount). Look into these agents some more! "Taking a blood sample tells you only what is floating around in your blood if you have been breathing polluted air, or eating too much sushi, but a challenge test (sort of like a cardiac-stress test or a glucose-tolerance test for diabetes) picks up buried problems--in this case mercury. Studies have found that using DMPS increases Mercury excretion from three to 107-fold. The chelating agents or drugs, DMPS and DMSA, are both used to test for and to treat heavy metal toxicity."
105) On links between chemical/pesticide/heavy metal toxicity and Parkinson's; note also that some people's livers are better or worse at removing these toxins from the body, thus they are more (or less) susceptible to a given insult from toxins.
106) Note that almost all Parkinson's treatments are directed towards symptom management and ignore identification and elimination of environmental hazards, a type of "therapeutic nihilism."
107) Also worth noting that premotor symptoms for Parkinson's or related neurological diseases include depression, poor cognitive function, poor sleep. By the time clinical diagnosis is made it's too late.
108) One clear insight here is if you have some kind of psych, memory or neurological or other types of autoimmune issues, to test for heavy metal poisoning, certainly before prescribing Prozac, and to use a chelation test with DMCA.
109) On glutathione: this is a detox compound in the body; autistic children have low levels of it, thus they cannot excrete heavy metals. Thus there's a spectrum of results based on people's level of sensitivity to heavy metals in their environment. See also BDNF, brain-derived neurotrophic factor: some people have genetics for more or less efficacy here. These two reasons are why some are much more susceptible to heavy metal toxins than others, some people show significant problems with very low levels of toxicity, they're "epidemiological canaries."
110) More on glutathione: glutathione deficiency is found in patients with all kinds of mood and depressive disorders, as well as other neurological/physiological problems, glutathione is made by the body constantly from cysteine, glycine and glutamine, we make it from foods that contain sulfur: garlic, onions, cruciferous vegetables, egg yolks, most proteins. Glutathione as "the master detoxifier"
111) You can directly take glutathione, or compounds that help your body make more glutathione, such as NAC (n-acetylcysteine), alpha lipoic acid, or milk thistle. Dietary sources would be brussels spouts, broccoli, collards, kale, cabbage, kohlrabi, mustard greens, rutabaga, turnips, horseradish, wasabi, watercress.
Chapter 11: Key #6: Boost Energy Metabolism
f112) Another quiz! I automatically have either: mild, moderate, or severe "loss of energy" regardless of my answers on this quiz.
113) Discussion of mitochondrial function: converting calories and oxygen into energy (ATP), but producing free radicals as a byproduct that can cause oxidative stress damage, or "rusting."
114) Antioxidants are made by our own bodies but they also come from our diets; antioxidant enzymes (superoxide, dismutase, catalase, glutathione peroxidase), required dietary essential nutrients including zinc, copper, manganese, vitamin C and selenium.
115) A metaphor here is if you eat a standard American diet with a lot of refined sugars and not a lot of colorful nutrients your "rusting" (oxidative stress) gets out of control, and your own body-made antioxidants can't sufficiently do the job.
116) This leaves us with a few unifying themes of disease:
* Inflammation
* Oxidative Stress
* Mitochondrial Injury
117) "Neuroprotective strategies" like lipoic acid, acetyl-L-carnitine, coenzyme Q10, and NADH
118) The author thinks of it like a front-end approach and a back-end approach to a given insult to the body: e.g.: "If you are mercury toxic, neuroprotective strategies will only take you so far. The treatment is to get rid of the mercury."
119) Damage via he overactivation of the NMDA receptor (this is the site of action for [what was at that time] a new Alzheimer's drug called Namenda). When the NMDA receptor is excited it opens a gate, flooding cells with too much calcium which produces further free radicals; triggered by stress, MSG, environmental toxins, infections, allergens etc. More on this in Parts 3 and 4.
120) On resveratrol: how it's misleading that one specific chemical or supplement can solve everything. Really what it does is play a role along with blood sugar control and a proper diet, resveratrol by itself does nothing even in high doses. Antioxidants and nutrients work as a team, single compounds in isolation can actually backfire.
121) "Statins are mitochondrial poisons"
122) Interesting language on vaccines from the author in a discussion of a case study about a boy with significant autism: "I do not believe vaccines cause autism. I support the safe use of vaccinations, but we need to revisit how and when to safely provide them to our children. For a comprehensive perspective on this topic see Dr. Stephanie Cave's book What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Vaccinations." Verrry interesting..
Chapter 12: Key #7: Calm Your Mind
123) Mind-body connection; "thoughts are things," etc, on having resiliency, maintaining your plasticity, etc.
124) Your mind affects your body, they are not two separate systems.
125) The author meets a Tibetan doctor who was imprisoned by the Chinese for 22 years, beginning in 1959: he asks him what was the greatest danger he faced during his imprisonment: "The greatest danger I faced during my imprisonment was the few moments I thought I might lose my compassion for my Chinese captors." (!!!)
126) Higher disease risk and mortality risk from three components:
* lack of social relationships and social supports
* personality dispositions
* chronic and acute stress.
127) According to Sapolski in Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers: "a jolt of stress but then it's over" versus chronic/ongoing stress of the modern era for humans.
128) The brain and body's reaction to stress is a sympathetic nervous system function, but your choice to practice relaxation produces parasympathetic nervous system functions: this is how you can exercise quite a lot of agency over your blood pressure, digestion, your sleep, even your body temperature and stress response.
129) On having a sense of purpose, meaning and connection to what is important in life; eliminating ANTS.
130) Activating the vagus nerve via deep breathing through the diaphragm (see Katsuki Sekida's Zen Training).
Part III: The Ultramind Solution
Chapter 13: The 6-Week Basic Brain-Boosting Program for Everyone
131) "...for most of you, 70 to 80 percent of the benefits of the UltraMind Solution can be reached on your own with a few simple changes in diet, nutritional supplementation, and lifestyle."
132) A 7-week plan of healthy eating, basic supplements, lifestyle changes, and reducing your exposure to environmental toxins. First, a one week preparation phase: a drug "holiday" for sugar, junk food, caffeine, alcohol, etc. Then for the next 6 weeks: get rid of junk foods, move toward a diet of whole unprocessed foods, eliminate gluten and dairy, and for those with significant inflammation problems: do a food allergy elimination program, see Part 4.
Chapter 14: Eating Right for Your Brain: A Science-Based Whole Foods Approach to Eating--Food as Medicine
133) Dietary recommendations of what to eat:
* Whole, real, fresh, organic, unprocessed food
* Lots of fruits and vegetables with colorful phytonutrients
* Lots of fiber
* Lots of food with omega-3 fats
These four principles are 90% of the job
134) What to avoid:
* all sugars, sugar-laden foods, liquid sugar-like processed fruit juices, sodas, artificial sweeteners
* flour-based products
* toxic fats (which, according to this author, are trans-hydrogenated fats, processed oils, fat substitutes)
* avoid food additives and chemicals
* also eliminate caffeine and alcohol.
* finally, avoid toxin-rich foods (this author groups here: red meats, predatory large fish, and fruits and vegetables with high toxin loads like peaches apples strawberries etc,
135) On avoiding specific "brain allergy" foods, obvious examples here are gluten and dairy (note that the author specifically singles out casein and is not so concerned about whey), other top food allergens include eggs, yeast (in products like wine and vinegar and breads), corn, peanuts, nightshades, citrus, soy. Also honorable mention on this list chocolate, tree nuts, vinegar, shellfish).
136) This is largely standard advice that you'd see anywhere else: eat clean, real foods, etc.
137) Note that there is zero discussion here of intermittent fasting: the author suggests small, frequent meals to "keep your blood sugar even", protein for breakfast, eat something every 4 hours, snack on proteins, don't eat two to three hours before you go to bed.
138) More fats, particularly omega-3s: salmon, sardines, herring, black cod, eggs, extra virgin olive oil, sesame oil
139) More protein for brain power: beans, legumes, nuts, seeds, eggs, poultry, lamb, small amounts of beef, avoid excessive quantities of meat, and eat organic grass-fed.
140) Carbs from whole foods: low-glycemic legumes, lentils, chickpeas, soybeans, etc, fresh fruits and vegetables, slow burning vegetables like asparagus, broccoli, kale, cabbage, also berries, cherries, peaches/other sugary fruits but in moderation; plus a diet high in fiber and avoid starchy high glycemic vegetables like potatoes, corn and root vegetables like rutabagas, parsnips and turnips [that last part is honestly weird but he's the expert]. The key point here is to control your glycemic load.
141) The reasons phytonutrients are so powerful has to do with their anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and detoxifying properties; in addition to omega-3-rich fish, eat colorful vegetables, cruciferous vegetables, flax seeds, herbs like turmeric, rosemary and ginger, as well as garlic and onion; also green tea and dark chocolate (70% cacao or more).
Chapter 15: Tuning Up Your Brain Chemistry with Supplements
142) The author recommends:
* Broad spectrum multivitamin
* Calcium and magnesium
* Vitamin D3
* Omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA
* Methylation factors: folate, b6, B12
* Probiotics
143) Note that supplements may or may not have good manufacturing practices; third party analysis for verifying active ingredients or lack of contaminants, fillers, binders, etc. [This "custody problem" is one of the major problems issues I have with the supplement world; note also that vitamin supplements are no more Lindy than the standard American diet.]
144) Extensive lists here on what a multivitamin and mineral supplements should contain; problems and risks with too much calcium and magnesium; specific types of vitamin D, etc. Much more information than certainly I am interested in, but if you want to really geek out and create yourself a very long list of precisely how many IU's of how much stuff to take, this is the chapter you've been waiting for!
Chapter 16: The UltraMind Lifestyle
145) Lifestyle adjustments: exercise, relax, sleep, train your brain, Also standard recommendations for good sleep hygiene.
146) The advice here is for someone who's clearly out of shape, a genuinely athletic person would be disappointed in this chapter for sure, there's much more useful context in the directives in the book Younger Next Year.
Chapter 17: Living Clean and Green
147) Recommends:
* Drink clean water
* Limit your exposure to chemicals and metals
* Keep your body fluids moving
* Reduce exposure to electromagnetic radiation
148) Water as a master detoxifier, or a master chelating agent, helping you remove toxins from your body; for cleaning up the water you drink, use simple carbon filtered water or a reverse osmosis filter that can be put into your sink, avoid water and plastic bottles.
149) Make sure you drink enough water, that you sweat, that you breathe properly, etc.
150) Some of the avoidance recommendations are unscientific and borderline paranoid: like avoiding char-broiled foods and microwaved foods. See also the author's worries about electromagnetic radiation: regarding EM risks the author says "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
Chapter 18: The Preparation Week
151) Eliminate: caffeine, sugar, HFCS, transfats, processed foods, alcohol
152) Common symptoms will be bad breath, flu-like feelings, fatigue, headaches, hunger, irritability, etc., as you detoxify from these things.
Chapter 19: The UltraMind Solution
152) Now we get into the specifics of the 6 week program:
* Cut out the toxic and inflammatory foods, eating instead the foods from Chapter 14 that are rich in healthy fats, low glycemic index, high fiber carbs, proteins, etc.
* No restrictions on the amount of food, "if you eat whole fresh foods, your body self regulates" and "your genes will say *yes*!"
* After the 6 weeks are over you can introduce gluten and dairy if you choose, see the next chapter for how to do so systematically.
* Also during the 6 weeks take the supplement regimen outlined in Chapter 15 and integrate exercise, relaxation and brain exercises into your day (per Chapter 16), and furthermore improve your sleep hygiene and relaxation hygiene.
* See the daily action items/daily plan on pages 334-336 with a morning ritual, meal plans, exercise components and bedtime ritual.
Chapter 20: What To Do When the Six Weeks Are Over
153) Instead of splurging and rewarding yourself after the six weeks are over, transition out of it slowly; don't overload your system with foods that are part of the old you; don't return to behaviors of the old you either; keep the supplementation, the quality diet, the routines.
154) For (optionally) reintroduced dairy and gluten: do so carefully and watch for psych or physiological symptoms to reappear, also leave about 3 days between introducing the food and the results: symptoms can appear with a lag; also the six week process may have "cooled off" your immune system to the point where your gut is healed and you can now tolerate these foods; keep a log of any symptoms you experience as you reintroduce the food groups.
155) "The single biggest gift you can give yourself at the end of this program is identifying which foods you are sensitive to, which were causing you brain problems, in which you can eat and enjoy safely."
Part IV: Balancing the Seven Keys and Optimizing the Plan
Chapter 21: Creating an UltraMind
156) This chapter is essentially a quick summary of the book, and the next seven chapters are mini-summaries of each of the keys discussed earlier, with additional supplementation ideas or solutions for people with specific problems in each area of bodily function.
157) On the value of a functional/integrative medicine practitioner as opposed to a traditional allopathic doctor. The simplest way to think about functional medicine is:
1) get rid of the bad stuff,
2) add the good stuff,
...and then trust in the amazing healing powers of the body for regeneration and repair, "the body's wisdom."
158) Thus eliminate: poor diet, stress, toxins, allergens, bad microbes; add: high quality food, vitamins minerals and other nutrients, water, air and light, exercise, movement, sleep, deep relaxation, rhythm, and love, community, connection, meaning and purpose.
Chapter 22: Key #1 Optimize Nutrition
159) Healing with food and nutrients: Remember:
1: all essential fats
2: amino acids
3: methylation and sulfation trains, keep them running with folate, B12, B6 and other sources of sulfur in the diet
4: vitamin D
5: magnesium
6: zinc and selenium
160) For people who need extra phospholipid or neurotransmitter "support":
PS (Phosphatidylserine) and GPC (glycerophosphocholine) or CDP-choline.
161) Start with supporting inhibitory neurotransmitters (serotonin and GABA) and then after a week or two move to the excitatory neurotransmitters (dopamine and acetylcholine).
* Serotonin support with 5- HTP, or tryptophan
* Also melatonin before bed to help with sleep 1 to 3 mg
* GABA support from GABA supplements, theanine supplements or both
* Dopamine support from l-tyrosine and l-phenylalanine. These supplementations are also sufficient for acetylcholine support which comes from choline
Chapter 23: Key #2: Balance Your Hormones
162) Steps for optimizing insulin balance: chromium, glucomannan fiber, polyblycoplex (PGX), or konjac root (helpful for insulin problems and weight).
163) Optimizing thyroid: seaweed, fish, dandelion greens, smelt, herring, scallops, also eliminate soy foods or potentially eliminate gluten or fluoride which can all be linked thyroid problems. On thyroid hormone replacement therapy, see Armour thyroid (armourthyroid.com for more information) which is a whole combination of thyroid hormones including T4, T3 and T2 from porcine thyroid.
164) Regarding sex hormones: traditional soy foods like tofu, tempeh, miso, edamame, also ground flax seeds (two tablespoons a day (!)), evening primrose oil, 1000 mg twice a day.
165) Black cohosh (20 mg twice a day) for menopause management
Chapter 24: Key #3: Cool Off Inflammation
166) Inflammation usually comes from a high-sugar, processed food diet, a sedentary and stressful lifestyle, toxins infections and allergens. The most common sources of inflammation are sugar, refined carbs and hidden food allergens (most likely gluten); a 6-week program of eating an anti-inflammatory diet, vitamins and omega-3 fat vitamin D, A supplements, also turmeric and bromelain or proteolytic enzymes and exercise.
Chapter 26: Key #4: Fix Your Digestion
167) Healing your gut with whole real fresh food, eliminate all grains and beans for six weeks; this may be enough to heal the gut. Also: chew your food more, eat slowly, never eat standing up.
168) Enzymes, probiotic treatments, etc. (glutamine, quercitin)
Chapter 26: Key #5: Enhance Detoxification
169) Plants with phytonutrients like cruciferous vegetables, turmeric, curry, green tea, sulfur-rich foods like eggs, garlic and onions. Further supplements from glutathione which can be boosted with zinc, selenium and fish oil.
170) Additional supplements such as ascorbic acid milk thistle
171) See also heat therapy/hyperthermic therapy, saunas.
172) Detoxifying from heavy metals using chelating agents such as DMSA
Chapter 27: Key #6: Boost Energy Metabolism
173) Focus on antioxidant-rich foods, colorful foods (the darker and the richer the color the most potent)
174) Mitochondrial boosting nutrients such as:
Acetyl L-Carnitine: 500mg twice a day
Alpha lipoic acid: 100mg twice a day
Coenzyme Q10: 100 mg a day
D-ribose: 5g a day in powder
NADH: 10 mg a day (taken as a a tablet that dissolves under your tongue)
175) Increasing your exercise, this is the most powerful and important tool, see Part 3 above for exercise options.
Chapter 28: Key #7: Calm Your Mind
176) Identify and reduce the causes of stress; look at your habits of life; reducing alcohol, coffee and TV;
evaluate also thoughts and beliefs about ourselves, our jobs, relationships, financial situation, etc.; also physical stressors: obesity, chronic illness, factors like allergens or toxins, sugar, tobacco, chronic infections, etc.. eliminate these to the best of your ability.
177) Relaxation techniques, breathing, baths, sauna therapy, etc.
178) Stress reducing supplements and herbs:
* Asian ginseng root extract 200 mg twice a day
* Rodeo yellow root extract 100 mg twice a day
* Siberian ginseng 250 mg twice a day
Special considerations
179) When you need therapy; addressing specific pharmacological solutions when necessary, but avoiding psychotropic medications that are only partial solutions that come with side effects; "...use medication without guilt just as you would any other tool to rebuild your life. And do not be afraid to put it down when you have rebuilt your health and your world."
180) Memory enhancing herbs:
* Huperzine A: 100 micrograms twice a day
* Vinpocetine: 5 to 10 mg twice a day (this is an extract of the periwinkle plant)
* Ginkgo biloba: 80 to 160 mg twice a day
181) Mood enhancing herbs:
* St John's Wort: 300 to 450 mg twice a day
* SAMe which is an amino acid 400 mg four times a day then reduce
Conclusion
182) "You'll observe with concern how long a useful truth may be known and exist, before it is generally received and practiced upon." --Benjamin Franklin
183) Patients intuitively know what's wrong, or that their complaints are interrelated. Standard Western (allopathic) medicine specializes in pharmacologic treatments of specific diseases, often missing the underlying origins and reasons for patients' suffering. Doctors are not trained to make sense of patterns and relationships and connections in biological systems.
Note also the foundationally different idea that brain disorders are not neurological or psychiatric disorders, but rather they are systemic disorders that happen to affect the brain; and also that pharmacological solutions deal with the "smoke" and ignores the "fire."
"Science is by nature reductionistic, breaking things into smaller and smaller parts and learning what each of them do separately. But what is missing in science is synthesis and integration. putting the pieces of the puzzle back together. There are millions of bits of data and information, and yet for most practitioners of medicine they are strewn about the floor like a million puzzle pieces."
To Read:
The Textbook of Functional Medicine
R.D. Laing: The Voice of Experience
Ellen Sandbeck: Green Housekeeping
Dr. Stephanie Cave: What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Vaccinations
**Bruce McEwen: The End of Stress As We Know It
Dr. Kenneth Pelletier: Sound Mind, Sound Body
Dr. Gary Small: The Memory Prescription
Martha Herbert: The Autism Revolution