The UltraMind Solution (12 page)

By treating imbalances in these seven keys we now have a way to cure, stop, slow, and reverse this looming epidemic of “brain” disorders (as well as virtually all the diseases we see in the twenty-first century).

But what creates these imbalances?

Are these seven key systems out of balance because of poor diet, allergens, infections, stress, and toxins?

Or are they out of balance because they are missing the essential raw materials for life and health—whole, real food rich in phytonutrients and fiber, vitamins and minerals, oxygen, clean water and air, light, sleep, exercise, deep relaxation, love, connection and community, meaning, and purpose?

More to the point, I want to know how these factors influence a person’s unique genome and their gene expression, creating their unique set of problems. You see, your genes are not fixed but capable of dynamically responding to information or instructions that come from your diet, lifestyle, and environment. The “information” you send your genes determines whether you stay well or get sick, and just how well you function day to day.

This is the study of
nutrigenomics
(the science of how food affects your genes), and it is the other critical piece of this new road map for healing disease outlined in
The UltraMind Solution.

The most powerful tool you have to change your brain and your health is your fork.

Why?

Food is not just calories or energy. Food contains information that talks to your genes, turning them on or off and affecting their function moment to moment.

Food is the fastest-acting and most powerful medicine you can take to change your life.

This discovery is called
“nutrigenomics.”

Think of your genes as the software that runs everything in your body. Just like your computer software, it only does what you instruct it to do with the stroke of your keyboard.

The foods you eat are the keystrokes that send messages to your genes telling them what to do—creating health or disease.

Imagine what messages you are sending with a double cheeseburger, large fries, and a forty-eight-ounce cola. Consider what messages you might send instead with deep red wild salmon, braised greens, and brown rice.

The science of nutrigenomics allows us to personalize medicine—not
everyone with the same problems needs the same prescription. Your individual genetic makeup determines what you need to be optimally healthy.

You have only about thirty thousand genes. But you have more than 3 million little variations in those genes called SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms). Those variations make up who you are. And they make your individual needs slightly different from my individual needs. We all have different needs for food, vitamins, rest, exercise, stress tolerance, or ability to handle toxins.

This book is a map to help you personalize your road to UltraWellness based on your strengths and vulnerabilities—your individual needs.

By analyzing where you are out of balance in the seven keys to UltraWellness and then applying the science of nutrigenomics to help reestablish balance, we can create treatments matched to each person’s individual needs.

That is what you will learn how to do in this book.

Using this method, I now approach each encounter with a patient from a general framework that is completely different from the one I learned in medical school. I create a treatment plan that is not reproducible for a group of people with the same symptoms, but is, of necessity, created anew for each patient.

What I do is actually quite simple.

The first step is to
take out the bad stuff
(the things that create imbalance, such as a nutrient-poor, processed diet; toxins; allergens; infections; and stress); remove what’s bugging you. If you have ten tacks in your foot, you can’t take out one, pop an aspirin, and hope to feel better. You need to find and take out all the tacks; taking out just one of them won’t make you better.

The second step is to
add the good stuff
(high-quality whole foods, nutrients, water, oxygen, light, movement, sleep, relaxation, community, connection, love, meaning, and purpose), and the body’s natural intelligence and healing system will take care of the rest. This is the foundation of
The UltraMind Solution.

That’s all there is to it. Using this simple, yet comprehensive, method allows me to treat virtually
all
diseases, whether they are “in the brain” or “in the body.” And it works for one simple reason: the body and the brain are one system.

Unfortunately, common myths founded in classical psychiatry and neurology and promoted for decades by society have blinded us to the simple but profound truth Functional Medicine has unveiled.

And we must understand these myths before we can be free of them.

——————

...
scientists cannot see the way they see with their way of seeing.
¹

—R. D. LAING

We are so used to looking at things in a certain way that we cannot see a different way of looking at the brain, behavior, and mood. As we begin to discover the nature of how the brain works and how its function is intimately connected to the rest of the core systems in the body, the medical myths that we have labored under, and that have blocked us from truly seeing the origins of problems with our mood, memory, attention, and brain health, are falling away.

Let’s review these myths and put them to rest.

This myth is pervasive throughout medicine not just in psychiatry and neurology, and it is
the
single biggest obstacle to changing the way we do things and finding the answers to our health problems.

The problem is simply this—we are in the naming and blaming game in medicine. It is what we were trained to do. Find the name of the “disease,” then match the drug to the disease. You have “depression,” so you need an “antidepressant.” You are “anxious,” so you need an “antianxiety” medication. You have bipolar disease or mood swings, so you need a “mood stabilizer.”

Unfortunately, this approach or method of thinking is outdated, increasingly useless, and often dangerous. In some ways it’s even tyrannical. Once you have a label, you are put in the group of people who have the same label, and it is assumed you carry the attributes of this group.

For example, a group of psychologists, psychiatrists, and lawyers headed by Dr. David Rosenhan, a Stanford University professor of law and psychology,
pretended to be hearing voices and got themselves admitted to psychiatric hospitals across the country.
²

Once they were admitted to the hospitals, they resumed acting normally. The hospital staff and physicians then viewed all their “normal behavior,” such as note taking, as “abnormal.” It was only the regular “crazy” patients who could tell them apart!

The same thing happens to you once we assign
you
a label like depression, schizophrenia, ADHD, or dementia. We throw you in the same group with everyone else who has that diagnosis and assume you all have the same problem, even if evidence is found to the contrary.

But these labels or diagnoses are just
names
we associate with a collection of symptoms. This name has
nothing
to do with
why
you have those symptoms—with the root causes of the “disease.”

Here’s another example. When you go see a psychiatrist or psychologist, you are given the label “depression” if you meet the criteria agreed upon by the psychiatric community and outlined in the classic manual of the American Psychiatric Association, the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV
(
DSM-IV
).

Here is the list of features for depression from the
DSM-IV
:

Depressed mood most of the day, nearly every day, as indicated by either subjective report (e.g., feels sad or empty) or observation made by others (e.g., appears tearful). (In children and adolescents, this may be characterized as an irritable mood.)