Cool the heat that fires depression

A recent edition of the American Journal of Psychiatry published a review that looked at 200 existing papers and clinical trials on depression.

What they found was that it’s not “brain chemistry” or some other unproven theory that was closely associated with depression. The authors wrote that inflammation “fans the flames” of depression, which “feeds on the heat.”

Christopher Fagundes, an assistant professor of psychology at Rice University, and his co-authors found that in addition to being linked to cancer and diabetes, inflammation can now be linked to our mental health.

The study discovered that “among patients suffering from clinical depression, concentrations of two inflammatory markers, CRP (c-reactive protein) and IL-6 (interleukin-6), were elevated by up to 50 percent.”

You may remember fears about CRP from many years ago, and how it was the “new” marker for inflammation of the heart. Worries over CRP protein have fallen by the wayside as standard medicine has doubled down on its cholesterol propaganda.

But inflammation is the real disease behind conditions like heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, and even Alzheimer’s and cancer. Now it appears we can add the prominence of depression on inflammatory factors in our world, like stress and processed food. So it’s important to pay attention to CRP.

Fortunately, it’s easy to lower CRP. And if the researchers are right, you could alleviate symptoms of depression without using “7-{4-[4-(2,3-Dichlorophenyl)piperazin-1-yl]butoxy}-3,4-dihydroquinolin-2(1H)-one” or the popular “(3S,4R)-3-[(2H-1,3-benzodioxol-5-yloxy)methyl]-4-(4-fluorophenyl)piperidine.” In case you’re confused, drugmakers renamed those chemicals Abilify and Paxil.

To avoid these drugs and stop depressive symptoms naturally, follow these two simple steps:

1) Get off the SAD diet:  Sugar is the worst inflamer. If you eat a Standard American Diet (SAD) you will be producing a lot of blood sugar, which inflames you and raise your CRP. No wonder we have so many people feeling depressed. A good alternative that will reverse the effects of SAD and heal your body and your mind is Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s Nutritarian diet. Bob Livingston has written about it here.

2) Use antioxidants to heal your mind: A university study showed that those who took in the lowest amounts of the two antioxidants lutein and zeaxanthin had the highest CRP. Makes sense, since antioxidants are nature’s counter to inflammation. Eat plenty of eggs, fruit and leafy vegetables to get enough of these two phytonutrients and it will drop your CRP.

Also, remember that the CRP test is “sensitive.” That means it measures general inflammation. So if you are going to have your CRP tested, make sure you don’t have any recent injuries or haven’t had a head cold or the like because those can elevate CRP.