Doctors are stymied about mental illness. Some 280 million people around the world suffer from depression – but psychiatry still puzzles over the causes and the treatment (new evidence shows that the 4-stage drug strategies only work about a third of the time). The same goes for such diverse conditions as anxiety, bipolar syndrome, schizophrenia, autism and ADHD. Psychiatrists scratch their heads and say that the problems are multi-factorial – which means, essentially, they haven’t got the foggiest about their cause.
What few psychiatrists consider is that these conditions might not be ‘all in the head’ but rather in the gut. Consider this: some 90 percent of serotonin, that feel-good chemical that SSRI drugs for depression attempt to increase the availability of, actually originates in the gut. So it isn’t too farfetched to consider that a gut that isn’t working well could be the root cause of depression.
It’s also becoming clear that gluten, the protein in wheat, barley and rye, interferes with healthy gut functioning more than any other food ingredient, triggering some sort of a response in up to half the people who regularly eat bread and pasta.
Psychiatrists accept that full-blown celiac disease – a potentially life-threatening reaction to gluten – can cause depression, but most haven’t made the possible connection between mental health and those who experience a simple gluten intolerance.
Nevertheless, two pioneers in the field have put 2 + 2 together. Dr Jessica Hellings, a psychiatrist, and Dr Deanna Kelly, a medical researcher at the University of Maryland, are reversing a range of so-called ‘mental’ conditions simply by putting patients on a gluten-free diet.
Deanna is even treating people with schizophrenia, with enormous success. She’s published 16 papers on her work, and Jessica is seeing the same results with children with autism and ADHD.
The two have joined forces to write a book about their work, Get Your Brain off Grain (Hammersmith Health Books), which was featured in the July issue of our magazine What Doctors Don’t Tell You.
WDDTY co-editor Bryan Hubbard interviewed them in a recent WDDTY Talks webinar. It’s an absolutely amazing conversation, and as a special gift to my cherished community, I want to give you free access to it. Have a listen here.
To read the July story itself or find out more about WDDTY, click here.
