As violence in this country continues to increase, and perpetrators are most of the time people with mental illness, we need to take a holistic approach to this problem.
Medications are not solving the problem. On the other hand, they sometimes make the problem worse. Suicide is on the rise. Mood disorders are a major public health problem; so a new approach is needed.
At Lakeview Integrative Medicine we again use Functional Medicine as our road map.
Gut health has significant implications in brain health. There is a two way connection between the gut and brain (we call the gut our second brain).
Eighty percent of serotonin is made in the gut. So, unhealthy gut will send to the brain wrong signals. The right nutrition, balancing deficiencies, stress reduction, neurotransmitter and hormonal balances are all key.
These modalities may be useful in many situations:
- If patient does not respond to antidepressant treatments
- Develops side effects to the treatments prescribed
- If no treatment is available for them
- We can use functional medicine also to augment the effects of their current treatments
- If patients are uncomfortable with medications offered to them
- Medications can also be cost prohibited
- Patients with depression may have also many other conditions associated with mood disorders
Focusing on the disease alone is not the solution of the problem. Looking at possible root causes will be the real solution.