Over the years, I’ve seen an increasing number of patients at my wellness clinic suffering from depression – many without even knowing it.
This terrible rise is a reflection of a growing epidemic of depression that’s happening all over the Western world.
Depression is often hard to diagnose, because the individual symptoms often point to so many other things.
Psychiatrists often talk about chemical imbalances in the brain – as if they really know what the right balance should be. They don’t. In fact, they’re guessing.
And it’s hard to calculate the very real impact of spending every weekday with an aggressive employer, working at a job you hate, or the rage you might feel after a two-hour commute, or the financial stress you and your family may be under, or the media pressure to act this way or look that way.
The psychiatrist’s answer is always the same – write a prescription for some addictive Big Pharma opiate or a benzodiazepine, like Xanax, Ativan and Klonopin, and then move on to the next patient who needs to be “numbed.”
One in 10 Americans now takes an antidepressant medication. And among women in their 40s and 50s, the figure is one in four.
Many people have been taking these scary and addictive meds for decades and they’re causing untold damage to their brain, liver, let alone the rest of the body – and all with the blessing of their physician and psychiatrist.
Meanwhile, the latest statistics reveal the number of people diagnosed with depression increases by about 20% a year.1
I don’t prescribe any of these meds – but I have had significant success treating patients who come to my wellness clinic with depression by taking a more natural approach.
For decades now, I used this natural approach to treat and prevent depression.
Physicians and psychiatrists have ignored the most significant factor in today’s depression crisis – our modern diet.
Americans are starving for vital nutrients. Never before have we had so much food with so little sustenance.
With each generation, our soil becomes more and more depleted of essential vitamins and minerals. The depletion of magnesium in our soil, for example, has been linked directly to increases in mental illness.2
At the same time, our animals have become adulterated with antibiotics, hormones, pesticides or toxins.
And Big Agra’s processing has stripped away even more basic building blocks of life.
Those basic building blocks include omega-3 fatty acids. And numerous studies indicate that the rapid increase in the rate of depression in America has increased as our consumption of omega-3s has declined over the past 50 to 100 years.3
When it comes to the brain, we are talking particularly about the omega-3s called docosahexaenoic and eicosapentaenoic acids, or DHA and EPA for short.
The human brain is 60%t fat, almost entirely comprised of omega-3 fatty acids. Without these omega-3s, the brain cannot build or maintain high-quality cells.
DHA concentrates in the brain’s gray matter, especially the “mood zone.” It becomes part of the cell membranes and helps electrochemical signals jump between brain cells.
But DHA cannot work alone. It needs EPA to control inflammation and to stabilize the brain’s metabolic processes.
If the brain cannot get enough DHA and EPA, it uses second-rate materials and creates second-rate brain cells that can’t do their job properly. Studies show how the brain needs EPA and DHA to ward off depression and suicidal tendencies.4,5,6,7
Our ancestors consumed plenty of these omega-3s from wild plants, grasses, fish and seaweed. They also ate wild fauna that fed on the wild flora. Today, we’re more likely to eat farm-raised, corn-fed salmon or corn-fed beef. So our vegetables and our meat end up deficient in omega-3s.
Replenishing the Omega-3s has worked wonders. And numerous studies back up the experience of the patients who come to my wellness clinic.8 Omega-3s reduced symptom severity in patients with bipolar and unipolar depression, as well as ADHD.
But maintaining healthy Omega-3s is also the best way I know of preventing depression, even when the stresses of modern living assault you from every angle.
Most mainstream medical experts recommend eating two servings of oily fish a week. The best sources are mackerel, herring, salmon, trout and fresh tuna. This kind of diet should provide between 800 mg. and 1,000 mg. of those vital omega-3s per week.
But after years of tracking my patients’ omega-3 levels, I know it is almost impossible to get enough EPA-DHA from your diet.
Based on my experience, you need at least 500 mg. of DHA and about 60 mg. of EPA — EVERY DAY!
Without a doubt, supplements are the best way to boost your EPA-DHA levels… although though not just any supplement.
If you use fish oil, you’re likely to run into the toxicity problems you face if you were to eat fish every day.
Fortunately, there are better alternatives. I recommend krill oil and squid oil to my patients.
The tiny shrimp-like krill do not live long enough to absorb large amounts toxins. And squid live miles below the ocean, far from the pollution on the surface.
And krill oil has another advantage. Its omega-3s are stored in phospholipid form instead of triglyceride, which helps DHA cross cell membranes better and explains why it is so good for brain function.9,10,11
I always recommend combining krill oil with natural astaxanthin, a powerful antioxidant that can help DHA cross the blood-brain barrier even more efficiently.
So if you want to live longer and smarter, this is one of the easiest ways to improve your chances…
Take at least 500 mg. of DHA and 60 mg. of EPA from a combination of squid oil and krill oil with astaxanthin.
And make sure you take them with meals, so the DHA and EPA can be digested properly.
To Your Good Health,
Al Sears, MD
1. healthline.com/health/depression/statistics-infographic. Retrieved on April 10, 2015.
2. Changes in brain protein expression are linked to magnesium restriction-induced depression-like behavior
Whittle, Nigel; Li, Lin; Chen, Wei-qiang; Yang, Jae-won; Sartori, Simone B; et al.Amino Acids 40.4 (Apr 2011): 1231-48.
3. Harrar, S. “Omega-3 fatty acids and mood disorders.” Today’s Dietitian. January 2012, Vol. 14, No. 1, P. 22. todaysdietitian.com/newarchives/011012p22.shtml
4. Dr. Sublette, M.E., “Meta-analysis: Effects of Eicosapentaenoic Acid in Clinical Trials in Depression. J Clin Psychiatry. 2011 Dec; 72(12): 1577–1584. Published online 2011 Sep 6. doi: 10.4088/JCP.10m06634.
5. Sarris J, et al. “Omega-3 for bipolar disorder: meta-analyses of use in mania and bipolar depression.” J Clin Psychiatry. 2011;Epub ahead of print.
6. Ross, BM. “Omega-3 fatty acid deficiency in major depressive disorder is caused by the interaction between diet and a genetically determined abnormality in phospholipid metabolism.” Med Hypotheses. 2007;68(3):515-24.
7. Conklin SM, et al. “Serum phospholipid polyunsaturated fatty acids are associated with mood, behavior and personality in healthy community adults.” American Psychosomatic Society Annual Meeting, March 2007, Budapest, Hungary, abstract 1718.
8. Preventative Strategies for Early-Onset Bipolar Disorder: Towards a Clinical Staging Model
McNamara, Robert K; Nandagopal, Jayasree J; Strakowski, Stephen M; DelBello, Melissa P. CNS Drugs 24.12 (Dec 2010): 983-96.
9. Bazan N, Musto A, Knott E. “Endogenous signaling by omega-3 docosahexaenoic acid-derived mediators sustains homeostatic synaptic and circuitry integrity.” Mol Neurobiol. 2011;44(2):216-22.
10. Tan Z, Harris W, Beiser A, Au R, Himali J, Debette S, Pikula A, Decarli C, Wolf P, Vasan R, Robins S, Seshadri S. “Red blood cell ω-3 fatty acid levels and markers of accelerated brain aging.”Neurology. 2012;78(9):658-64.
11. Cao D, Kevala K, Kim J, Moon H, Jun S, Lovinger D, Kim H. “Docosahexaenoic acid promotes hippocampal neuronal development and synaptic function.”J Neurochem. 2009;111(2):510-21.
