Nutrition and the Mind - Organic Disorders Commonly Misdiagnosed as Mental Disease By: Gary Null, PH.D.

People with hypoglycemia are often treated as though they have simple depression and anxiety and are put on anti-anxiety agents such as Valium or Xanax. If they are extremely depressed as well as anxious, they are put on antidepressants such as Prozac. I've had people come to me on medication that wanted to go off of it. It turned out that they were hypoglycemic. You can replace antidepressants with amino acids, minerals, and cofactors, vitamins for amino acid metabolism. When depressed patients come to see me who are also hypoglycemic, I put them on a hypoglycemic diet, which is approximately six small meals a day. Also, I have them take chromium for balancing blood sugar. I also gave them magnesium, glutamine, and tyrosine. Tyrosine is an excellent natural antidepressant. It's a precursor to the neurotransmitter norepinephrine, which is one of the brain chemicals that helps us feel good.

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Nutrition and the Mind By: Gary Null, Ph.D

In 1995, it is estimated that our national sickness care system will account for more than 1.3 trillion dollars of our money. That's more than we spend on defense, housing, food, and education combined. The problem is that we are not seeing major breakthroughs, cures, or even successful prevention programs for any of the serious diseases. We hear a great deal about cancer, AIDS, heart disease, and arthritis. But the largest single disorder group in America is mental illness. It is estimated by the National Institute of Mental Health that more than 40 million Americans are affected by any one of a number of mental and emotional conditions that adversely affect the quality of their lives. These include depression,schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, dementia, and autism, as well as other conditions, which,while they may not fall strictly under the rubric of "mental illness," have a mental component, e.g., fatigue, insomnia, learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder, eating disorders, PMS, alcoholism, and aggressive behavior. When you consider that probably an additional 50 million people suffer from intermittent bouts of any number of these conditions, then you can see that close to one third of the entire American population is personally grappling with mental health concerns.

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