Depression, the misunderstood dimension of the human experience

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The Book of Brain provides an overview of brain function and psychology, understood from a biological point of view. Eating and drinking behaviors are discussed in terms of brain function and innate tendencies. Known food-related brain dysfunction and disease is revealed. A synopsis of the major neurological disease follows with suggestions for intervention in mental and neurological disorders using the Alpha Nutrition Program as a diet revision algorithm.

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Author S. J.Gislason MD

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The problem of adverse brain effects of molecules derived from food is under-recognized. There are a host of clues that link the food supply to mysterious and threatening neurological diseases. We suggest that a prudent person suffering early brain-dysfunction symptoms would be wise to pursue vigorous, thorough diet revision at the earliest opportunity. Because some brain dysfunction compromises judgment learning, and motivation, family members, friends and professional advisor often have to provide the right direction and support.

Stephen Gislason MD

The term "depression" is descriptive and vague. I believe the whole concept of depression is flawed and needs to be revised. The term “depression” does not point to one discrete disorder but to a variety of unpleasant experiences common to all humans. When the term “depression” is used without qualification, it is usually misleading.

A reasonable person will acknowledge that life is difficult and suffering is inevitable. Everything we value is impermanent. Every feature of each of us is in flux and we change continuously. We age, we become ill, we suffer injury and loss. No human knows what comes next so that uncertainty is a constant companion. Modern life in cities is not normal for humans who emerged from living in small groups in natural environments and whose basic tendencies want to continue in that style of living, but cannot.

Psychiatrist, Clements observes that normal feelings and the inevitable sadness of life are often denied and turned into a disease that can be treated with expensive chemicals. She stated: “Sorrow is not recognized as part of the human condition and reactive sadness is viewed as a medical illness, a pathology rather than a normal and very human response… I confess I cry for humanity, and another person's tears tend to generate tears in my eyes too. If sorrow can be avoided, well and good. But the reality is sorrow is an integral part of the complicated system of the cosmos, and of human existence.”

Depression as a medical diagnosis is equated with “mood disorder’ and as a problem located inside one individual. Much of the important dynamics that are included under the term “depression” have little or nothing to do with mood and involve changes in body function, cognitive dysfunction and changes in specific behaviors. The main textbook features of “depression” are withdrawal from and loss the loss of interest in job, family, social activities and personal hobbies. Depressed thinking is pessimistic, critical of others and oneself and tends toward guilty ruminations and suicidal thoughts.

The symptoms are, in part, features of a withdrawal-inhibition-supplication response that occurs normally in social mammals to reduce the consequences of power struggles for dominance in a social hierarchy. Subordinate individuals in any primate group are more or less “depressed.” They have to withdraw when challenged by superior animals, supplicate and inhibit their self-serving, aggressive inclinations.

All humans experience episodes withdrawal with inhibition and supplication if someone threatens or is mean or if privileges, property or prestige are lost. Whole groups of humans experience collective depression when the group is threatened or diminished in some way. Suicide is equated with depression, but self-inflicted death is a deep and troubling human behavior that cannot be explained away as an illness. Self-inflicted death may follow loss of prestige and property and is associated either with giving up hope of desired rewards, or anger at the inequities and injustices of the “system”.

If there is a real illness involved, the entire body and mind become symptomatic. Tears flow, agitation and anger increases. Pleasures, interests and goals vanish. The process of thinking is usually disturbed with reduced attention span, distractibility and increased difficulty in remembering recent events. Energy and activity levels fluctuate and in some people, periods high and low activity alternate in a pattern referred to as manic-depressive illness or "bipolar affective disorder

William Styron in his book, "Darkness Visible", describes his depressive experience as a "howling tempest in the brain". He recounts a history of alcoholic beverage abuse and suggests that depression comes from a mix of bad chemistry, genetics and adverse experiences. Styron describes his preoccupation with death:

“He asked me if I was suicidal, and I reluctantly told him yes. I did not particularize--since there seemed no need to--did not tell him that in truth many of the artifacts of my house had become potential devices for my own destruction: the attic rafters (and an outside maple or two) a means to hang myself, the garage a place to inhale carbon monoxide, the bathtub a vessel to receive the flow from my opened arteries. The kitchen knives in their drawers had but one purpose for me. Death by heart attack seemed particularly inviting, absolving me as it would of active responsibility, and I had toyed with the idea of self-induced pneumonia--a long frigid, shirt-sleeved hike through the rainy woods... Such hideous fantasies, which cause well people to shudder, are to the deeply depressed mind what lascivious daydreams are to persons of robust sexuality.”