“Business of sickness works very well together. You can clearly apply the symptomatic pack mentality to prescription drugs, as well. As more symptoms appear, more drugs are administered … the real kicker is that despite all the peripheral treatment, the core issue remains untreated.”
Disease travels in packs, just like wolves, and so does the treatment. The core issue is never treated, only the symptoms. Symptoms multiply. You may not see them, but they are there nonetheless, and manifest as a result of the drug treatment. Does it sound familiar?
In reality, it is a downhill slide to extinction. The “miasma” is never addressed; instead, it is under government-approved medical care. The side effects from multiple drugs compound the condition: inflammation leading to chronic pain; anxiety and stress leading to depression, which leads to a nervous breakdown and diabetes, which culminates in Alzheimer’s disease—now often referred to as Type 3 diabetes. 
As you can see now, the business of sickness works very well together. You can clearly apply the symptomatic pack mentality to prescription drugs, as well. As more symptoms appear, more drugs are administered, and it is not uncommon to be taking 10 to 15 different drugs that add more illness and suffering; the real kicker is that despite all the peripheral treatment, the core issue remains untreated.
Unfortunately, the current healthcare system doesn’t seem to look for solutions. State hospitals offer first aid to treat accidents, drug overdose and symptom control. Naturopathic hospitals treat the core illness, and treatments are either not covered or extremely limited in group plan coverage. Drugs that kill remain on the market with added warnings, whereas natural medicine is unapproved if claims of healing are mentioned or assumed. Pharmaceutical drugs always come with side effects, while plant based medicine is no longer classified as food in Canada. Instead, it is in a sub-class of drugs, without the luxury of drug style claims or advertising.
So what do the numbers say? A staggering 200 million people (conservative at best) have problems with their thyroid glands; and equally as worrying up to 60% remain undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. According to the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER), the overall incidence rate of thyroid cancer is on the rise, which can partially explain why the #1 drug in the US is Levothyroxine – Synthroid® with 123 million prescriptions written in 2016. In fact, according to the SEER report, the number of thyroid cancer cases has been increasing 5.5% per year in the US over the last 10 years, and have tripled since 1975.
According to the National Cancer Institute, this year in the US nearly 57,000 new cases of thyroid cancer will be diagnosed, and since the disease is more common in women, more than 42.000 of those diagnoses expected to occur in females. Thyroid cancer has increased more than threefold over the past four decades; it is now the 8th most common cancer diagnosis in the United States, mainly driven by increases in papillary thyroid cancer (PTC), which is the most common type.
Besides cancer there are many other areas where the numbers speak for themselves. Diabetes affects 9.3% of the US population (detected) and a much greater number yet undetected. If current trends continue, 1 in 3 will have diabetes by 2050. In America, 1 in 5 suffers from mental illness. In Canada–including the adolescents—the rate is 1 in 6. A new case of Alzheimer’s is discovered every 68 seconds in the USA, and by 2050 that is estimated to be double: one new case every 33 seconds. We really should start looking at the bigger picture and the connections.
It is no longer a question whether gut-brain axis affects our mental health or not, the only question remaining is how exactly. Several researches have shown that controlling the bacterial population may help improve symptoms of mental disorders. One of them is an ongoing study conducted at St. Joseph’s Healthcare in Hamilton, Ontario, found that when mice were depleted of healthy gut bacteria, they became depressed and anxious. When given a probiotic, however, anxiety-reducing chemicals flooded their brains, leading to an improved disposition.
The key to this phenomenon could be inflammation. Researchers from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health have discovered that patients who are depressed have brain inflammation. The greater the inflammation, the greater the depression. Because probiotics are anti-inflammatory, they may not only be helping the stomach, but also the brain.Taking a cue from these findings, a current study at the Women’s College Hospital in Toronto is specifically examining whether probiotics could be used to treat bipolar disorder.
Dr. John Bienenstock, director of the Brain-Body Institute at St. Joseph’s, stated, “Psychiatry may well find that there are many factors in the intestines that promote the expression of anxiety, depression, and so on, so looking inside the brain only is not the only way of looking at things. This is a revolution in itself.”
Dr. Lita Lee has theorized that there are 4 causes of nutritional mental problems :
• Protease deficiency: problems digesting protein. According to Dr. Lee, protease deficiency leads to excessive alkaline reserves, which are not balanced out by acidity in the body.
• Sugar intolerance: inability to digest common and simple sugars. Because sugar is so prevalent in Western diets, most people are sugar deficient simply because the amount consumed is greater than the body’s ability to digest it. Those who already have low sugar-digesting enzymes, though, are at a disadvantage either way.
• Hypothyroidism: deficiency in thyroid hormone. While hypothyroidism has many physical symptoms, mental symptoms can also manifest, as well.
• Poor diet: eating an abundance of junk food (which usually contains large amounts of sugar). Studies have explored the connection between nutritional deficiency and mental issues before, and this connection should come as no surprise to those who study holistic health.
So what can we do to maintain or restore the health of our microbiome and support good overall health? It is important to maintain a strong balance in favor of beneficial bacteria in our digestive tract. The first step is to eat a well-balanced diet (organic if possible) that includes foods with probiotic or prebiotic ingredients that support microbial health by helping to restore balance to the gut microbiome. These are foods that contain live beneficial (probiotic) bacteria and, in the case of probiotics, contain substances like specific types of fiber that nurture the growth of probiotic bacteria. Probiotic supplements are also one of the options since they have been shown to improve symptoms of psychological and neurological conditions.
Doctor’s Choice currently offers Laktokhan® Probiotic Complex and Full Spectrum Digestive Enzyme, and Thyrodine® thyroid gland. With this new research, we would encourage our customers to give these products a second look not only for a healthy gut, but also for a healthy brain.
References:
• Nowakowski, M. E., McCabe, R., Rowa, K. (2016). The gut microbiome: Potential innovations for the understanding and treatment of psychopathology. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie canadienne, 57(2), 67-75.
• Favaro A. (2015) Probiotics May Hold Key to Improving Mental Health. https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/health-headlines/probiotics-may-hold-key-to-improving-mental-health-1.2212893
• Lee, L. Ph.D. (2016) The Effects of Enzymes on Mental Health. https://www.alternativementalhealth.com/the-effects-of-enzymes-on-mental-health-by-lita-lee-ph-d/
• McQuillan, S. MS, RDN. (2018) The Gut Brain Connection: How Gut Health Affects Mental Health. https://www.psycom.net/the-gut-brain-connection