We are conditioned in many ways by our environment and previous experiences. The number of patients I see that have endured abuse from many areas is unfortunately quite high. This can be a driving factor in the etiology of depression and anxiety.
How we adapt to the many stressors in life is partly due to conditioning; how we were trained to deal with hardship growing up, and nutritional aspects of our brain and nervous system.
It’s estimated that 13% of Americans take some kind of antidepressant. The World Health Organization in March reported that depression is a common mental disorder with more than 300 million people of all ages affected.
The CDC notes that of the 14 million Americans with clinical depression, roughly one third don’t find relief with antidepressants. The most commonly prescribed antidepressants like Prozac, Paxil, and Zoloft were approved by the FDA more than 30 years ago with a boatload more being created on a regular basis. These still aren’t getting the results needed.
Research is showing that magnesium is a major player in overcoming depression. Studies of suicide victims reveals lower levels of magnesium in their cerebral spinal fluid. A controlled study of magnesium shows clinically significant improvement in depression when magnesium levels were increased in clinically depressed patients.
Bacteria in the soil enables plants to absorb magnesium. When agricultural pesticides poison the soil, this bacteria is destroyed. The addition of potassium based fertilizers increase the uptake of potassium in lieu of the calcium and magnesium. Because of this, foods that should deliver adequate levels of magnesium are found to be deficient. An article in Psychology Today addresses this very issue, and emphasizes the fact that other issues add to the major deficit in magnesium among the masses.
Food processing, antacids, diuretics, caffeine, and alcohol all contribute to magnesium deficiencies. It’s been shown that magnesium is the most deficient of all minerals in the body. The use of elemental magnesium often falls short of correcting the issues. Only with plant based multiform magnesium can we actually increase blood bound magnesium across the blood-brain barrier and address issues of depression.
In Pharmacological Reports, it’s stated that magnesium is widely connected with brain biochemistry as well as the fluidity of neuronal membranes. Because of this a variety of neuromuscular and psychiatric symptoms (hyper-excitability, agitation, tetany, headaches, seizures, ataxia, vertigo, muscular weakness, tremors, irritability, anxiety, insomnia, nervous fits, fatigue, confusion, hallucinations, and depression was observed magnesium deficiency, and all were reversible by restoration of normal brain magnesium levels.
The challenge we run into is the response of the intestines when a loading dose of most magnesiums are given. For most, the lose stools and potential abdominal cramping is something we like to avoid. For some with extremely low serum levels, oral magnesium is a God-send to get the bowels moving, but can often fail to get the adequate levels into the brain to deal with depression and associated conditions.
As stated in Medical Hypotheses 2006, “The occurrence of depression 100 years ago was rare, occurring primarily in the elderly. Only 1% of Americans born before 1905 developed depression before they were 75 years old. 6% of Americans born in 1955 developed depression by the time there were 24 years old. Previous to 1905, grains were not refined and there was adequate magnesium (over 400 mg per day) in the diet.”
A potent source of magnesium which addresses the need to cross the blood-brain barrier in doses high enough to address deficiency needs in the brain and nervous system while not creating the lose stool issue has just been released by Standard Process.
https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=dr+john+a+briggs+ND+clatskanie,+or+97016&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8