Mood Disorders

Reducing your depression or alcohol cravings could be as simple as a few daily tablespoons of seed or fish oils each day. There has been much written about the importance of Omega 3 oils and the relationship to healthy hearts and brains. This is nothing new. As a child, I was forced to take cod liver oil for Vitamin D. Maybe the extra vitamin D helped prevent Ricketts, but I believe the benefits of the fish oil go beyond that.

Let’s take the conditions of alcoholism and depression. These two conditions often go hand-in-hand.

In a study in Scotland, David Horrobin, M.D. treated a group of alcoholics who had below average levels of EFAs (Essential Fatty Acids). Half of these alcoholics were given placebos and the other half were given EFA replacements. The group who received the EFAs had far fewer symptoms of deficiencies tremors, irritability, tension, convulsions and hyper-excitability. Furthermore, the group who regularly took their EFAs showed almost normal liver function. A year later, only 28 percent of the placebo group remained sober, while 83 percent of the EFA replacement group remained sober and depression free. This might be the reason that so many people get depressed from moving from coastal to city environments. This is especially evident in people from aboriginal backgrounds. There is more going on in their bodies than home-sickness.

This re-discovery of healthy fats might account for the success of such eating plans that promote high EFAs and high protein, such as The Zone® diet by Barry Sears. Many people have reported feeling better for following this kind of eating pattern. Remember many of the bodies hormones consist of proteins and fat (not carbohydrates).

Low fat diets can ruin your health, period!

After decades of low or no fat campaigns there is a bit of a wake up call to the importance of fats and oils in the human diet. Often over-looked is the fact that fats and oils contain important vitamins and are the building blocks of different hormones required for healthy functioning. So, all of the hype of low-fat to save your heart has been a bit of a misinterpreted sham to say the least.

In the 1970′s all the rage was reduce saturated fats, like meat fat and butter and increase polyunsaturated fats, like vegetable oil. Any fat that was liquid at room temperature was considered safer than a hard fat. The theory that got bounced around was the hard fat would clog up the arteries. Well, the fat does not go straight into the bloodstream. Lots of the polyunsaturated fats quickly become rancid (also know as oxidized) and causing more havoc than ordinary saturated fats. (A friend of mine, Dr. Logan Sisk, considers rancid oils almost as dangerous as radiation poisoning.)

Ooops. The experts made a bit of a mistake. The vegetable oils were good, IF and only if, they were fresh. Once these oils went rancid (oxidized), they caused blood clots, cancer agents and suppression of the immune system. The old idea that a high fat diet caused a heart attack was challenged by the eating habits of Eskimos and Inuit people. The Northern people had a diet high in fat and meat and rarely died of cardiovascular disease. When the Eskimos moved into modern housing and fried all of their food, the cooked (and oxidized) fat became carcinogenic and atherogenic (plaque-forming). Also, many of the fat-soluable vitamins, like vitamin A, were destroyed with cooking.