Antidepressant drugs are well known to the public, being one of the fastest-growing classes of prescribed drugs in the U.S. However, the anti-depressant industry’s dirty little secret is not so popular, isn't it? These drugs represent a $10 billion-dollar market only in the United States.
They are based on the theory of chemical imbalance which says that low levels of serotonin can cause anxiety and depressive disorders.
Nevertheless, this theory was never true.
As a matter of fact, there hasn’t been any experiment to prove that someone actually has an imbalance of brain chemicals, such as neurotransmitters. It turns out the whole theory is hypothetical. Many experts tried to refute this hypothetical theory over the last decade.
David D. Burns explains that drug company marketing has fueled the chemical imbalance theory more than solid scientific proof. Drug companies are spending huge amounts of money to promote this theory as they get billions of dollars annually from the sale of anti-anxiety medications and antidepressants.
What’s more, they underwrite lots of research and education at medical schools and subsidize a great portion of the American Psychiatric Association’s budget. The goal of academic writing is discovering and revealing the truth, whereas that of drug company research is finding a way to sell new products.
Saying that your panic attacks or depression come from some chemical imbalance in your brain is saying something that’s completely unproven, as there’s not a single piece of evidence that this chemical imbalance can actually happen in the human brain.
According to new research, depression is nothing more than an allergic reaction to inflammation. And what exactly is inflammation? As The Guardian explains, it is a natural response of our immune system to injury, infection, or foreign invasion.
Once triggered, it can cause the production of cytokines and other chemicals in the body. It happens that the body of depression sufferers also contains high amounts of cytokines.
The average American diet promotes inflammation being loaded with inflammatory omega 6 fatty acids and lacking omega 3 fatty acids. Some causes of chronic inflammation include obesity, high quantities of trans fats, high sugar diets, and generally unhealthy diets. But, the most common one is gluten!
Inflammation and Gluten
When gluten comes in contact with the intestinal lining, it enters the bloodstream which makes it all the way to the brain. Here, it causes inflammation that can progress into a neurological disorder like seizures, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s disease, and even schizophrenia. ATIs or amylase trypsin inhibitors are natural pesticides found in wheat. They can stimulate immune cells by triggering an inflammatory immune response in the gastrointestinal tract. This happens to anyone, no matter if they have celiac disease or not. Try to discover the possible cause of your inflammation which might be a food intolerance, infection, gluten intolerance, or autoimmune disease. Via The Guardian | Psychology Today | NCBI | NCBI
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