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Can a healthy diet help improve depression and what testing is recommended?
Question
I realize that this may be a difficult question to answer, but in general, what is your treatment approach or recommendations when treating depression? In particular, what if the person has already been eating a proper diet as outlined on your website, supplementing with things like a multivitamin, Vitamin D, fish oil, etc., has already undergone extensive bloodwork, and has experimented with amino acids like 5-HTP, and has been tested for pyroluria?
Also, are urinary neurotransmitter tests worthwhile? How can these be measured in the urine when many neurotransmitters reside in the gut? It seems one would need to biopsy the brain to test these accurately.
Answer
This is not a difficult question–it is an impossible question. The answer would be different for each patient. The best response I can give you is that I look at a 7-day diet log to assess if there is anything I see which needs to be corrected. Many people who believe they eat a proper diet are not aware of the numerous issues I see in their diet. I might do an cardio ION panel from MetaMetrix Labs to locate deficiencies I might never have been aware of based on the person’s diet and supplement regime. I would most likely do all the Cyrex Food Arrays and eliminate any reactive foods. Then I would have them begin LONG TERM detoxification. This is often the underlying issue. I would also switch them to only using totally clean, poison-free products for body care, house and laundry cleaning to eliminate all possible triggers. I might also do the full comprehensive reactivity panel of close to 400 substances, from Elisa/Act Biotechnologies to find hidden chemicals or foods that are triggering responses.
The detoxification is slow and long-term. If I do not see a definite, noticeable improvement in the first 6 months of working with the patient, it is very likely that their toxic body burden is still too high. Until that is lowered, they may not yet be able to see the benefits. This can be discouraging. You cannot rush detoxification. In addition, without the use of some type of accurate method, such as muscle testing, you may not be doing the detox in the best order for the patient’s body.
David Getoff, CCN, CTN, FAAIM, Price-Pottenger Vice President