SAD
I was doing some reading on vitamins and their relationship to mental health while pursuing a thought I had about vitamin and mineral deficiencies and depression, and found some interesting articles on Seasonal Affective Disorder. This caught my interest because I have been feeling like crap lately and knew it was directly related to the weather being gloomy for weeks on end. I wouldn’t say I have Seasonal Affective Disorder, but I do find lack of sunshine seriously draining.
The gist of the articles is that SAD is caused by a vitamin D deficiency due to lack of sun exposure. Your skin produces vitamin D in response to exposure to UV rays. Vitamin D is an intermediary in the production of dopamine and a few other chemicals that work to regulate mood. That being said, lack of vitman D will cause depression.
So really, while it is the lack of sun exposure that causes the problem, the solution doesn’t have to be sunlight, although it certainly feels great when you have been deprived of it for awhile. You can take vitamin D supplements. It is the only other alternative. It is nearly impossible to get enough vitamin D from food sources. You would have to drink basically a gallon of milk a day to get what you need, and most multivitamins only contain about one fourth of what you need. So, I am up for it. I think I will try the supplement route and see if I can see any improvement. If not, spring better not be as rainy as it was last year.
The other things that researchers are looking at that caught my interest are niacin supplments in the treatment of schizophrenia, and B12 to help early onset senility. I found the things I have been reading about B12 highly interesting as doctors are now being advised to not diagnose senile dementia, even without the presence of anemia, before they have done biochemical tests to determine B12 levels.
Back to my original point. The theory I have been pursuing is that doctors are currently treating depression the wrong way. They are using anti-depressants the way they used antibiotics, and I think it will have serious repercussions. Most of what we define as mental illnesses are generally caused by biochemical deficiencies. It’s my thought that doctors should be searching for the root of the deficiency on an individual patient level and tailoring the treatment to each patient.
There are lots of intermediaries that can fail in any physiological system. The end result may be a decrease in serotonin levels, but why just throw serotonin at the problem? Why not instead find where the breakdown is occuring and treat it at that level? It makes more sense to me. Whether or not it would be cost efficient, or would put the drug companies in a tizzy is a completely different issue.
The sad thing is, this line of thought might never seriously be pursued by the medical community in the US because ultimately, things that were once treated with drugs might be curable through diet. This thought would make some people very unhappy.