The UltraMind Solution (135 page)

Could it be that we are looking in the wrong place for the answers to our epidemic of neurological and psychiatric disorders? Could it be that the medications we use for mood and brain disorders attempt to control the smoke while ignoring the fire?

Could it be that these are, in fact, not primary brain disorders at all, but systemic disorders that affect the brain? And could it be that therapies primarily aimed at altering brain function through antidepressants, stimulants, antipsychotics, and seizure medications may miss the primary mechanisms or disturbances that show up as behavioral, mood, or neurological symptoms?

New research shows clearly that the communication between the brain and the body is bidirectional. Even though Mind-Body Medicine has been studied and accepted as legitimate,
¹
it provides only a one-dimensional view of the interaction between the brain and the body.
²

The conclusion from the science is irrefutable and must be heeded to effectively address the epidemic of “broken brains”—mood disorders, attention deficit disorder, autism, psychoses, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and other neurodegenerative disorders.

Unless we focus on the metabolic, nutritional, and environmental influences that exert their effects on the brain
through the body,
we will not succeed in our efforts to promote mental and cognitive well-being.

The next frontier in medicine is to define how “body” dysfunction or imbalances lead to abnormal brain chemistry and communication between brain cells, altered behavior, mood, and neurodegeneration.

Today there is a new model of thinking in medical science. It is called Functional Medicine. It provides a new road map for navigating the mysteries of how the body works together as a whole system.

Science is by nature reductionistic, breaking things into smaller and smaller parts and learning what each of them do separately. But what is missing in science is synthesis and integration. Putting the pieces of the puzzle back together. There are millions of bits of data and information, and yet for most practitioners of medicine they are strewn about the floor like a million puzzle pieces.

Until we put the pieces of the puzzle together, we cannot see what picture it forms, or what story it tells us about the mystery of how the body works, and how the mind, brain, and body are all connected and intertwined.

Functional Medicine is a method of putting those pieces together so we can see the picture of the whole clearly. It is not a new treatment or test or a new alternative method. It is just a way of putting together the pieces of the puzzle of chronic disease in a new way so we can truly see what is going on. It is a practical method of approaching each patient as an individual.

The era of treating all depressed or anxious or ADHD or autistic or demented people the same way is over. There may be dozens of causes of depression or autism or dementia or ADHD.
Finding the right cause and treatment for each individual will require a different way of practicing medicine.

This is a radical shift from our conventional training where we use symptoms to make a diagnosis and then match a drug to that diagnosis. The science of genomics and molecular biology is forcing us to radically redefine disease. Could it be that many different “diseases” show up as the same symptoms? For example, can a nutritional deficiency, or a toxic level of mercury, or a food allergy all cause memory problems, attention deficit disorder, or depression?

Today we know that they can.

The symptoms may be exactly the same for people with the same label or “disease,” but the causes and treatment are completely different. The body (or brain) has only so many ways of saying ouch—sadness, happiness, anxiousness, forgetfulness, trouble with attention—but the reasons each person has that experience may be completely different.

So how can we find a new model that gets to the root of the problem?

This model already exists. This new medical paradigm has been laid out in detail in
The Textbook of Functional Medicine
(to which I contributed two chapters). It is a story of how all the pieces of the puzzle that create disease and promote health fit together. It is based on excellent science. There are about twenty thousand scientific references, and contributions from scientific giants.

This model is the medicine of the future, but it is available to you today. It is what the seven keys to UltraWellness and the UltraMind Solution are based on, and it is what you have already begun to learn about in the pages of this book.

But this road map is focused mostly on basic research. The practical application of this thinking is not being explored directly. But people do not need to wait twenty years to take advantage of this thinking. It is available
now and it is the approach of Functional Medicine, or what I call UltraWellness (
www.ultrawellness.com
).

It is only by teasing apart how each of these fundamental physiological processes alters brain function and studying how correcting them can restore normal function that a new model of psychiatry, neurology, and clinical neuroscience can emerge; one that provides more satisfactory answers than only partially effective pharmacologic treatments.

The paradox is that in the detail of any one pattern or system of physiologic imbalance, the answer will not be found. It is only by putting together all the pieces of the puzzle, by assessing and treating all the imbalanced systems (nutritional, hormonal, inflammatory, immune, digestive, toxic, energy metabolism and oxidative stress, and mind-body) simultaneously that true advances can occur.

Single drugs or methods are destined to fail. The nature of biology is that of a system, one whole, interdependent, interconnected system.

In order to make real progress we must understand how our genes are affected by environment and lifestyle and how that leads to disturbances in cellular communication, physiology, and biochemistry, which are responsible for much of the accelerating rate of psychiatric and neurological disease in the twenty-first century.

This new thinking will provide relief for millions if applied deliberately and carefully.

Mark Hyman, M.D.

West Stockbridge, Massachusetts

June 2008

The opportunity to write a book is both a gift and a burden. Its virtues are more often borrowed, and its errors entirely my own. It is a journey supported by the vast community I find myself living in and exploring with wonder.

The community that wrote this book through me includes all the scientists who worked thanklessly to understand the mysteries of the human body and brain, and made all the puzzle pieces I put together in this story. It also includes all my patients who trusted me, then worked with me to find the answers to their health and struggles with broken bodies and broken brains. They taught me more than they realized.

My agent Richard Pine, with patience, clarity, insight, and an uncommon directness, has guided this book from the beginning, as usual in his understated loving way. Beth Wareham, my editor; Susan Moldow, my publisher; and all my friends and supporters at Simon & Schuster have supported me from the beginning to the end, over and over again believing in and making possible the birth of sometimes radical and often unexpected ideas. Sandi Mendelson, my publicist, and her team chip away at the noise in the media to get the truth to break through. Marc Stockman just “gets it” like no one else. He took scribblings on a napkin and helped me create a world of good from a naked hope for change. It was a good day when you showed up. Jeff Radich, who creates beauty and mini-miracles from my too often rough work. And Jessica Cerretani, who takes the edges off my writing and makes it go down easier. Liana Baum for her help making ideas into pictures. And Spencer Smith, my comrade in words who has given more than his mind to this book. He has given his heart and soul often when there was little left. Thank you!!!

The community that helped me write this book extends to well over a hundred people, all of whom I unfortunately can’t name here. You know who you are—thank you, thank you, and thank you. I must mention a few special people who have inspired, helped, and supported me—Jeffrey Bland, who cracked open my world twelve years ago and it has never been
the same; Sidney Baker, one of the greatest unrecognized and original thinkers of our time—in medicine and in life; my friends at the Institute for Functional Medicine—Laurie, David, Bethany, Robert, Jennifer, Joe, and Susan, and the many unnamed who just make it happen at IFM. And all those who have supported me from the beginning with their time and money to launch the future of medicine: John Bitzer, Stephen and Sandy Muss, Maja Hoffmann and Stanley Buchthal, Adelaide Gomer, Alicia Wittink, Ritchie Scaife, Jerry and Emy Lou Baldridge, Donna Karan, Daphne Barak, and so many more, including those who have yet to know how great a difference they can make with so little.

And without friendship and my whole community I couldn’t do what I do—thank you for being there even when I am not—and for those unnamed, you who all know who you are: Marc David, David and Zea Piver, Jonathan and Michelle Kalman, Dan and Ditte Ruderman, Paul and Andrea DeBotton, Andy and Lisa Corn, Davidi and Ruth Gilo, David Ludwig, and the list goes on and on. I want to especially thank my good friend Damon Giglio, a generous and passionate soul who has given of himself over and over to be a catalyst for transformation and good in the world. And of course, there are all my cocreators of medicine’s transformation who have touched me and taught personally, and each continue to create seismic shifts in our way of thinking and living. Thank you for supporting me and trusting me and guiding me: Dean Ornish, Mehmet C. Oz, James Gordon, Andrew Weil, Jon Kabat Zinn, Leo Galland, David Perlmutter, Frank Lipman, Jay Lombard, Patrick Hanaway, Robert Hedaya, Joel Evans, Catherine Willner, David Eisenberg, Bethany Hayes, David Jones, Tracy Gaudet, Kirk Daffner, Kenneth Pelletier, Peter Libby, and Martha Herbert.

My whole life would have taken a different turn if not for Kathie Swift, my nutritionist, and coconspirator who first inspired me to ask the questions that ultimately led to this book. Her tireless hours of assistance, work, dedication to our patients, to food, and to our work to change health care, in more ways than I can count, are essential to my life. Thank you. Without the support of my team at the UltraWellness Center, where I do my real work of seeing patients, I couldn’t begin to do half of everything else. You are all my foundation and at the core of my life. Your contributions wash over me daily, thank you for showing up and believing. Thank you Donna, Liz, Deb, Heather, Maggie, Pam, Sarah, and Erica. And Nina—you are the glue that makes everything stick together and the balm that gets our patients well when nothing else has.

Last, and most important, my family has put up with the dangers of my passion (early mornings, late nights, and too many absences to remember).
I could not have done this without all your love and belief in what I am doing. Thank you Pier, Rachel, Misha, Thor, Ace, Ruth, Richard, Saul, Jesse, Carrie, Michael, Ben, Sarah, Paul, Lauren, Jake, and Zachary. It is for you and because of you that I wake up every day grateful and joyful.

Mark Hyman, M.D.:
Learning More
UltraWellness
www.ultrawellness.com/blog

The UltraWellness Blog is written by Mark Hyman, M.D., a leader in the emerging field of Functional Medicine. If you have faced chronic illness, struggle to overcome weight issues, have a lack of energy, problems sleeping, bad skin, or any other health issues, then you will want to read this to find out how you too can achieve UltraWellness—your key to lifelong vibrant health and vitality. UltraWellness promises to help you fix the core, underlying health problems for good, instead of simply dealing with the symptoms of those problems as other medical approaches do.