The UltraMind Solution (27 page)

All protein is built from special building blocks called
amino acids.
The
only
function of your DNA is to take these amino acids and string them together in chains to make protein. That’s all it does!

Figure 6: Amino-acid building blocks for neurotransmitters

All
of the thousands of molecules in your body are built from only eight essential amino acids that we must get from our diet. These essential amino acids are the raw materials we use to make all our brain messenger chemicals or neurotransmitters and the receptors or docking stations on our cells that they land on to transmit their messages.

The only source of these amino acids is the protein you eat in your diet. Ideally the majority of this comes from fish, chicken, beans, nuts, and seeds. If you don’t eat adequate protein at every meal, your brain can’t work. You will be sluggish, foggy, anxious, unfocused, tired, and depressed.

The good news is that taking individual amino acids is extraordinarily effective and safe. So even if you aren’t getting enough of the specific amino acids you need for optimal brain function, you can acquire them through supplements. And, if you have a genetic predisposition that requires you to take more of these amino acids than a normal diet would allow, you can
still
get them.

We will deal with how to properly supplement your diet with amino acids in Part IV of this book. Now, let’s focus on the neurotransmitters your amino acids create, what they do, and their
critical
role in brain function, and talk about how nutritional deficiency leads to a dramatic breakdown in your neurotransmitters.

Let’s take a closer look at the neurotransmitters and their receptors, because at the end of the day without the proper balance of these molecules you cannot be happy, mentally alert, remember things, concentrate, or effectively do anything your brain is designed to do.

Neurotransmitters are the messenger molecules produced by nerve cells to communicate and control almost every function of your body. This is the way your brain “talks.” Each nerve cell releases different neurotransmitters, which then have to find a spot, or “receptor,” on another cell, bind to it, and communicate instructions for that cell. Once it is released, it can be recycled or broken down and destroyed.

Most of psychiatry and its tools—the drugs or psychopharmacology on which psychiatry is largely based—focus on mimicking or increasing the effects of these neurotransmitters in some way that works against the body’s natural processes.

For example, antidepressants typically increase the availability of
serotonin
(the happy mood molecule) or
norepinephrine
(a stimulating and energy-giving neurotransmitter); stimulants increase
dopamine
effects (the pleasure
and reward neurotransmitter that is responsible for attention and focus); Alzheimer’s drugs increase
acetylcholine
(which is responsible for memory and focus); and anxiety drugs increase
GABA
(which puts the brakes on your excitatory neurotransmitters).

Figure 7: A neurotransmitter “communicating” with another cell

By increasing the availability of these neurotransmitters through medications, psychiatrists attempt to counteract the problems that low levels of these chemicals create in the body and mind.

Low levels of serotonin and norepinephrine show up as depression, low dopamine as attention and behavior disorders, low acetylcholine as Alzheimer’s, and low GABA as anxiety. These are literally the chemical messengers
of mood, learning, attention, memory, and overall brain function—they determine how you feel, how fast you learn, and how much you remember.

Artificially boosting these molecules in the brain with medication does not fix the cause of your broken brain. But here is the real problem with this kind of drug therapy: we are asking the
wrong
question!

Instead of asking which neurotransmitter we need more of or less of and then designing a drug to increase chemicals or block them as a means to generate this effect, we
should
be asking
why
these neurotransmitter levels are too low or too high in the first place.

Take serotonin, for example. This is the neurotransmitter that is responsible for a happy mood. The more serotonin in your bloodstream, the happier you will be. Imagine something wonderful happens to you one day—a job promotion, for example. Your brain sends out serotonin as a response to this event. It binds with receptors on your cells, delivering this message of happiness, and you feel amazing.

It has been shown that people who are depressed tend to make less serotonin than the “normal” population. As a result they experience less happiness and become depressed.

A billion-dollar drug sector has arisen in response to this need for more serotonin in depressed patients. Their answer is to create a drug that blocks serotonin from being reabsorbed back into the end of your nerve cells after it has sent its happy messages (which is what normally happens with the chemical). This leaves more serotonin around to create the same happy messages over and over again.

These drugs are called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). The chief among them is Prozac, and they are one of the top-selling classes of drugs in the world today.

But this whole industry is working at the wrong end of the problem.

We never ask why your serotonin levels are low in the first place or why your serotonin delivery system isn’t working as it was designed to—sending the right messages but not being “heard” by your cells.

Do we have some basic defect that destines 25 percent of us to have a major depression at some point in our lives or millions more to have a “minor” depression?

The answers are available. (You
can
replenish serotonin from the ground up and help your receptors “listen” better, as you will learn in a moment.) But hardly anyone, except the tireless scientists who ask these questions, knows about it. Unfortunately, these scientists don’t have billions of dollars to create television ads promoting their work like the makers of Zoloft or Prozac do!

This program is designed to support and enhance the creation and operation of your neurotransmitters and the receptors on which they dock and communicate their important information. If you are on psychiatric medications right now, the UltraMind Solution promises to enhance their effectiveness, and may allow you to come off them. If you aren’t, it may offer you a solution to the mood, attention, and behavior problems you face without the need for medication.

To understand how this works, I want to introduce you to four of the most important neurotransmitters and explain how nutrition has an impact on their creation and performance.

These four key neurotransmitters can be subdivided into two major categories. Think of them as on and off switches for your brain. Those that excite and activate you, and those that make you calm and happy. Think of them as the gas and the brake pedals for your nervous system—the yin and yang of your nervous system.

Those that make you feel energized, excited, and stimulated, and help you focus, learn, and remember, are called
excitatory neurotransmitters
. The neurotransmitters in this category that I will discuss are dopamine (and its close cousins, epinephrine and norepinephrine) and acetylcholine.

Those that make you happy, relaxed, and peaceful are called
inhibitory neurotransmitters
. I will discuss GABA and serotonin here.

There are many other players, but the basic theme is that your nervous system has a gas pedal and a brake. The key is to keep all the brain molecules in balance. If they are in balance you are happy, focused, attentive, relaxed, and able to remember and learn effectively.

That is what the six-week plan in
The UltraMind Solution
is designed to do. Balance all the seven keys and your brain (and body) will be in balance.

Learning how these four neurotransmitters work and how to balance them is a key part of optimal brain function. So let’s look at these major players:

Dopamine and the Catecholamines (epinephrine and norepinephrine): Getting Focused

Serotonin: Staying Happy