The UltraMind Solution (33 page)
Read The UltraMind Solution Online
Authors: Mark Hyman
Whether you are suffering from a bad mood, difficulty concentrating, or have a more serious condition such as depression or Alzheimer’s disease, it is likely that nutritional deficiencies are one of the primary causes.
This is not a nutrition textbook, but I must focus on a few important nutrients for optimal brain function, how they affect your mind and body, and what happens if you don’t get them. Essential nutrients are called “essential” because they are just that. Without them we cannot survive and thrive. That is why I recommend that
everyone
take a full complement of essential nutrients
every day
. I will explain which nutrients you need to take daily in Part III.
Some may need more or less of these nutrients, and some may need a special form. But we
all
need
all
of them. They work to run your biochemistry. Without them, the functions of your mind and body slow down or grind to a halt. These nutrients are the stuff of life.
Do you need a study to tell you that you need to drink water, breathe air, and sleep every night? You don’t need a study to know you require these nutrients either (though there are literally hundreds of studies that prove you do).
These are the essential ingredients for being alive. It is that simple.
Vitamins
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Minerals
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Essential Amino Acids |
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Threonine |
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Essential Fatty Acids |
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SPECIAL NOTE ON CONDITIONALLY ESSENTIAL NUTRIENTS |
Our bodies are resourceful and make most of what we need from a very few basic raw materials. However, under certain conditions, such as stress, toxicity, medication use, infection, genetic variations, or aging, we may need what are called “ |
Many of the brain-supportive nutrients, including amino acids like tyrosine, special fats like phosphatidylserine, or parts of our normal biochemistry such as coenzyme Q10, acetylL-carnitine, alpha lipoic acid, and others, fall into this category. |
While not everyone may need them, many of us do, particularly if we are in the category of the 162 million with chronic illness. They are very helpful in clearing up biochemical traffic jams and train wrecks and making things run the way they were designed so we can function optimally and thrive in every way—mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. |
Doctors learn that vitamins are important to prevent deficiency diseases (diseases caused by a lack of specific vitamins or minerals) like scurvy or rickets. Too little vitamin C and you get scurvy. Too little vitamin D and you get rickets. That’s it. That is the extent of our nutritional training.
However, there is a new concept emerging. Having enough of a nutrient to prevent one of these deficiency diseases, but
not enough to optimize cellular function,
will lead to “long-latency” deficiency diseases (diseases that take a
long time to manifest themselves) like heart disease, cancer, depression, schizophrenia, attention-deficit disorder, or Alzheimer’s disease.
For example, if you are severely deficient in folic acid, you will have anemia after a few months, or have a baby with birth defects. This is a deficiency disease. But if you don’t have enough folic acid for optimal function over thirty to forty years, you will double your risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
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This is a long-latency deficiency disease. There are dozens of examples like this of diseases caused by long-term nutrient deficiency.
Let’s examine our old model of nutrition, and how we need a radically different view if we are to effectively address, not only our broken brains but also all chronic illness.
The old model of nutrition is based on providing the minimum amount of nutrients, vitamins, and minerals to prevent deficiency diseases. The questions being asked are: how much vitamin C is needed to prevent scurvy? How much thiamine is needed to prevent beriberi? How much niacin is needed to prevent pellagra? How much vitamin D is needed to prevent rickets?
The answer is not very much.
Understanding the role of vitamins and minerals in health this way is based on the concept that individual nutrients have one physiological role: to prevent the deficiency diseases. Vitamin C prevents scurvy. Vitamin D prevents rickets. That’s it. As long as you don’t have those problems, you are getting enough of the vitamins and minerals you need.
The current dietary reference intakes (DRIs), or the amount of nutrients we are told is safe and desirable by the government, are based on this outdated concept. Oddly, the USDA, or United States Department of Agriculture, not the Health and Human Services Department, sets the DRIs. Unfortunately, our nutritional needs, agricultural policy, and government subsidies of our industrial food supply compete with each other. The subsidies are primarily for corn and soybeans, which are used to make high-fructose corn syrup, trans fats, and most of the raw materials for the fast food, junk food, and processed food industry. Policy often overrides science in the end.
The thinking that led us to believe the DRIs are suitable recommendations for what we need to operate optimally is no longer scientifically sound. Since the human genome has been deciphered, we now recognize that there is vast biochemical variability within the population.
We all have unique nutritional and biochemical needs.
Using a single baseline for determining the dietary reference intakes for different people in the population does not fit with our understanding of this biochemical diversity. Different people have different needs. Some need more of particular types of vitamins and minerals than others.
What’s more, there is mounting evidence that taking just enough of a vitamin to avoid deficiency diseases doesn’t give you
nearly
enough of that vitamin to achieve optimal health.
To understand this, we need to take a look at how your genetic makeup, the nutrients you consume, and special proteins called enzymes all work together to determine how healthy or ill you are mentally and physically.
This information is going to revolutionize the way you think about your health.
So how are genes and vitamins connected?
Humans have approximately thirty thousand genes. In that sense we are not that different from an earthworm.
What makes humans different from earthworms (and from each other) is the 1.5 to 3 million subtle differences in their genes called polymorphisms (single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs). These slight alterations in your genetic structure determine everything—all the quirky, individual tendencies you have. They also create the unique biochemical needs within the population.
How?
The only function of your DNA is to make proteins, as I said earlier (page 95). Enzymes are one of thousands of proteins created from your DNA. However, these particular proteins are critically important, because they are the catalysts that help turn one molecule into another—they are the helpers that slow down or speed up all the trillions of chemical reactions that happen every second in your body.
Nutrients, in turn, control the function of these enzymes. They tell your enzymes what to do. They turn on or turn off the chemical reactions in your body.
Making Happy Mood Chemicals
Let’s look at how we make serotonin as an example of how this works. Serotonin is a peptide (which is just a little protein) known as a neurotransmitter, which boosts our mood. You don’t eat serotonin, but your body makes it. It builds serotonin from the amino-acid tryptophan that comes from the protein in our turkey sandwich.
The enzyme designed to convert tryptophan from turkey into serotonin needs vitamin B
6
, or pyridoxine, to help it perform its chemical wizardry. No B
6
, no enzyme reaction, no serotonin, no happy mood. The result? Depression—along with a host of other potential problems.
Figure 8: Conversion of dietary protein to serotonin
But the real critical element in this equation is
you.
You may need more B
6
to get your enzymes to turn tryptophan into serotonin than your next-door neighbor does. Your genes may not have created an enzyme that is as responsive to B
6
as your neighbor’s enzymes are, or just runs a little more slowly. Hence you need
more
B
6
to do the job.
Why?
Because you are a genetically unique individual. As a result your enzymes are constructed differently and respond to nutrients differently than those of your neighbors. About one-third (or 1 million) of your SNPs (the variations in your genes) are dedicated solely to the job of determining how effectively your enzymes are controlled by the nutrients you consume!
Why is this critical to your health? If you understand that one-third of the
entire
variation in your genetic code affects the function of your enzymes, and that nutrients are the control switches for those enzymes, you will want to make sure you have all the right raw materials (nutrients) to make those enzymes function optimally.
