Posted by bobman on June 20, 2010, at 15:12:11
In reply to Re: Rejection of Meds Gives me Hope » bobman, posted by chujoe on June 20, 2010, at 14:43:11
> There are all sorts of empirical psychological tests for mental illness; some progress has also been made in determining which regions of the brain are affected, but something does not have to be "biological" to be real. And surely the biological affects our states of mind. Just drink a cup of coffee.
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> But, Bobman, if you don't believe there is a biological basis for mental illness, why take all those herbs and supplements -- aren't you trying to influence the biological system of your body by doing so?
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> And I do think the cancer analogy is at least a little helpful: the remission rates for some of the worst cancers are not much better than the statistics on remission of mental illness cited by people like Whitaker and other anti-psych folks.It's a good point, why do I take them. Well I'm a great believer in the side effects that anti-epileptic medications have. Namely brain cell death. Non-enzymatic anticonvulsants are shown to inhibit glial proliferation, and lamotrigine is shown to greatly inhibit LTP, NMDAR signaling in response to excitation, and therefore should lead to reduced neuronal plasticity and neuronal atrophy as well.
It's not that I don't believe that biology plays a role, but rather that whatever role it plays is not being targeted by current pharmacological treatments. And how could they target it? These biological role in mental illness has not been elucidated, and the mechanisms by which most medications work has also not been fully elucidated.
For instance, did you know that fluoxetine increases levels of IGF-1? It is currently proposed that it increases neurogenesis by this method, and not by any increase in post-synaptic serotonin, which would make sense IGF-1 increases proliferation of many types of tissue.
The herbs that I take are shown to increase proliferation of neural stem cells, increase outgrowth of newborn neurons, and all of this is actually shown in vivo in rodents, with corresponding observational effects shown in humans, although the latter is not well funded.
For instance, I have a full assay of the genes that Gotu Kola up-regulates expression of.
FGF2, VEGF, EGF, TGF-B1 and a few other growth related genes are up-regulated between 1.6 and 1.7 times * control. That's probably why it works to dramatically enhance wound healing, but those factors also affect recovery from brain injury (shown through separate studies on ischemia), and should therefore improve recovery from insult by pharmacological drugs. There is similar research for curcumin and ashwagandha. Essentially reasons like these are why I take gotu kola, and curcumin.
As a side note, my body feels far healthier since starting to take them. I haven't changed anything else in life besides the addition of gotu kola and turmeric. I have more endurance, and far less fatigue. Of course any skeptic can attribute these results to some sort of somatiform or placebo, and I wouldn't be able to convince you of it besides to say that they absolutely work for me. I've used them long term, and will tell anyone who cares to listen that they work about as well as any pharmacological agent I've tried, but with a clean, non-toxic profile. Don't want to believe that it works? I'm fine with that.
poster:bobman
thread:951199
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20100615/msgs/951624.html