or reproductive psychiatry that focuses on the risk-benefit analysis of treating women during their reproductive years. This is a uniquely vulnerable time period, particularly if a woman is contemplating taking drugs while simultaneously planning a pregnancy or is already pregnant. I soon began to feel constrained by the medication and/or talk therapy model of treating depression, and I delved into how to cultivate better options for not just women in their reproductive years but all women across the entire life cycle.
The further I stepped away from traditional psychiatry, the more I started to ask questions few others in my field were raising, principally “Why?” Why have the body and mind become dysfunctional in so many millions of women? Are we inherently broken? Why have we gotten so much sicker in the past century when our DNA—the same DNA we’ve had for millions of years—hasn’t changed? Or are doctors just getting better at labeling symptoms under the wastebasket diagnosis that is depression?
These are among the many questions addressed in this book; the answers pave the way to a revolutionary—and by that I mean extremely self-empowering!—new approach to well-being.
I’ve seen extraordinary turnarounds in health. Take, for instance, the fifty-six-year-old woman who entered my office complaining of low energy, pervasive pain, dry skin, constipation, weight gain, and forgetfulness. She was taking an antidepressant and a cholesterol-lowering statin but feeling progressively worse and desperate for answers. Within months, she was off all meds, her cholesterol level optimized, and her “depression” vanished. Or consider the thirty-two-year-old woman with a history of premenstrual syndrome (PMS) for which she’d taken birth control pills until trying to become pregnant. When she came in to see me, she was on an antidepressant for her flat mood and fatigue and was unable to conceive despite two years of trying. What followed next was not a miracle but rather something I witness every day in my practice. With a few easy changes to her diet and a combination of other lifestyle strategies—the same ones outlined in this book—she was soon prescription-free and pregnant. She also was symptom-free for the first time in her life.
You’ll be meeting many women in this book whose stories speak for themselves and are emblematic of millions of others who live with unnecessary, life-depleting depression. And I trust that you’ll relate to one or more of them. Whether you’re currently taking antidepressants or not, this book has something for every woman who struggles to feel like the radiant self she deserves to be. I see a lot of patients who have “tried everything” and have been to the country’s top doctors. In fact, a good percentage of my practice involves treating other physicians and psychiatrists.
Many women credit me with the initiation of life transformation. Because I believe passionately in the power of lifestyle medicine to produce changes that are greater than the sum of their parts—bigger, bolder shifts in how we relate to life, spirituality, the environment, and even authorities—I see myself as an ambassador to a new way of experiencing health and well-being. This way of being may be built on the ashes of suffering, but may be the way to rise up, phoenix-like, emboldened, and stronger than ever. That strength and resilience is yours, and it follows you everywhere you take it.
I’ve divided the book into two parts. Part 1: “The Truth About Depression,” takes you on a tour of your mental health’s friends and enemies, from everyday foods to common prescription and over-the-counter medications. You’ll soon be consuming more saturated fat and cholesterol and shopping differently in the grocery store and drugstore. In compelling detail, backed by science, I’ll expose the stunning relationship between your gut’s health and mental health. And I’ll do so within the context of inflammation, an overused buzzword today that most people still don’t truly comprehend, especially when it comes to its critical role in depression. I will prove that depression is often a result of chronic inflammation—simple as that. I also will explain the underlying responsibilities of your immune system in orchestrating all matters of mental health.
Part 1 includes an overview of the latest research on how we can dramatically alter our genetic destiny—how our genes express themselves, including those directly related to mood—through the everyday choices we make in food and activities. The goal of Part 1 is to prep you for the program you’ll embark on in Part 2: “Natural Treatments for Whole-Body Wellness.” This is where I guide you through my program, a program designed both for women not taking medications and those who are and perhaps are dreaming of tapering off. Included is a four-week plan of action, complete with menu plans and strategies for incorporating new lifestyle habits into your day.
For support and ongoing updates, you can go to my website, www.kellybroganmd.com. There you’ll be able to read my blog, watch my instructional videos, access the latest scientific studies, and download materials that will help you tailor the information in this book to your personal preferences.
Once you apply to your life what you learn in these pages, you will reap more than the reward of mental stability. My patients often list the following “side benefits” to my program: feeling in control of their lives and bodies (including effortless weight management); clarity of mind and spirit; enhanced energy; and an unwavering tolerance for distress. Who wouldn’t want these results? The time has come for you to have a mind of your own.
Let’s get started.
* A toxicant refers to any toxic substance, though it’s often a term used to indicate substances made by humans or introduced into the environment by human activity. The term toxin, on the other hand, refers to toxicants produced naturally by a living organism.
It’s Not a Disease: What You Don’t Know About This Syndrome and How It Manifests
Depression can result from bodily imbalance rather than brain chemical imbalance.
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The medicalization of distress obliterates meaning and creates profit.
When I talk about medicine and mental health to large audiences, I often start with the following imagery and facts: think of a woman you know who is radiantly healthy. I bet your intuition tells you she sleeps and eats well, finds purpose in her life, is active and fit, and finds time to relax and enjoy the company of others. I doubt you envision her waking up to prescription bottles, buoying her way through the day with caffeine and sugar, feeling anxious and isolated, and drinking herself to sleep at night. All of us have an intuitive sense of what health is, but many of us have lost the roadmap to optimal health, especially the kind of health that springs forth when we simply clear a path for it. The fact that one in four American women in the prime of their life is dispensed medication for a mental health condition represents a national crisis.1
Humans have used mind-altering substances to try to dull and deaden pain, misery, sorrow, and suffering since time immemorial, but only in the last few decades have people been persuaded that depression is a disease and that chemical antidepressants are the remedy. This is far from the truth. Many of my patients have been to multiple doctors, bumping up against the hard ceiling of what conventional medicine has to offer. Some have even tried integrative medicine, which aims to combine both traditional medicine (i.e.,
