Jeffrey Bland explains how immune activity in the brain drives depression, not just low neurotransmitters. In the late 1970s, Dr. David Horrobin found that primrose oil improved mood by calming brain inflammation. Mediterranean diets rich in plants and low in sugar show the same effect.
Questions this video answers
Dr. David Horrobin (late 1970s).
Primrose oil high in dihomo-gamma-linolenic acid (an essential fatty acid).
Candace Pert; psychoneuroimmunology.
Chapters
Immunity plus mental health. What is one of the singular most serious issues that we're confronting right now in our culture? It's depression. As you know, the drug companies have been working for now decades to produce drugs that modulate neurotransmitters in our brain, the things that regulate our mood, to try to reduce then those components of our brains, neurotransmitters that are associated with the production of, of a depressed mood, or try to activate those components of our brain's neurotransmitter system that activate mood. So we're constantly doing this kind of chemistry to better living approach towards mood modification. Some people have called this, and it's probably an extreme term, chemical incarceration that we are using drugs to modulate what the brain can do and the nervous system could do naturally in if it's given a proper opportunity. So this is a very complex topic, but what we do know for sure is that the immune system of our body, and particularly our immune system of our brain, plays a role in regulating our mood, regulating our alertness, regulating our affect. And this is something that I don't believe we've seen explored to the extent that it deserves to be explored. It takes me way back to my discussions with Dr. David Horobin in actually the late 1970s as a psychiatrist and a PhD in immunology, who was really studying the relationship then between the brain's immune system and mood, looking at things like depression. And in fact he was the first person to recognize that certain types of essential fatty acids, like primrose oil, which were high in a specific kind of fat called dihomogamma linolenic acid, was very, very useful in managing depression. Why? Because it activated the brain's immune system in such a way as to regul the balance of these neurotransmitters. So this topic is something that is much more than just taking a drug to try to block depression. It really relates to how we support and optimize the individual's immune system that regulates and has impact upon brain function and then subsequently controls the balance of these neurotransmitters that regulate up and down mood. So I think that what we will find over the course of engagement with Big Bold Health is really looking at this concept of mood in a very different way. Utilizing things like what we've learned from the studies done in the Mediterranean diet that have shown significant improvements in mood in individuals that have been taking a phytochemically rich, low sugar, high complex diet with a variety of colored foods, and the influence it has on their mood. Not just because it's really fun to eat those foods, but because the nutrients in those foods also participate in the support of the brain's mood regulating neurotransmitters and neurochemicals. A very powerful new topic for investigation and study. It's like we were seeing in work that had been done previous by Candace Pert, in which he had really talked about psychoneuroimmunology, how the brain is connected to the nervous system, which is connected to the immune system that then regulates our mood, mind, memory and behavior. So, so this is a great part of our big bold health imperative. Be part of our community. We're going to move down this training program and understanding of how to personalize that approach towards immune brain health and mood.
