From all the reading I’ve done over the past couple of years with trying to help myself I’ve found that mental health involves full body health – physically, emotionally and intellectually.  This is the first post (hopefully of many) that talks about what I have learned.  It has mostly quotes that show that the gut and brain are connected and that the gut really is a second brain.

When reading the book 'Detoxification and Healing' by Dr. Sydney Baker the sentence below struck me as relevant and started me thinking.  I know from reading that the gut is important to proper health, but gut health and brain health (mental health) are interrelated and need to be looked at closely together if a person has mental problems and trying to overcome difficulties, especially if a person doesn’t want to take prescription medication or come off of them properly.  I think it is one way to mental health that involves a different approach that is more holistic.  A personal example is that I found out that I have hook worm in my gut and bad bugs that really upset my system.  My Functional Medicine provider sent my lab results to an expert and I’m going to be taking prescription medication to help start the healing of my gut by killing the bad stuff.  I’m also going to commit again to changing my diet to eliminate soy, dairy and gluten (all of which I found I have allergies to – see last blog post).

'Detoxification and Healing' pg 31:

“The place in the body where germs are least accessible to control by our various immune mechanisms is the intestinal tract, where parasites and the outgrowth of yeasts are the most common provokers of a hypervigilant immune system."

What is interesting is that the intestinal tract has been described as a major component of the immune system and connected to brain by Dr. Sherry Rogers and Dr. Mark Hyman.  Seems to be that if the gut is bad off and not functioning properly, it sets the tone for a lot of things - not taking in nutrients, proper immune function and maybe a lot more involving mental health.  I think of the Intestinal Tract as the lungs of the immune system: detoxification - riding of toxins etc (breathing out) and taking in nutrients etc (breathing in). Also it seems that the intestinal track is a major weak spot in our system or a potential weak spot because of what parasites and bad bugs can do to our whole body system.

Dr. Mark Hyman in 'The UltraMind Solution' describes the gut as having a 'mind of its own' and connected and communicating with the brain.

pg 194

“We all have had gut feelings. And we know what it is to feel something in our gut. In Japan, the gut is viewed as the seat of the mind and soul. A Japanese business mogul was once asked how he knew whether to do a deal, and he replied, "I swallow it, and if it feels good in my belly, I do it."

Your gut is has a mind of its own...

The "mind" of the gut talks to your brain every day. We are familiar with signals for hunger, or elimination. But a new conversation is being discovered between the gut and the brain, a biodirectional conversation in which the brain speaks to the gut and the gut speaks to the brain.”

pg 198

“The gut has to be completely in balance for your brain to be in balance. The brain experiences everything that happens in your gut directly through nervous system feedback, immune activity, cytokines, and other assorted mischievous molecules made in your gut.”

pg 199

“Dr. Michael Gershon, of Columbia University, has called the gut the "second brain." In fact, your gut has a mind of its own, literally. While it is connected to the brain through an extensive network of wiring and communication systems, it is also the only "organ" besides the brain that has its own nervous system.

We call it the ENS, or enteric (or gut) nervous system, as opposed to the CNS, or central nervous system. The small intestine alone has as many neurons as the spinal cord. Ninety-five percent of the body's serotonin (remember, that's the happy mood chemical) is produced by the gut nerve cells, and every class of neurotransmitters found in the brain is also found in the gut.

The question is how does this nervous system below interact with the one above?

The gut brain actually comes from the same embryonic tissue as the "brain" brain. And it is still connected via the autonomic nervous system-the sympathetic and parasympathetic nerves.

Acting completely independently, it has a number of important jobs: it keeps everything moving in the right direction from the top down by coordinating of muscle cells; it triggers the gut hormones and enzymes to be released from cells to promote digestion; it helps keep the blood flowing so that when you absorb your food it can get to where it needs to go, and it controls the immune and inflammatory cells in the gut.

All that happens in the background and is communicated back up to your brain via the autonomic nervous system. Think of it as two independent, but interdependent, businesses that must coordinate and communicate but can act independently.”

pg 201

“The gut immune system "speaks" to the brain, sending messages of inflammation, which increases levels of CRF (corticotropin releasing factor) in the hypothalamus (which, in turn, increases stress hormones like cortisol), and changes neurotransmitter levels.

Your gut is talking to your brain. And when these bacteria are involved, the communication isn't good.”

From 'Detoxify or Die' by Dr. Sherry Rogers where she mentions at least twice that the gut makes up half the immune system, but couldn't find a more complete explanation of the immune system.

pg 80

“If you remember nothing else about the gut, remember this: The intestinal lining houses not only half of the immune system for the whole body, but also half of the detoxification system.”

“But most folks have a hazy concept of what the immune system involves because we cannot see it, we can't operate on it or cut it out or transplant it. But we also cannot live without it, for it is our police force that protects us from invading bugs, cancer cells and toxins. If it fails, we have infection. [...] All disease have aspects of immune dysfunction. Furthermore, half of the immune system for the entire body lies inside the gut lining, which is why gut health is so important to recovery from anything.”

In 'Detoxification and Healing' by Dr. Sydney Baker he talks about the immune system, which I take to equate in large part to the gut or intestinal tract from what Rogers' says, but I haven't tracked down more information.

pg 5

“When our immune system detects something, the process is very much like such an unconscious effect of an odor. It all happens, so to speak, beneath the radar of your central nervous system, but it is still a kind of perception that sets your chemistry in motion. So far I have made the point that memory resides in the central nervous and immune systems, which are the home of the body's permanent cells. Now I am saying that the brain and immune system share another function: perceiving the world.”

pg 6

“Immune function and central nervous function are identical. Each perceives and each remembers. We use the word recognition with equal comfort in describing activities (perception and memory) shared by the brain and immune system. The only difference, except for anatomy, is the size of the objects we perceive and remember.”

pg 8

“A "new discipline" of psychoneuroimmunology has grown up around observations linking the function of the brain and psyche with that of the immune system, which had been considered on anatomical grounds to be quite separate. For example, many individuals who have suffered the loss of a loved one undergo a period of immune suppression during the time of their most intense grief. As startling as the connections between the brain and immune system may be for those of us who have based our thinking on anatomy, we should not be surprised to recognize the immune system and brain as a unit if we base our thinking on function.”

And so I’ve come to the hypothesis that a person who has mental issues really needs to consider diet and intestinal tract proper function because it really does impact mental health as well as physical health because all parts and systems of the body are interrelated.

Also, I remembered the book 'Blink' by Malcolm Gladwell that I read awhile ago and found an interesting quote:

pg 11

“The part of the brain that leaps to conclusions like this is called the adaptive unconscious, and the study of this kind of decision making is one of the most important new fields in psychology. [...]

This new notion of the adaptive unconscious is thought of, instead, as a kind of giant computer that quickly and quietly processes a lot of the data we need in order to keep functioning as human beings. When you walk out into the street and suddenly realize that a truck is bearing down on you, do you have time to think through all your options? Of course no. The only way that human beings could ever have survived as a species for as long as we have is that we've developed another kind of decision-making apparatus that's capable of making very quick judgements based on very little information.”

So finally, I look at the gut as part of or a major component of the “adaptive unconscious” and that a person needs the gut (second brain) to be functioning properly to be able to make proper quick decisions.  The more I read about the digestive system the more I think that most people who have mental problems would be helped if they fixed their gut.

I found this to be an exceptional read about the colon - clear and concise.  It's long, but worth reading to have idea about the digestive system in reference to the above material.

Journey to the Center of Your Colon

http://www.thedoctorwithin.com/colon/journey-to-the-center-of-your-colon/

Tags: Brain Intestinal Tract Diet Health

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