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Depression and the FDA

September 7th, 2008

It is no secret that I do not like the FDA. The very existence of that Leviathan organization suppresses innovation and promotes the cronyism so prevalent in the Big Pharma-Mainstream Medical Complex we have today.

The entire concept of the Mainstream Medical Model is defined by waiting for some disease to occur, then hit it with a toxic, foreign chemical called a prescription drug in the hopes that it will improved.  More often the rule, and not the exception, is that the prescription drug is worse than the disease it was intended to treat.  History if full of examples beginning with blood letting to arsenic administration in vain hopes of improving one’s sickened condition.

The latest version is the treatment of depression with a broad class of prescriptive drugs called anti-depressants.  There are multiple classes of anti-depressants.  The details of those classes are not important, whether they be “tricyclics” or “SSRI’s (Selective Serotonin  Reuptake Inhibitors).What is important is that they universally fail to improve depression and worse, turn the user into a zombie.

What we promote is that depression is a condition that is caused by a biological deficiency, namely of a combination of a deficiency of hormones and certain essential nutrients.  When those deficiencies are replenished, then the depression goes away.

This model is the basis of Naturopathic Medicine. I am not a naturopath, but a medical doctor.  However, in my career through trial and error and ultimate rejection of the failed mainstream prescription drug model, this is the approach that makes the most  sense and most often is successful.

This is no different from early theories about vitamins, without which some notorious diseases can occur.  These are well known to any first year biology student.

The same approach applies to depression. And migraine headaches.  And PMS.  And infertility.  And I will venture on and say also applies to inflammatory diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, Lupus, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s Disease, etc.

Going further, heart disease and cancers are largely preventable as well.

This whole concept is rejected outright by my mainstream physician colleagues. Of course, they have been brainwashed, like I used to be by the education we received from medical school to the present.  Our physician education is controlled by the research largely sponsored by the Big Drug companies.

Don’t let NIH grants fool you. Research is controlled for the benefit of big drug companies so they introduce the next blockbuster drug.  Trillions of dollars (and Euros and Pounds Sterling) are at stake.

The latest version is the treatment of depression with a broad class of prescriptive drugs called anti-depressants.  There are multiple classes of anti-depressants.  The details of those classes are not important, whether they be “tricyclics” or “SSRI’s (Selective Serotonin  Reuptake Inhibitors).What is important is that they universally fail to improve depression and worse, turn the user into a zombie.

What we promote is that depression is a condition that is caused by a biological deficiency, namely of a combination of a deficiency of hormones and certain essential nutrients.  When those deficiencies are replenished, then the depression goes away.

Andrew Jones, M.D.

Medical Director, Women’s Health Institute of Texas

www.AndrewJonesMD.com

www.PMScure.com

www.Migraine-Headaches-Information.com

Vitamin D - and I Don’t Mean Depression

July 25th, 2008

One of my new recommendations for 2008 is the supplementation with Vitamin D. Practically everyone on the planet is deficient in Vitamin D.

One thing we are finding out recently is just how important Vitamin D really is. I was taught in medical school that Vitamin D is just good for keeping your bones strong and that all you needed was just a few minutes of brisk sunshine to get a sufficient amount for the day.

WRONG.

We are in a new world and Vitamin D is much more important than we previously believed and EVERYONE IS DEFICIENT in Vitamin D.

The science of Vitamin D has exploded in the last few years. Only recently has the enormity of this crucial vitamin been revealed in one blockbuster study after another.

For one thing, we are finding out Vitamin D is critical for containing inflammation. Chronic inflammatory conditions can lead to lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, chronic pain, muscle pain, heart disease, depression, dementia and especially cancers.

One of the major recent findings on inflammation was the discovery of NF-kappaB. This NF-kappaB lives in the cytosol of cells and appears to be a major promoter of the inflammatory pathway. It is activated by injury, radiation, stress, allergens, viral infections, certain prostaglandins, toxins (like pesticides), low levels of omega fatty acids and, you guessed it, low levels of Vitamin D.

Vitamin D appears to be critical in cancer suppression. I won’t go in any more detail here but Dr. Damien Downing presents graphic evidence on the role of Vitamin D and suppression of cancer.

In summary, whether you have depression or not, I am recommending that everyone on the planet take 5000 units of Vitamin D every day, forever.  You can get it here: www.vitaminD5000.com
Andrew Jones, M.D.

www.DepressionGoneForever.com

www.Migraine-Headaches-Information.com

www.PMScure.com

www.AndrewJonesMD.com

www.1-Menopause.com

Vitamin D - and I Don’t Mean Depression

July 25th, 2008

One of my new recommendations for 2008 is the supplementation with Vitamin D.  Practically everyone on the planet is deficient in Vitamin D.

One thing we are finding out recently is just how important Vitamin D really is. I was taught in medical school that Vitamin D is just good for keeping your bones strong and that all you needed was just a few minutes of brisk sunshine to get a sufficient amount for the day.

WRONG.

We are in a new world and Vitamin D is much more important than we previously believed and EVERYONE IS DEFICIENT  in  Vitamin D.

The science of Vitamin D has exploded in the last few years. Only recently has the enormity of this crucial vitamin been revealed in one blockbuster study after another.

For one thing, we are finding out Vitamin D is critical for containing inflammation.  Chronic inflammatory conditions can lead to lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, chronic pain, muscle pain, heart disease, depression, dementia and especially cancers.

One of the major recent findings on inflammation was the discovery of NF-kappaB. This NF-kappaB lives in the cytosol of cells and appears to be a major promoter of the inflammatory pathway. It is activated by injury, radiation, stress, allergens, viral infections, certain prostaglandins, toxins (like pesticides), low levels of omega fatty acids and, you guessed it, low levels of Vitamin D.

Vitamin D appears to be critical in cancer suppression.  I won’t go in any more detail here but Dr. Damien Downing presents graphic evidence on the role of Vitamin D and suppression of cancer.

In summary, whether you have depression or not, I am recommending that everyone on the planet take 5000 units of Vitamin D every day, forever.

Andrew Jones, M.D.

www.DepressionGoneForever.com

www.Migraine-Headaches-Information.com

www.PMScure.com

www.AndrewJonesMD.com

www.1-Menopause.com

Bipolar versus Unipolar Depression

February 8th, 2008

There is a big difference between bipolar and unipolar depression. Depression is bipolar when it is characterized by alternating episodes of deep depression with mania. Hence the name, “Manic Depression”.

Unipolar depression is the more common, but equally stubborn steady depression without the binge episodes of mania.

In my experience, unipolar depression is much easier to treat and make people feel better, especially women where it there appears to be a significant hormonal component. There is probably some hormone component with bipolar but our success is far better with unipolar.

This is why we are concentrating strictly on women with unipolar depression on the accompanying website. A woman with unipolar depression stands a good chance of complete relief under our program. Bipolar depression is a totally different story.

There is a new study involving the use of the motion sickness patch, Transderm Scopolamine for those afflicted with bipolar depression. Researchers published a preliminary review of some limited successes of the depression component back in October of 2006 and are still continuing the study. It will not be the panacea but it may be better than nothing.

In the meantime, for those women who suffer from debilitating unipolar depression, follow our recommend treatment plan outlining a multi-step hormone and supplement addition and most of our women get complete relief.

Andrew Jones, M.D.

Medical Director, Women’s Health Institute of Texas

www.DepressionGoneForever.com

www.Migraine-Headaches-Information.com

www.PMScure.com

Depression, Stress and Skin

October 20th, 2007

A recent article in the Parade magazine that accompanies many sunday newspapers discussed “Stress and Your Skin”.  Written by dermatologist, Amy Wechsler, M.D., it was actually a very good article in describing some of the physiologic issues involving “stress”.

She discusses hormones, namely cortisol, in the stress reaction that the body produces in responses to stress and how much of chronic overproduction of adrenal hormones can lead to acne. 

Long term stress is not good.  This plays havoc with the body and utltimately causes a condition called “adrenal fatigue”.  This means that the adrenal gland, which produces cortisol, adrenaline and androgenic hormones like testosterone and DHEA, that begins to wear out with a resulting decline in the production of these hormones.

Ovarian hormone production is also increased during stress and over time, they can begin to decline.  Stress for a long enough time oftentimes leads to depression.  Which is where we fit in.

In my book, “The All-Natural Cure for Your Depression“, I discuss the impact of stress on hormone production and how we have to replenish the lost hormones.  We are very successful at reversing depression once we start replacing the lost hormones.  More than one hormone is involved and it can get complicated, but given time, we are usually successful.

Andrew Jones, M.D.

Medical Director, Women’s Health Institute of Texas

www.AndrewJonesMD.com

www.DepressionGoneForever.com

www.PMScure.com

www.Migraine-Headaches-Information.com

 

Can Depression Make You Fat?

August 30th, 2007

As a migraine headache doctor and as a hormone doctor, I have noticed a strong correlation between women with migraine headache symptoms and body fat.  I have also noticed the same thing in women with PMS, mood disorder or depressive disorder and clinical depression.

So is a hormone to blame for those extra pounds?  Yes - well maybe?

Yes, hormones are definitely involved in fat cell metabolism.  Sex hormones are lipophillic, meaning that they can enter into fat cells quite easily and stay there.  Estrogen, in particular, accumulates in fat cells.  This is why heavier women tend to have very strong estrogen dominant features.

Estrogen promotes water retention, enlarged breasts, breast fullness, irratibility, anxiety, decreased mental functioning, edema, loss of libido and all of the gynecologic cancers.  Estrogen antagonists like progesterone do exactly the opposite.

Another hormone that has bad press, called cortisol, was targeted in a highly effective marketing campaign several years for a weight loss product that was heavily promoted on TV and radio.  Cortisol was unfairly blamed for weight gain when it only is implicated in obesity in certain rare conditiions called Cushing’s Syndrome.  Nevertheless, the marketers made a ton of money, but few people actually lost weight from their product. 

High doses of cortisol can cause water retention.   Certain cortisol-like prescription drugs like prednisone, dexamethosone and steroids used for injection procedures can definitely cause water retention and hunger pangs.  But these are not bio-identical to cortisol and they have a mountain of side effects beyond those already mentioned.

An interesting new hormone, that is not a sex hormone, has been implicated in abdominal fat creation.  This hormone, called neuropeptide Y (NPY), has been studied in mice.  When researchers blocked NPY in obese mice, the mice fat buildup promptly melted away.  “It’s incredible”, according to Dr. Zofia Zukowska of Georgetown University.

The opposite worked as well.  When normal mice were injected with NPY, they developed abdominal obesity.  When they were given the NPY blockers, the belly fat disappeared.

Look for more interest in NPY and especially, the NPY blockers.

Andrew Jones, M.D.

Medical Director, Women’s Health Institute of Texas

www.Migraine-Headaches-Information.com

www.PMScure.com

www.DepressionGoneForever.com

 

Depression and Drugs - Too Much of a Bad Thing

August 24th, 2007

A recent article featured in the August 6th issue of U.S. News & World Report revealed that depression is overly diagnosed in America and over-treated with anti-depressants.  What the article did not say is that the main treatment for depression used by physicians worldwide - anti-depressant drugs- doesn’t work, even on those who are correctly diagnosed with depression.

The problem is two fold: First, too many people are diagnosed with clinical depression, when they actually just have sadness or grief.  Secondly, those that are accurately diagnosed get a bad treatment in the form of anti-depressant medications - a misnomer of a name for a class of drugs that are not “anti” depressants at all.  Rather they are more akin to zombie creating drugs that calm people down.

I am not worried about physicians being overly aggressive in diagnosing depression.  Frankly, even grief reactions and sadness could use a little help and uplifting for those who are experiencing it.  There is a continuum of severity of depression ranging from melancholic to frank clinical depression and everyone needs help.

But when the only treatment in mainstream medicine is a toxic drug that tops the top 10 sales list year in and year out and doesn’t even alter the clinical course, then this is a miserable attempt at correcting the problem.

We see the same sort of approach with other maladies like migraine headaches, menopause and Pre-Menstrual Syndrome or PMS (also called PMDD).  Here, mainstream medicine usually does a good job of diagnosing, but is clueless on how to make them better.

The proper approach to all of these problems is to assess them hormonally.  Hormones, (or the deficiency of them more accurately), are the driving factors that cause a migraine headache, various headache symptoms, depression, PMS or PMDD.  Replenishing the deficient hormone(s) is the more natural, effective and safer alternative. 

As far as anti-depressant drugs are concerned, society would be better off without them.  Diagnose as many people with sadness or grief, but give them a little encouragement and bio-identical hormones.

 Andrew Jones, M.D.

Medical Director, Women’s Health Institute of Texas

www.DepressionGoneForever.com

www.Migraine-Headaches-Information.com

www.PMScure.com

www.AndrewJonesMD.com

 

 

How Safe are Statins?

August 16th, 2007

An article entitled, “A Downside of Statins” appeared in the August 6, 2007, issue of the US News & World Report.  Statins are the extremely popular cholesterol lowering medications like Mevacor, Crestor, Lipitor, Provachol and Zocor that are prescribed to about 25 million people worldwide.

What does this have to with women’s hormones and their relationship to migraine headaches, PMS (PMDD), menopause and depression?  These statin drugs are just another example of prescription medications that were supposed to be a panacea for health that turns out to have unexpected side effects.

The good news is that statins really do lower cholesterol.  The bad news is that they may increase your chances of getting cancer.  The Journal of the Amercan College of Cardiology released a report that the lower levels of cholesterol achieved by these drugs was associated with a higher risk of cancers (like breast, prostate, lung and colon).

The mainstream naysayers are already backpedalling saying two things: 1) That this is just a mere “association” and 2) That it is only an extra one cancer out of a thousand increase.

Without getting into the ninny-nanny details of whether this is significant or not, I think they miss the overall point.  In all my years of medicine, I have never seen, in normal people, that the lowering of cholesterol to ridiculously low levels actually makes a difference in increasing one’s lifespan.

Here is a fact that you probably did not know: Just as many people have heart attacks with “normal” cholesterol as with elevated cholesterol.  So why are we killing ourselves over cholesterol?

Because there are some people walking around with extremely high levels of cholesterol (like 400 plus) that are indeed, a walking time bomb for a heart attack.  Those people also have very strong family histories of heart disease and frequently have siblings drop dead suddently at age 42.

But for the vast majority of people, whose cholesterol is running around between 200 and 250, I have never seen proof that taking a toxic medication like a statin drug really makes a difference.

The fact that researchers are discovering evidence that some folks get cancers with aggressive dosing of statins should surprise nobody, because ALL prescription medications are toxic, by definition.  Anything that is not bio-identical to the body is a foreign substance and therefore will be poisonous at some point.

I make this point because women’s health issues concerning migraines, PMS, PMDD, menopause and depression are, in part, caused by exposure to toxic prescription medications like birth control pills and synthetic hormone replacement therapy.  Of course, the way we treat these conditions is to do two things:  We stop the offending drugs and then balance the deficient hormones caused by these drugs with bio-identical hormones.

What holds true for women’s health issues caused by toxic medications should also apply to other health problems caused by other prescription drugs.

This is not rocket science.  Just common sense.

Andrew Jones, M.D.

Medical Director, Women’s Health Institute of Texas

www.Migraine-Headaches-Information.com

www.PMScure.com

www.DepressionGoneForever.com

www.AndrewJonesMD.com

Here is the New Cure for Depression

August 11th, 2007

We have already established that migraine headaches, PMS, PMDD and menopause are caused by the lack or imbalance of hormones.   Did you know that know that depression is also hormonally mediated as well?

That’s right.  Clinical depression is nothing more than a lack of hormones.  At the Women’s Health Institute of Texas, we have known this for years.  We have also been successfully treating depression (along with migraines and PMS and menopause) with bio-identical hormones and other supplements.

There is a new website, www.DepressionGoneForever.com where you can download my latest book, The All-Natural Cure For Your Depression.

This book describes the treatment plan we use to successfully cure depression.  It builds upon the already successful plans we use for migraine headaches and PMS.  The depression plan is more complicated than the others, however, and requires more types of hormones than do migraines or PMS.

So if you or someone you know might benefit from a depression cure, please click on www.DepressionGoneForever.com and download your book now.

Andrew Jones, M.D.

Medical Director, Women’s Health Insitute of Texas

www.Migraine-Headaches-Information.com

www.PMScure.com

www.DepressionGoneForever.com

www.AndrewJonesMD.com

New Long Term Birth Control Pill Goes on Market This Week

August 1st, 2007

The media is trumpeting the newest birth control pill - Lybrel.  This is the long term pill that’s like the Energizer Bunny - it keeps going and going.

The problem is that the “controversy” surrounding the introduction of this drug is all wrong.  The media is focusing on whether it is natural or not to suppress periods for months or years at a time.  Believe it or not, but anthropolgists are getting into the act by discussing the social implications of eliminating menstruation and whether society views menstruation as something that is shameful.

They have it all wrong.  In my crusade to improve the lives of women who have migraine headaches, PMS (PMDD), depression, menopause and numerous other problems, the problem is the Pill itself and its cousin, synthetic HRT (hormone replacement therapy).

The combination of birth control pills (BCP’s) and synthetic HRT has caused an epidemic of disorders either that never existed or were rare prior to the introduction of these drugs.  The fact that the media is discussing the sociological impact of not having periods is not relevant to the fact that BCP’s cause harm - lots of it - to women.

What we should be discussing is how much poisons BCP’s introduce into women’s bodies.  The sheer fact that the standard regimin of the Pill consisted of taking it for 3 weeks with one week off was toxic enough.  Introducing a new Pill that puts out poisons without stopping for a break has to be infinitely worse.

The long term Pill is nothing but 24/7 poison.  It is a bad idea on top of a previously bad problem.

If the long term Pill becomes popular, then we can look forward to an increasing incidence of migraines, PMS (PMDD), depression, anxiety, menopause, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, uterine cancer, fibroids, ovarian cysts and the list goes on.

Andrew Jones, M.D.

Medical Director, Women’s Health Institute of Texas

www.Migraine-Headaches-Information.com

www.PMScure.com

www.DepressionGoneForever.com

www.DitchThePill.org