As a retired nutritional psychologist I
have a different view of what causes
anxiety attacks. I have successfully
treated many thousands of people with
anxiety attacks, when I worked as a
nutritional psychotherapist. Anxiety
and panic attacks are also related to many
other so called
mental disorders such as
depression, insomnia, weight gain, ocd and
ptsd and many other personality
disorders.
Most people believe that anxiety attacks
are caused by 'mental' triggers and people
desperately try to control these mental
cues in the mind. When they fail they
may feel that they are weak-willed.
This is based on the false assumption that
that the
mind always controls the
body.
It is true that when we experience an
environmental stress, stress hormone
produced to deal with the problem,
interfere with the production of feel good
neurotransmitters,
like
serotonin.
In that sense excess adrenaline production
causing us to be anxious has survival
values.
But some people produce too much
adrenaline, not because of anything
happening in the environment or in their
mind, but because of some internal
malfunctioning in biochemistry. In
other words anxiety attacks is a sign of
an
endogenous
abnormality, over which the mind has no
control. No amount of "willing", or
rational argument can rid a person of such
attacks, how hard they try.
To understand what is going on, one needs
to realize that adrenaline is a hormone
that helps the body to increase blood
sugar levels. In moments of
emergencies, it diverts biological energy
away from non-essential bodily functions
such as digestion to the autonomic system.
Energy is diverted to the heart, and
other organs required for strenuous action
to deal with the 'emergency'. These
hormonal reactions explains the wide
variety of symptoms in anxiety attacks
ranging from heart palpitation,
hyperventilation, sweating, vomiting,
muscle pain, digestive disorders, and so
on.
Sugar and carbohydrates are the source of
biological energy called
atp.
Without this biological energy, derived
form the sugars in food, the body cannot
produce the feel good neurotransmitters
such as
serotonin.
Adrenaline is not only a relaxing
hormone, but also a
focusing
hormone forcing the person to concentrate
his mind and all his energy on the
"enemy". This explains the occurrence
of obsessive compulsive behaviour in
ocd.
The brain relies on a steady supply of
glucose as its only source of biological
energy to run its biochemical machinery.
If there is an obstruction in that supply
for only a few seconds the brain goes into
a panic mode and sends a hormonal message
to the adrenal glands to pour adrenaline
into the system. This triggers the
conversion of sugar stores -
glycogen -
back into glucose to feed the brain again.
But adrenaline also triggers a fear
response, except that there is no external
source of fear. Hence we have an
irrational fear response that the sufferer
of anxiety attacks cannot explain.
The reason why the brain may be deprived
of energy is that people with anxiety
attacks - and for that matter many other
forms of mental illness - usually have
insulin
resistance. There are many studies
showing a significant association between
depression and insulin resistance.
In fact if you test people with anxiety
attacks with a a four hour
medical test for
hypoglycemia, you will find that most
prove to be positive to the test.
There is also a paper-and-pencil test
called
nutrition
behavior inventory test (nbi), that
will indicate a metabolic disorder if you
score high on that test.
Thus although blood sugar levels may be
above normal, insulin resistance prevents
energy entering into cells, including the
sensitive brain cells.
This may lead to the
hypoglycemic
syndrome, which among others causes
depression and anxiety attacks.
The non-drug treatment for this condition
is the adoption of the
hypoglycemic
diet under the supervision of a
clinical
nutritionist.
This explains why anxiety attacks is
really a nutritional disorder, a concept
that is often difficult to accept among
people who are not aware of the
nutritional biochemistry of mental
illness.
The good news is that this condition can
virtually be treated by the person himself
without having to pay a cent to any
professional.
Jurriaan plesman ba (psych) post grad dip
clin nutr
author of
getting off the
hook
free articles at:
hypoglycemic
association of australia
