Monday, July 25, 2016

The Gut Brain Connection

The Gut-Brain Connection
From a proactive perspective, it's important to realize that you have the potential to take control over your health, including your mental or psychiatric health.
Psychiatric conditions such as OCD are primarily believed to be the result of chemical dysfunction in your brain, or in some cases hereditary and therefore out of your control. Many fail to realize that a) your lifestyle can override genetic predispositions, and b) your lifestyle can be a m...ajor underlying cause of that chemical imbalance or dysfunction.
So, there's plenty of reason to take a closer look at lifestyle factors such as diet and toxic exposures—whether you want to prevent a health condition, or treat it.
Some may object and say that a child hasn't had enough time to develop bad lifestyle habits, but when it comes to health problems related to the brain, the GUT is typically involved, and children are now increasingly BORN with damaged gut flora—courtesy of less than ideal lifestyle choices by the child's mother...
In a very real sense, you have two brains: one inside your skull and one in your gut.
While they may seem very different, these two organs are actually created out of the same type of tissue. During fetal development, one part turns into your central nervous system while the other develops into your enteric nervous system.
Your vagus nerve—the tenth cranial nerve that runs from your brain stem down to your abdomen—connects these two organs together. Your gut actually produces more of the neurotransmitter serotonin—thought to play an important role in OCD, in addition to having a beneficial influence on your mood in general—than your brain does, so optimizing your gut flora may indeed have tremendous benefit for your psychological health. And there's plenty of evidence to suggest that this needs to begin from birth, or even, ideally, before birth.
Dr. Mercola recommends probiotics to help the gut.

Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride has successfully demonstrated the power and effectiveness of this theory. In her Cambridge, England clinic, she treats children and adults with a range of conditions, including autism, neurological disorders, psychiatric disorders, immune disorders, and digestive problems using the GAPS (Gut and Psychology Syndrome) Nutritional Program, which she developed.

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