I recently stumbled upon a book (almost literally) that would normally be outside of my spectrum of reading, but it nonetheless irked my interest enough to take it home. With a increased emphasis on active/healthy living in my own day-to-day life, the book “The ultramind solution” written by physician Mark Hyman caught my attention. Here are some concepts that have me excited to learn more:
Although I am not certain that I buy everything that the author is selling, he does make some quite interesting points with respect to how our modern day nutrition interacts with our genes to predispose us to conditions such as anxiety, depression, ADHD, etc. (which he loosely terms a “broken brain”). He focuses on nutrients and vitamins that are key to maintaining a healthy brain, and how the over-processed undernourished foods that we eat on a regular basis are key factors to the over-representation of mental health conditions in our society today. The book is filled with self-quizzes to help determine if you are deprived in things such as Omega fatty-acids, vitamins b6 and 12, magnesium and more. The author goes on to describe the roles of neurotransmitters and hormones on maintaining a healthy brain. He goes on to describe topics such as the pathophysiology of lead and mercury poisoning, how high intake of simple sugars can cause toxicity, and how one person might be more efficient at clearing toxins than someone else.
One take home lesson (for me) comes from Dr. Hyman’s talk of treating the whole body system as opposed to treating individual systems and individual symptoms (as is often the case in current western medicine). He uses examples of people with joint pain, mental disorders, skin conditions, and digestive issues which are all occurring simultaneously. Dr. Hyman believes that instead of sending this patient to 4 different specialists (whom are likely to put them on many different medications), we should look for a common cause and try to treat the cause instead of the symptoms. In this case, he turns to the diet and speaks of many successful cases where fixing the “broken diet”, has also fixed the “broken brain” and many of the other symptoms. Treatment may include food avoidance or vitamin/nutrient supplementation for example.
At South Simcoe Physiotherapy we are constantly taking a “systems approach” to our treatments. We are often faced with individuals whom have been unsuccessfully treated at other clinics and we have to decide what was missed. A simple example is someone with a chronic “tennis elbow”. Often these individuals have chronic symptoms that will not resolve due to a problem further up the chain. If this person’s pain is mistaken for simple “tennis elbow”, the symptoms are unlikely to resolve. Once the actual source of their pain has been determined, the individual can be successfully treated. A skilled therapist, no matter what the profession, will treat the cause of the symptoms, not just the symptom itself.
If you or someone you know have an injury that hasn’t responded to traditional therapy come and see one of our exceptionally skilled physiotherapists/massage therapist . If you have any questions or concerns with respect to nutrition and want to know if you’re missing any of the key nutrients or vitamins that I briefly touched upon above, come and see Chelsea Burt our Holistic Nutritionist for your free consult.