I just spent three days at a Brain Chemistry seminar learning some basics of Functional Neurology.  During the course of the seminar, a simple but key concept got across that I had not encountered before relative to our nerve cells.

In many aspects of life, the American viewpoint is, "If some is good, then more is better."  This certainly appears to be true when we are talking about money in my checking account.  Quality of life, and availability of healthy choices also seem to fit into this category.  A drug addict will always tell you that more is better when you are talking about their favorite drug.  This relationship to drugs seems to prevail with many drugs, especially those that make us feel better.  If something makes us feel a little bit better, then our demand is for more of that drug.  Who wouldn't want to feel a lot better?

The concept that was explained in the seminar is that when it comes to substances that make us feel the way we want, the rule actually reads, "If some is good, more will kill."  How could too much of something that feels good cause death?  This is where the brain chemistry comes in.

We should feel good most of the time.  When our brain is healthy and has the good nutrition it needs, it feels good.  So if we do not feel good long enough to seek out help from a doctor or from taking some sort of pill, something is amiss in our brain.  Most of the time "something wrong" comes down to one of three things for the brain:  Either there is not enough oxygen, the wrong amount of blood sugar, or there is inflammation.  Sure there is the occasional brain tumor or bullet wound in the head that does not feel so good, but 99% of the time it is some combination of oxygen, blood sugar, and inflammation.

Inflammation, I have written about many times, and this seminar once again reinforced the use of turmeric and resveratrol as the key herbs to calm down the inflamed brain.  The key seminar concept involves the oxygen and blood sugar part of the equation.

For those of you that took high school biology, you might remember that the energy molecule that fuels absolutely everything in the body is called ATP.  ATP is made in the cells by breaking down blood sugar (glucose) through combining it with oxygen.  This is the fundamental metabolism of the cells - the manufacture of fuel in the form of ATP to then use to do all the other things cells need to do.  For nerve cells that means making and squirting out neurotransmitters between cells to form the nerve impulses that make the brain work.

What is the main symptom that your brain fuel production is not working?  Fatigue is the primary symptom.  You just don't have the energy to do what you used to be able to do.  Your mental endurance is down.  This might show up as getting tired while reading technical information or not being able to drive as long as you used to.  It might show up as depression because you literally don't have the energy to feel up and happy.  You may have adapted by learning to use coffee or tea and you feel you just can't get going in the morning without your coffee.  Your attention span may be decreased and you have difficulty learning new things.  These are all symptoms of your brain just not having enough energy to do its job.

When you feel bad for quite a while, often this is telling us that your cells are not producing enough fuel to make and squirt those neurotransmitters that make your brain work right.  That is what makes you feel bad.  Something has gone wrong with your energy production process.  Sometimes that is about not enough oxygen getting to the nerve cells.  A simple test they showed us for one type of blood flow problem in the brain also shows up in our fingers.  If you simply squeeze one finger tip with the thumb and first finger of the other hand for a few seconds to squeeze the blood out of it with the pressure, you can measure how well blood is flowing in the tiny blood vessels in your finger and brain.  Let go quickly of the squeezed finger and count how many seconds it takes for the blood to fill the finger up again.  At first it will be white and then it will return to its normal pink color.  If you have good circulation, it should only take one second to return to pink.  If it takes three, four, or more seconds to turn back to pink, then your circulation is compromised.  This is called poor perfusion.  This means your brain is starving for oxygen as well.

The other big energy production problem is unbalanced blood sugar.  Obviously if you have low blood sugar you will not have enough sugar to burn to make the energy you need.  Too much sugar is actually toxic.  The reason our bodies always burn sugar first is because it is very toxic.  Sugar destroys the building blocks our body is made from - proteins.  Sugar combines with proteins to make substances that our body can not use so they gum up the works in the body.  So sugar is like gasoline in our blood. Not enough gas and the engine falters and dies while too much gas will flood the engine and it will also die.  If we can use sugar as fast as it enters our blood stream to make our energy molecules of ATP, we are good.  If we can't use it fast enough, we get poisoned.  This is called diabetes.

Let's get back to our beginning question, "If some is good, then more is ?"  If our brain cells are low in energy, they can't make enough neurotransmitters and squirt them out to make our brain feel right.  If we are low in sugar, then adding a little more sugar feels better up to a point.  Too much sugar and we start to get toxic reactions.  The scarier situation is when our oxygen levels are low due to poor circulation.  If we take a drug that stimulates our brain cells to push out more neurotransmitters so we will feel better, that will demand more energy usage by the cells.  What can the cell do if it does not have enough oxygen to make the extra fuel it needs to do what the drug is telling it to do?  Your nerve cells do the same thing your muscles do when you exercise so fast you can't get enough oxygen to the muscle cells.  They burn their sugar to make energy without the oxygen in a shortcut process called anaerobic metabolism.  It is a shortcut because it will produce a shout burst of energy production from sugar, but only actually get less than one quarter of the energy out of the sugar and leave a very toxic byproduct called lactic acid.

Athletes are very aware of lactic acid.  That is what makes muscles sore after you work out.  Well, in nerve cells it has a very different impact.  Lactic acid causes your nerve cells to blow up.  That's right, they self destruct when lactic acid builds up inside of them.  The big concept of the seminar I am talking about is that if your brain energy production is compromised by poor circulation or anything else that decreases the oxygen to your brain like anemia, pushing your cells to perform better with drugs actually causes your brain to self destruct.  I am not just talking about street drugs here.  I am talking about the pharmaceuticals that are so massively prescribed to make us feel better or  to stop depression.  I am even talking about herbal supplements that are designed to do the same thing.  

So many times I have heard patients tell me about how some medicine or supplement they were taking helped in the beginning then stopped working and now they feel worse than ever.  They feel worse than ever because they have just killed a bunch of their brain cells.  Killed brain cells don't come back.  For every thousand brain cells that die, less than 10 of them are ever replaced.  Some drugs are so powerful that it stimulates even healthy cells into anaerobic metabolism and causes them to explode.  Some is good, but more is death.

What is the message of all this cheery news?  If you have a choice, don't jump to drugs to fix your brain problems until you first heal the basics. Get your blood sugar balanced first.  Solve any anemia troubles and correct any blood flow issues before you ever think of popping any mood-altering pills.  Clean up the inflammation, the oxygenation, and the blood sugar first. Most of the time you won't even need the pills to make you feel better.  Brain health will reestablish the natural good feeling that you are meant to have.  Yes, sometimes medicinal drugs are an immediate necessity, but they generally involve a price to pay.  In your brain that price is the death of brain cells that you can not get back.  If you have the luxury of the time needed to heal the basic problems, you can usually avoid having to pay that price.

Take care,


David

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Finding the new location is very easy.  Coming from highway 50 up Sunrise Blvd, you turn left and go up a block.  We are on the right hand side - the building just past the Subway Sandwich shop.  If you are coming down Sunrise from the Mall area then just turn right on Fair Oaks Blvd and up a block on the right.

 

If you are coming from the Roseville area you could come down Sunrise Blvd, but that is a long trek.  It is probably shorter time wise to come down Auburn Blvd - San Juan Ave like you have been for the Sunset office, but instead of turning left at Sunset, keep going straight 3 more lights to Fair Oaks Blvd and turn left.  Go down 2 lights to New York Ave, go through the intersection, and immediately turn into the turn lane once the center divider ends.  We are on the left.

 

About Dr. DeLapp

Dr. DeLapp has been a philosopher, non-force Chiropractor, medical intuitive, and health innovator for over 30 years.  He began experimenting with  medical intuition in 1972 while studying physics at UC Davis.  In addition to physics he designed and completed an individual major in the philosophy and psychology of education.  Shortly after he choose to pursue a career in the only truly health oriented profession available at that time, Chiropractic.  He graduated with honors in 1981 with his doctorate and opened a private practice. 
Since that time he has continued his research into the effects of consciousness and learning on health. 
He developed the Biomagnetic Retraining system for correcting movement abnormalities. 
Since 1991 he has focused on developing a powerful system for uncovering and assisting the mind-body connection in health and personal growth.  The in-depth coaching, guided by the subconscious direction from the body, is called Heartflow and the simpler mind-body retraining for health and unfoldment he has named Gracework.  Both are available at Fair Oaks Health.

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