Depression and Gut Inflammation
Manage depression by reducing inflammation
Part of an ongoing series on how to use supplement and behavior-based plans to treat common maladies. To read the detailed supplement plans, order supplements, or download the patient resource sheets, go here to create a free patient account at Fullscript by entering your name and email address: Dr. Mark McDonald’s Fullscript dispensary
Like cancer, depression is not just one disease. It has many causes and many representations. One of those causes is inflammatory processes in the gut.
This shouldn’t be all that surprising, as 95% of all serotonin, a prime regulator of mood, is produced in the intestine. Inflammation disrupts serotonin production and balance, leading to mood instability such as depression.
Fortunately, gut inflammation can be managed. As with most forms of inflammation, it does respond to exercise. Most people don’t even walk 20 minutes a day. Simply doing this—and nothing else—brings enormous health benefits, including a reduction of inflammation in the GI tract.
Diet also plays a significant role. Sugar provokes inflammation. Reducing added sugar, especially refined sugar, removes a major common source of dietary inflammation. This is also true for simple carbohydrates, such as bread, rice, and pasta. Many patients can eliminate gut inflammation simply by adopting a ketogenic diet—low carbohydrates and high protein. In other words, meat is good for you.
In addition to exercise and dietary modifications, incorporating supplements that target inflammation can not only improve physical health but help support emotional well-being as well. Berberine is a potent glucose regulator. It helps to control blood sugar, which both reduces systemic inflammation and insulin resistance, which can lead to diabetes. Curcumin, a natural anti-inflammatory, has also been shown to reduce inflammation throughout the body. Probiotics, when used appropriately, restore a health balance in the intestinal micro-biome, reducing inflammation locally. Finally, fish oil is a known anti-inflammatory that acts directly in the digestive tract as well as the entire cardiovascular system.
I’ve curated a supplement plan with specific recommendations to address gut inflammation, available at my Fullscript dispensary.
Below is a link to my depression plan for gut inflammation I provide my patients. I am now sharing it with my Substack subscribers. To access the plan, you must first create a free patient account at Fullscript by entering your name and email address: Dr. Mark McDonald’s Fullscript dispensary Watch a one-minute video on how to create an account here.