Anxiety and Depression

Anxiety and depressive disorders are among the most common psychiatric illnesses which few people seem to escape during a lifetime, and it is quite common that both conditions generally appear at the same time. Statistically, these conditions affect women during their reproductive years twice as much as men.

Anxiety and depressive disorders are moderately heritable (approximately 40%), and evidence suggests that there are shared genetic risk across the internalizing disorders. However, nongenetic risk factors associated with the development of anxiety and depression include earlier life adversity, such as trauma or neglect, as well as parenting style and “current” stress exposure. It is therefore important to accept that these disorders are generally manifested during early development, with anxiety disorders commonly beginning during preadolescence, as well as early adolescence with the majority of major depression tending to only emerge during adolescence and early to mid-adulthood.

Even although research findings have demonstrate that anxiety disorders generally precede the presentation of major depressive disorders, there is still insufficient research looking at the predisposing role of biochemistry and nutrition as foundational causes to the “feeling component” of the conditions, despite the fact that at the level of neural circuits, it has been noted that there are alterations in prefrontal-limbic pathways {that mediate emotion regulatory processes}, that are common to anxiety and depressive disorders.

Tissue analysis has demonstrated that mineral imbalances and heavy metals within the body are capable of not only influencing the autonomic nervous system, but also how people experience the world around them. For instance:

• The neurotoxic effect of Nickel is more than capable of inducing feelings of dysphoria (depression, anxiety, or agitation).
• Low Calcium is just as capable of inducing mood swings, depression, anxiety, irritability, and aggressiveness. This will be complicated even further when Magnesium is also deficient.
• Excessive Potassium and Manganese will promote anxiety and irritability.
• Whilst an imbalance between Zinc and Copper includes symptoms such as anxiety, defensiveness, indecision, and agitated depression.

Given this, it is quite evident that the complex interplay in the body’s chemistry also lies at the foundation of how individuals experience their world, as much as their upbringing and psycho-social-emotional environment does. Having said this, talk therapy and psychiatry are not the only potential solution or explanations for resolving behavioural and mood dis-orders.