(OCD) Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE

GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid/amino acid)  Take this supplement PM.
Audie G Leventhal, Utah School of Medicine, found that GABA eliminates brain garbage signals that distract & overwhelm. www.216.205.123.2/whatshot52.shtml www.msnbc.com/news - www.fiftyplusadvoctes.com  9/4/2003

George Watson's Nutrition & Your Mind  Case Study of Flora Street www.amazon.com

Inositol - 8/10/2012 - "Dr. James Greenblatt of McLean Hospital, a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital, is currently using inositol supplementation as part of the treatment of patients with mental illnesses, particularly depression, panic disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)...Treatment with 12 grams (in divided dosages) of inositol per day (vs. placebo) has also been shown to significantly reduce the severity and frequency of panic attacks in patients with panic disorder." from http://www.integrativepsychmd.com/articles.html (Reminder to take with lots of fluids + food.)

6) Inositol and Mental Health - https://www.theralogix.com/about-theralogix/balanced-living/inositol-benefits/
"Inositol functions as a secondary messenger for serotonin and dopamine, neuro-transmitters that send signals back and forth between the brain and other systems in the body. 
Low levels of inositol may disrupt this signaling, possibly resulting in mood disorders and impaired mental health. 
More research needs to be done to understand exactly how inositol benefits mental health.  There is some evidence that people with obsessive-compulsive disorder may improve when taking a myo-inositol supplement.  Myo-inositol also shows promise for individuals who suffer from panic attacks. 
People with depression may also benefit from myo-inositol, although studies have found that inositol does not make antidepressant medications work better. 
These mental health studies have used much higher doses of myo-inositol than used for the other conditions described in this article.  For example, depression studies used 12 grams per day, and panic disorder studies used 12-18 grams/day.  Studies indicate that taking up to 12 grams (titrated up or down) per day, in divided doses, is (typically) safe... There are 9 types of inositol (a B vitamin) occurring in nature. 
2 forms, myo-inositol and D-chiro-inositol, have specific functions in our cells....
A certain ratio of these 2 forms seems to work better than either form alone. 
That ratio is 40-1, meaning 40 parts myo-inositol to 1 part D-chiro-inositol...
The recommended dose of myo-inositol for most people is 2,000 mg, and the recommended dose of D-chiro-inositol is 50 mg, taken twice a day (total daily dose of 4,000 mg of myo-inositol plus 100 mg of D-chiro-inositol).  It may take 3 months of consistent use to see inositol benefits...
Inositol works by helping the body use Insulin a hormone made & released by the pancreas into bloodstream."  (Take with a small dose multi-B-vitamin, food and water.)

Kava Kava, Calcium, B3, St John's Wort, Magnesium + exercise www.lef.org/protocls/prtcl-126.shtml

NAC, magnesium, taurine  http://www.askrph3.com/

NAC - http://amazingwellnessmag.com/nac/

OPC's (Oligomeric proanthocyanidins) - http://www.med.nyu.edu/content?ChunkIID=21765

Probiotics - http://www.purecapspro.com/4chi/pe/products/product_details.asp?ProductsID=956 -
2 supplements daily provide: "10 billion CFU of 5 beneficial bacteria (as follow)
(1) Lactobacillus acidophilus, (2) Lactobacillus rhamnosus, (3) Bifidobacterium longum, (4) Bifidobacterium bifidum & (5) Bifidobacterium lactis... L. acidophilus & B. longum (cited above) have been shown to promote healthy cytokine production in the colon & maintain healthy GI barrier function"
Greenblatt, psychiatrist James - Waltham, MA, USA -
http://www.integrativepsychmd.com/integrative-psychiatry.html
Greenblatt - http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/21/4595712/
gut-feelings-the-future-of-psychiatry-may-be-inside-your-stomach -
winbars @ http://www.jamesgreenblattmd.com/jgreenblatt-events.htm
editorials @ http://jamesgreenblattmd.com/blog/
integrative medicine @ http://www.jamesgreenblattmd.com/
jgreenblatt-integrativemed.htm

Probiotics on the brain 10/12/2014 - http://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2014/10/09/
probiotics-brain/DnnE6myX75vTfK6U3aolQP/story.html
Dr. James Greenblatt, chief medical officer of Walden Behavioral Care in Waltham, is a proponent of probiotics...“Thank you, you’ve never even met me and yet you’ve changed my life.”
That was the sign-off in an e-mail from a man named Mike that arrived at the office of Dr. James Greenblatt, a psychiatrist and the chief medical officer of Walden Behavioral Care in Waltham, on July 24 (2014). Greenblatt is not unused to such effusive gratitude, but usually it comes from his patients.
Mike, though, lives in Colorado, where he had read an article online about how Greenblatt had treated a young woman with severe obsessive-compulsive disorder using traditional psychotherapy and medication coupled, less traditionally, with probiotics (capsules filled with live “good” bacteria). Within 6 months, her symptoms were gone. Mike also had issues with anxiety; he’d started obsessively pulling his hair out 15 years earlier, but no one had been able to help him. Mike began treating himself by taking the strongest over-the-counter probiotics he could find & after a couple months, he noticed the urge to pull had disappeared.
“IT WORKED.” Mike later wrote in a blog post.
Continue reading below
The idea that microbes in the body can affect the brain has gone in and out of fashion.
In 1896, physicians writing in Scientific American concluded, in the language of the day, that “certain forms of insanity” could be caused by infectious agents “similar to typhoid, diphtheria and others.” But after Freudian psychoanalysis became popular in the 1st half of the 20th century, the microbial theory of mental illness was largely forgotten, and stayed that way for decades.
Today, however, scientists know that trillions of micro-organisms live in your digestive system, where they outnumber your human cells many times over & may make up as much as 3 % of your body weight.  
The evidence that these bacteria affect a dense network of neurons in your gut (often called the “2nd brain”) is vast and growing. In recent years, a microbial imbalance in the gut (called “dysbiosis”) has been associated with chronic fatigue, obesity, certain types of cancer, and other physical ailments.
It’s unclear exactly how or which bacteria cause or cure which disorders & in what complex ways, Greenblatt says, “but the research is quite clear that the GI tract affects brain health.”
In this case, he says, “1 + 1 does equal 2.”
Research on the microbiome got a kick-start with the emergence of new methods of DNA profiling that allowed doctors to quickly identify various species of bacteria. Now, studies exploring how gut flora may affect health are exploding onto the scene. Once considered “alternative” (maybe even a bit wacky), the field is becoming firmly entrenched in the medical establishment: In 2007, the National Institutes of Health earmarked $115 million for the first phase of the Human Microbiome Project, which brings together researchers from several institutions, including the Broad Institute in Cambridge, and aims to map the ecology of the gut. In late September, Harvard Medical School’s Division of Nutrition hosted a symposium in Boston called “Gut Microbiota, Probiotics and Their Impact Throughout the Lifespan.” It was so popular, there was a wait-list to get in.
All the interest marks a fundamental change in the way scientists and medical professionals view the connection between the brain and the gut. Not that long ago, many doctors believed that the brain was essentially walled off from the rest of the body and protected from infection. “The dogma when I was in grad school was that nothing crosses the blood-brain barrier,” says Nancy Desmond, chief of the neuro-endocrinology and neuro-immunology program at the National Institute of Mental Health. “But there are data now that punch holes in that dogma.”
The challenge, she says, “is to try to get at the mechanisms that underlie this apparent communication between microbiota in the gut and brain function that is relevant to mental health.”
Possible pathways include the vagus nerve, which runs throughout the body, the spinal cord, and numerous immune and endocrine mechanisms. For example, a chemical in urine called HPHPA signals a buildup of dopamine in the brain, which in turn “strongly correlates with psychiatric symptoms,” according to Greenblatt, “from anxiety to agitation.” As in irritable bowel syndrome, the culprits here are species of the Clostridium bacteria.
Fighting them with targeted antibiotics, along with high doses of probiotics (taken with meals) appears to help ease or eliminate symptoms.
Dr. Kyle Williams, director of the Pediatric Neuropsychiatry and Immunology Program at Massachusetts General Hospital, is also looking at how the microbiome influences the brain and behavior. But Williams cautions that the body’s ecosystem is incredibly complex and that the placebo effect (patients feeling better even if the treatment isn’t actually doing anything) can be very strong in psychiatry. “There’s a lot of excitement about the microbiome now,” he says, “but evidence is what helps us transform an exciting idea into therapies.
It’s true the blood-brain barrier isn’t the impenetrable fortress we thought it was, but we’re learning more each day about how molecules traffic or are transported across it.”
Though much remains to be learned, many physicians and researchers believe there’s no harm in probiotics, as long as patients don’t forgo conventional medicines and treatments in their favor. “Whenever someone says there’s an impossibility in medicine,” says Williams, “they end up being corrected in a few years.”

http://sda.biggytv.com/watch/lifestyle_magazine_2015_obsessive-compulsive_disorder/lifestyle_magazine/

Conventional

OCD Foundation, POBox 70, Milford, Ct 06460 
For national referral phone list, call: 1-203-874-3843

OCD workbook http://www.newharbinger.com/productdetails.cfm?SKU=7529

Radio broadcast http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14212483 with
Jeff Bell, author of Rewind, Replay, Repeat: A Memoir of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder;
afternoon co-anchor at KCBS  http://www.rewindreplayrepeat.com/

http://www.scientificamerican.com/
podcast/episode.cfm?id=bone-marrow-transplant-stops-mouse-10-05-27 
published in the journal Cell   http://bit.ly/a4znGN
"Nobel laureate Mario Capecchi's University of Utah research group has reversed a behavioral disorder in mice with a bone marrow transplant, establishing a link between immune cells and (some) psychiatric disorders...
The mouse condition is related to immune system cells called microglia. These cells originate in the bone marrow and wind up in the brain, where their job is to fight off infections. But a genetic mutation leads to defective microglia, which drive the mice to perform the odd, self-mutilating behavior...
The researchers gave 10 mutant mice bone marrow from healthy mice. And the presence of normal microglia stopped the compulsion."

Autobiography - Biography

Clark, Randy -
http://sidroth.org/television/tv-archives/randy-clark-1?src=weeklybroadcastemail_071315
and/or http://d3tnb2mam8l2qt.cloudfront.net/sites/default/files/IS813Transcript_Clark.pdf 7/13/2015 - RANDY: It was like a goliath taunting Israel's army,
 because I had a young man with schizophrenia in my church.
We were seeing a lot of physical healing, but we weren't seeing any mental healing.
I said, according to Psalms 2:3, it says, "Praise the Lord O my soul, forget not all his benefit who forgives us all of sin and heals all our diseases."  So I said, "Lord, it says all, it doesn't just say just physical.
That includes mental illness as well as physical." So we worked and prayed for that.
There was a man, he heard the Lord speak to him & he goes and gets his daughter who he doesn't bring her because she was paranoid schizophrenic. She had obsessive compulsive disorder & anorexia. 
When he brought her, a friend of mine, an engineer by trade was starting a new church there, reached over & just said, "I bless you in Jesus' name," & she fell out (under the anointing power of the Holy Spirit).
Then that night when she went home she heard the Lord speak to her and say, "I anoint your head with oil," & she did, "I anoint your whole body with oil," & she did.
She was knocked to the floor and stuck to the floor like electricity going through her body until morning. 
When she got up she was mentally normal & healthy.

Slater, Lauren  Prozac Diary auto-biography about depression & OCD @ http://www.penguinputnam.com
Slater, Lauren  Welcome to My Country  autobiography about patient care @ http://www.penguinputnam.com - Lauren is a psychologist & author.

The Movie The Aviator is a biography of Howard Hughes revealing his obsessive compulsive disorder & bouts with psychosis.

Patterson, James with Friedman, Hal   www.jamespatterson.com (edited excerpt)
www.readkiddoread.com - Against Medical Advice  - Preface - "1 morning in March of 1989, just before my 5th birthday, I woke up as a normal, healthy body.  By that afternoon, I had an irresistible urge to shake my head - continually... Before long, my body became an explosive, volatile & unpredictable force with a mind & personality of its  own.  It jerked & tested, bent in half & gyrated without warning until I was almost always in motion. 
I bit down on my teeth until I actually broke them & howled in pain, because of the exposed nerves.  I twisted my back around with such force that I tore muscle tissue & had to be drugged asleep to stop myself from doing it. 
My mind fed me thoughts so frightening I couldn't even talk about them to my parents...I felt like a boy on the &
of a puppeteer's string.  What made it even worse was knowing that I was also the puppeteer."
Chapter 53 "There's anger too, but not the kind that leads to my rage attacks. 
This is an anger that can be used and channeled.  The idea of fighting back comes with such urgency, that I want to write it all down - so I can think about it when I wake up again...The war has now begun." 
After a couch fire, the family began an intervention, which with Cory's eventual cooperation, Cory's life began to turn around...Cory Friedman recovered from a diabolical case of OCD, Tourette's syndrome & anxiety disorder. He remains now on minimal medication with minimal Tourette symptoms.
Against Medical Advice: James Patterson, Hal Friedman  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4I6IL6mQ8qE  "Cory Friedman woke up one morning when he was 5 years old with the uncontrollable urge to twitch his neck. From that day forward his life became a hell of irrepressible tics and involuntary utterances, & Cory embarked on an excruciating journey from specialist to specialist to discover the cause of his disease. Soon it became unclear what tics were symptoms of his disease and what were side effects of the countless combinations of drugs. The only certainty is that it kept getting worse. Simply put: Cory Friedman's life was a living hell." - James Patterson on Against Medical Advice @  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1Z-NiVFWRA

Zine, Ed - 5/1/2009 - "After his mother died, Ed Zine developed severe
obsessive compulsive disorder: He believed that he could “rewind” time by literally walking backwards each step he walked forward, that he could stop the future from happening by not throwing objects away.
The condition ended up trapping him in a fetid basement for 2 years. How Ed learned to manage his condition is the subject of the book Life in Rewind. We speak with both Ed Zine & Doctor Michael Jenike." audio http://www.hereandnow.org/2009/05/rundown-51/#1   http://www.hereandnow.org

Medical Science

OCD publications http://www.ocdla.com/OCDreadings.html
"The OCD Center of Los Angeles (California, USA) provides individual Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for the treatment of OCD and related conditions. In additional to individual sessions, we also offer 5 weekly, low-fee, therapy/support groups for people with OCD and related conditions." http://westsuffolkpsych.homestead.com/bibliography.html

http://adc.bmj.com/content/early/2014/11/18/archdischild-2014-306934.long 11/14/2014 (secular science) - International Classification of Diseases-10 diagnostic criteria for obsessive-compulsive disorder -

Susan Swedo MD has coined a word Pandas for pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders resulting from streptococcal infections. 
Strep antibodies attack brain basal ganglia & cause obsessive-compulsive disorders or tic disorders. 
She recommends testing for strep upon sudden onset of OCD or Tourette's syndrome.
Free University, Berlin, Germany study by Hanns Ludwig MD finds that high Borna disease virus-level OCD patients may have reduced cognitive function. 3/29/05  WallStJournal  www.wsj.com

Scripture

1_john/4-1.htm - Testing the Spirits - 1Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2By this you will know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming, and is already in the world at this time. 4You, little children, are from God and have overcome them, because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.

Spiritual

Alsobrook, David - http://destinyspirit.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Runaway-Mind-Disorder.pdf @ http://destinyspirit.com/david-alsobrook/ "Realizing I am not what I think:
(What we are is much deeper than thought.) But when I began to notice how misleading thoughts can be, how they got my attention & tried to captivate me fully, & how they rotated endlessly around & around, something noteworthy also began to take place: I began to notice a distance between 'me' and 'my thoughts'.
This in itself was quite liberating. I began to experience peace for greater stretches of time."

Baars, Dr Conrad  Feeling and Healing Your Emotions  Logos publisher - pp 204-205 shares that Psychiatrist Baars with the assistance of Father Francis MacNutt prayed with a patient having OCD & deprivation neurosis.  She was healed.

Delivered From OCD Obsessive Compulsive Disorder from http://housechurchministriesforjesus.com/downloads/

Joan Hunter – Freedom Beyond Comprehension Part 1  4/24/13 + Joan Hunter – Freedom Beyond Comprehension Part 2  4/25/13 from www.marilynandsarah.org Remove Label of OCD, in Jesus' name.

Osborn, Dr Ian  Can Christianity Cure Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder?  (fundamentalist) Christian psychiatrist says, "Yes, with the help of God, cognitive-behavioral therapy + meds."  Author clarifies OCD. 
Obsessions...are unwanted, inappropriate, intrusive thoughts &/or mental pictures. 
Clinical compulsions are "secondary phenomena, acts performed solely to put right a tormenting thought...a temporary way out."
Osborn contends that God should be allowed into the therapist's office to treat the spiritual part of man. 
Psychiatrists treat the soul or mind.  Drugs treat the body or brain.  God is needed to treat the human spirit.
"Cognitive-behavioral therapy and medication helped in my struggle against OCD, but as I look back I can see that
releasing the OCD part of my life to God is what has given me the most relief."
According to Michael R. Lowry, MD, clinical associate professor & associate chair, department of psychiatry medical director, University Neuro- psychiatric Institute
"Dr. Osborn & his patients, will stimulate not only new ideas about treating OCD, but a search for a simpler, deeper faith."
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a relentless condition, the primary symptom being the occurrence of terrifying ideas, images, and urges that jump into a person's mind & return again & again, despite the individual's attempt to remove them.
Christians who suffer from OCD may grapple with additional guilt, as the undesired thoughts are frequently of a spiritual nature.
Yet people may be surprised to learn that some of the greatest leaders in Christian history also struggled with this malady.
http://www.infibeam.com/Books/info/Ian-Osborn/Can-Christianity-Cure-Obsessive-Compulsive-Disorder-A/1587432064.html
2009 professional continuing education http://www.affectplus.com/coursedetail.php?id=9
"Ian Osborn, MD, is a practicing psychiatrist in Albuquerque NM and Clearfield, Pennsylvania and a specialist in OCD.
He has been the Director of Mental Health and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry Centre Community Hospital, State College, PA.
He has lectured and given regional & national presentations on OCD and psychopharmacology."

Osborn, Dr Ian - book review   http://www.ocdpoetry.com/bookreviews.htm
Tormenting Thoughts & Secret Rituals: The Hidden Epidemic of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Overcoming Compulsive Desires by Lester Sumrall  
Overcoming Compulsive Obsessions (CD)  Sumrall, Lester  

Russell, Corey http://www.wisdomforyouth.com/en/recommended-readings/51-
deliverence/97-obsessive-compulsive-disorder-ocd.html @ www.greatbiblestudy.com
"It is very important not to overlook any underlying spiritual bondages when ministering to somebody with OCD.
I would look into the person's family heritage for generational bondages/spirits that were handed down & I would not overlook the casting out of demons.
(Binding and/or) casting out demons can play a very important role in setting a person completely free from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.  This step should never be overlooked.
Some of the (oppressing) spirits I would look for is fear, shame, guilt, etc.
I like to tackle the strongholds and legal rights (if any) first and then go after the (OCD) spirits...
The good news is, there is a working cure for OCD, and it's (inner healing &/or) deliverance in Jesus Christ combined with the tearing down of strongholds in spiritual warfare.
God does NOT want His people mentally unstable! He has made available unto us freedom and wholeness in every area of our lives, but it's up to us to take hold of (appropriate) it. 
God's Word clearly states that it is not Him who gives or wants us to have an unsound mind:
2 Timothy 1:7 , For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, love & a sound mind."

Life Transformed by John Loren Sandford and R. Loren Sandford - Read chapter 1 here .

The Boy Who Coulnd't Stop Washing book by Judith L Rapoport MD - Appendix: The Religious Perspective gives insight into the psychiatric establishment & the church in 1989, especially regarding issues of feeling guilt, fear & self condemnation due to issues not related to having committed sin. www.amazon.com

Judeo-Christian parents, be forewarned, that demons can inhabit toys & travel on the airwaves of radio, TV, internet, phones, etc.  Be reminded to bless them daily and to pray over and with them daily. 
Teach them how why to say, "No," to anything that makes them fearful or uncomfortable.

OCD Help Part 1: The Cause of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder + 
OCD Help Part 2: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Self Help
@ http://roymasters.blogspot.com/2008/08/tips-for-panic-attacks-part-1.html - RADIO

Pandas

PANDAS - Wikipedia - Pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with streptococcal infections (PANDAS) - is a hypothesis that there exists a subset of children with rapid onset of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) or tic disorders & these symptoms are caused by group A beta-hemolytic streptococcal (GABHS) infections.

07/20/18: PANDAS A new psychiatric disorder due to strep throat -
Parents fear for young children's safety as their behavior changes dramatically; Rare disorder...
https://abc.go.com/shows/2020/episode-guide/2018-07/20-072018-pandas significant video
https://www.babble.com/parenting/pandas-disorder-abc-news-special/ editorial

Swedo, Susan E. - https://www.omicsonline.org/from-research-subgroup-to-clinical-syndrome-modifying-the-pandas-criteria-to-describe-pans-pediatric-acute-onset-neuropsychiatric-syndrome-2161-0665.1000113.php?aid=4020 - “Establishing a connection between childhood-onset obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) & preceding infections with Group A streptococcal (GAS) infections was the result of 2 parallel lines of research, longitudinal studies of OCD and a series of investigations of Sydenham chorea (SC) [2-4]. Prospective evaluations of children with OCD revealed that a subgroup had an atypical symptom course, characterized by an unusually abrupt onset (from no symptoms to maximum intensity within 24-48 hours), a relapsing-remitting symptom course, & significant neuropsychiatric comorbidity, including separation anxiety, ADHD-like symptoms & motor tics [1,2].
Often, the (acute-onset) OCD symptoms were preceded by a bacterial or viral infection, such as influenza,
varicella & Group A streptococcal (GAS) pharyngitis.
The 1st case series suggested the name, 'Pediatric Infection-Triggered Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders (PITANDS)' to reflect the variety of infectious organisms that had been observed."

Swedo, Susan E. - Documentary: https://www.facebook.com/mykidisnotcrazy/ - https://mykidisnotcrazy.com/ - “My Kid is Not Crazy, a film by Tim Sorel, tracks the journey of 6 children and their families as they become tangled in the nightmare of a medical system heavily influenced by the pharmaceutical industry.”

Prayer

Father God, in Jesus name, we forgive each person that comes to mind.  Help us to let go of that pain & memory. 
Help us NOT to rehearse or obsess but rather to replace each ache with a healed memory, perhaps one with You in it, as You walk back in time to remedy & redeem each hurtful incident. Amen.

In the News

Probiotics on the brain 10/12/2014 http://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2014/10/09/
probiotics-brain/DnnE6myX75vTfK6U3aolQP/story.html
"Dr. James Greenblatt, chief medical officer of Walden Behavioral Care in Waltham, is a proponent of probiotics...
'Thank you, you’ve never even met me & yet you’ve changed my life.'
That was the sign-off in an e-mail from a man named Mike that arrived at the office of Dr. James Greenblatt, a psychiatrist and the chief medical officer of Walden Behavioral Care in Waltham, on July 24.
Greenblatt is not unused to such effusive gratitude, but usually it comes from his patients.
Mike, though, lives in Colorado, where he had read an article online about how Greenblatt had treated a young woman with severe obsessive-compulsive disorder using traditional psychotherapy & medication coupled, less traditionally, with probiotics, capsules filled with live 'good' bacteria. Within 6 months, her symptoms were gone. Mike also had issues with anxiety, he’d started obsessively pulling his hair out 15 years earlier, but no one had been able to help him.
Mike began treating himself by taking the strongest over-the-counter probiotics he could find and after a couple months, he noticed the urge to pull had disappeared. 'IT WORKED.' Mike later wrote in a blog post.
Continue reading below
The idea that microbes in the body can affect the brain has gone in & out of fashion.
In 1896, physicians writing in Scientific American concluded, in the language of the day, that 'certain forms of insanity” could be caused by infectious agents 'similar to typhoid, diphtheria & others.' 
But after Freudian psychoanalysis became popular in the 1st half of the 20th century, the microbial theory of mental illness was largely forgotten & stayed that way for decades.
Today, however, scientists know that trillions of micro-organisms live in your digestive system, where they outnumber your human cells many times over & may make up as much as 3% of your body weight.
The evidence that these bacteria affect a dense network of neurons in your gut, often called the '2nd brain', is vast & growing. In recent years, a microbial imbalance in the gut (called 'dysbiosis') has been associated with chronic fatigue, obesity, certain types of cancer, & other physical ailments.
It’s unclear exactly how or which bacteria cause or cure which disorders and in what complex ways, Greenblatt says, 'but the research is quite clear that the GI tract affects brain health.” 
In this case, he says, '1+1 does equal 2.'
Research on the microbiome got a kick-start with the emergence of new methods of DNA profiling that allowed doctors to quickly identify various species of bacteria. Now, studies exploring how gut flora may affect health are exploding onto the scene. Once considered 'alternative', maybe even a bit wacky, the field is becoming firmly entrenched in the medical establishment:
In 2007, the National Institutes of Health earmarked $115 million for the 1st phase of the Human Microbiome Project, which brings together researchers from several institutions, including the Broad Institute in Cambridge & aims to map the ecology of the gut. In late September, Harvard Medical School’s Division of Nutrition hosted a symposium in Boston called 'Gut Microbiota, Probiotics and Their Impact Throughout the Lifespan.'
It was so popular, there was a wait-list to get in.
All the interest marks a fundamental change in the way scientists and medical professionals view the connection between the brain and the gut. Not that long ago, many doctors believed that the brain was essentially walled off from the rest of the body & protected from infection. 'The dogma when I was in grad school was that nothing crosses the blood-brain barrier,' says Nancy Desmond, chief of the neuro-endocrinology & neuro-immunology program at the National Institute of Mental Health. 'But there are data now that punch holes in that dogma.'
The challenge, she says, 'is to try to get at the mechanisms that underlie this apparent communication between microbiota in the gut & brain function that is relevant to mental health.'
Possible pathways include the vagus nerve, which runs throughout the body, the spinal cord, & numerous immune & endocrine mechanisms. For example, a chemical in urine called HPHPA signals a buildup of dopamine in the brain, which in turn 'strongly correlates with psychiatric symptoms,' according to Greenblatt, 'from anxiety to agitation.'
As in irritable bowel syndrome, the culprits here are species of the Clostridium bacteria. Fighting them with targeted antibiotics, along with high doses of probiotics, appears to help ease or eliminate symptoms.
Dr. Kyle Williams, director of the Pediatric Neuropsychiatry and Immunology Program at Massachusetts General Hospital, is also looking at how the microbiome influences the brain & behavior. But Williams cautions that the body’s ecosystem is incredibly complex and that the placebo effect, patients feeling better even if the treatment isn’t actually doing anything, can be very strong in psychiatry. 'There’s a lot of excitement about the microbiome now,' he says, 'but evidence is what helps us transform an exciting idea into therapies.
It’s true the blood-brain barrier isn’t the impenetrable fortress we thought it was, but we’re learning more each day about how molecules traffic or are transported across it.'
Though much remains to be learned, many physicians & researchers believe there’s no harm in probiotics, as long as patients don’t forgo conventional medicines and treatments in their favor (where proven/progressive patient benefits/improvements are greater than negative RX side effects). 'Whenever someone says there’s an impossibility in medicine,' says Williams, 'they end up being corrected in a few years.'”