Evolutionary Psychiatry

The hunt for evolutionary solutions to contemporary mental health problems.

by Emily Deans, M.D.

Sunlight and ADHD

What sorts of differences in our modern lifestyle are causing problems with our bodies and brains that are primarily evolved for a Stone Age lifestyle? Sunlight exposure and sleep are also extremely important to our health. A recent study probes a remarkable association between sunlight intensity in a region and the diagnosis. Read More

Yoga (ba) GABA

One of my standard recommendations for people who have anxiety or depression is to practice yoga. Part of treating anxiety is to bring people down from the state of constant alertness. Yoga, through the process of holding (sometimes) uncomfortable positions and breathing through the stress, is a direct physical practice teaching you to get through a psychological stress. Read More

Eat Your Egg Yolks

Recently in the American Journal of Psychiatry, a new paper was published tying nutrient supplementation in pregnant women to positive changes in the brains of their offspring and perhaps even reduced risk of schizophrenia. One of the nutrients that may be less predominant in our modern diets than in traditional diets is the phospholipid known as choline. Read More

Suicide and Vitamin D

A while back I wrote a post called Omega 3s and Suicide in the Military which traced the link between low omega 3 status and victims of suicide in the US active forces. There is a linear relationship between the amount of healthy, necessary omega 3 in the cell membranes and the risk of suicide, and the active members of the armed forces seem to be quite low. Read More

Three Evolutionary Solutions for 2013

I hypothesize that that psychopathology is caused or exacerbated by a mismatch between our modern environments and the mostly hunter-gatherer environment in which we evolved over the past several million years. Can a few modern lifestyle-friendly changes help our bodies and minds? Read More

Stress: The Killer Disease

Stress Kills. We’ve heard it before. It’s common sense. But how does stress kill? As a physician, I tend to imagine stress leading to high blood pressure and heart attacks and anxiety or depression. But how could stress, alone, do all that? Sure, there are stress hormones that get out of whack, but how does stress kill? Read More

You're a Vegetarian. Have You Lost Your Mind?

Entirely vegan diets are unknown among traditional human cultures. Back in the early part of the 19th century, dentist Weston Price went looking for vegans, but found only cannibals. Since vegan diets in nature provide no vitamin B12 and very little in the way of usable long chain omega3 fatty acids, it is not surprising that humans have continued to eat animal products. Read More

Diet and Aggression: Trans Fats

Our brains are high energy, fatty powerhouses of sparking neurons and amazing thought. In order for them to work properly, brains need the right sort of vitamins, minerals, and the right sort of fat. Read More

Are You Cool Enough for a Healthy Immune System?

Why do we build cities, compose music, or make necklaces from the teeth of conquered foes? Status. What is blogging for, anyway? Posturing on the internet, vying for position, trying to prove to others that we have optimal genetic material in order to further the chances of our offspring. Read More

Schizophrenia and the Gut

We have found that folks with schizophrenia have a higher level of gut inflammation and antibodies to gluten and casein than conrols. Could these vulnerabilities somehow begin in the brain? Read More

Is Fibromyalgia Due to a Mineral Deficiency?

Many thousands of people, mostly women, suffer from fibromyalgia. It’s a poorly understood disorder to some extent and can be quite debilitating. Musculoskeletal pain and fatigue (along with poor sleep) are the primary symptoms, but those afflicted are more likely to have depression and anxiety symptoms as well. Read More

Depression: A Deal With the Devil?

Clinical depression is a problem that we know affects tens of millions of people in the United States alone every year. We know there is a genetic vulnerability to getting depressed, along with environmental contributors such as childhood trauma and recent stress. But why are humans vulnerable to depression? Read More

Zinc and Autistic Spectrum Disorders

Autistic spectrum disorders are complicated and most likely caused by a number of different problems. However, we still don’t know definitively if something in the diet could influence autism. Could zinc deficiency be part of the cause, and supplementation part of a treatment? Read More

Asthma, Autism, and Antioxidants

One of the theories that comes up again and again in the study of autistic spectrum disorders (and other chronic mental and physical disorders as well) is the theory that these disorders are a problem of too few antioxidants. Sounds simple, but as always, the biochemical processes can get complicated. Read More

Statins in the Water?

I'm going to go an unusual direction today and swerve from my normal focus on psychiatry to comment on the general direction of medicine. In some ways, psychiatry, with its drug-heavy focus, is the forefront of medicine (and not in a good way). Read More

Evolution and Anorexia Nervosa

One of my teachers at Children's Hospital characterized anorexia nervosa as "a desperate disease." On the inpatient unit where the (mostly) young women were hospitalized, it was difficult to find one who would stay still. They were forbidden to exercise, but during groups would move their legs and fidget constantly to burn calories. Read More

Do Probiotics Help Anxiety?

Knowledge of these colonies of bacteria could lead us to amazing insights and new treatments for common and devastating diseases. Read More

Groovy Probiotics

We've been told yogurt is good for us. And in times past, most cultures have traditions of fermented food, such as sauerkraut, kimchi, kefir, and a tasty tea-based drink I've been fermenting at home, called kombucha. Read More

The Anger Drink

What we eat affects our neurotransmitters in our brain, and our neurotransmitters affect our mood and coping skills. One day when all the chemicals are in happy equilibrium and the cashier is rude to you, it is easy to smile and decide that person might be having a bad day. Read More

Coffee Happiness

Ever since the 15th century, people have been drinking that oh so stimulating bitter drink of choice, coffee. In the morning, there’s nothing quite like it to put a spring in your step. Read More

Crisco and Cocaine

Heart disease wasn’t a huge killer in the United States until the end of the 1920s. Cigarette smoking really took off at the beginning of the 20th century, but did you know Crisco was released in 1911 and came into general use over the next 10 years for pie crusts and biscuits and everything baked? Read More

Nutritional Brain Bomb: Thiamine Deficiency

People maligning a modern diet tend to poke fingers at the the last 30 - 40 years. During this time obesity became a majority issue in the United States, and diabetes and metabolic syndrome afflicted many millions. However, from a nutritional perspective, diets 100 years ago weren’t that terrific either. Read More

Soda Begets Zombies

So soda consumption might not actually rot your brain, causing the uncontrollable desire to consume others. But calories devoid of micronutrients might have a behavioral consequence, and the sugary variety of soda might well be causing depression in those vulnerable to fructose malabsorption. Read More

Do Carbs Make You Crazy Part II

Previously, we discussed the question of Do Carbs Make You Crazy?, reviewed some literature to suggest that a bolus of sugar to a fasting person could certainly make some people crazy (or at least rather rotten-tempered), and yet MIT researchers suggest the same carby bolus will keep people sane with a nice happy squirt of serotonin. Read More

Sniffles and Suicide

It turns out that the link between suicide and seasons (particularly the springtime) is stronger in those with allergies. Read More

Do Carbs Keep You Sane?

In my last post, I explored evidence whether certain amounts of carbohydrates in the diet could affect behavior. We found that there certainly seems evidence that in folks vulnerable to relative hypoglycemia, a high carbohydrate snack could lead to a "sugar crash" and crankiness a couple of hours later. Some people even appear to be more violent in such circumstances. Read More

Do Carbs Make You Crazy?

Perhaps I should be more circumspect with my title. After all, there are several popular ideas out there: one that carbohydrates cause blood sugar spikes and crashes, leading to mood swings and general crankiness. The second is that sugar (that special fructose-filled form of carbohydrate) causes everything from ADHD to delinquency to psychosis to bipolar disorder. Read More

Brain Shrinkage and B Vitamins

Can a diet high in B vitamins prevent dementia? Read More

Does Obesity Change the Brain?

Are the brains of obese people different than the brains of the lean? And if there are changes, do they occur during the process of gaining weight? Do those changes go away of you lose weight again? In humans we don't know the answer to all of those questions, but we are starting to get some insights in studies of other species. Read More