Nutrition Tips That Can Help with Depression and Anxiety

Scott: Doctor, we've talked about diet and how that affects ADD, ADHD.  Now in talking about anxiety and depression, does the same thing hold true?  Can we maybe prevent this if we're healthy enough to start with?

Dr. Nancy White: That's a complicated answer.  First of all, I do think that we're born sometimes with imbalances.  And I think that we then have to do a lot of testing.  We've been working with a doctor Flynn and he says 'Don't guess, test.'  And I really believe in that.  It's like, find out what you're dealing with to start with.  Like we do with our quantitative EEG.  And when you learn what you're dealing with and you look to see how can I naturally correct the imbalances.  And so, someone that's born with a tendency toward depression, you work with them, everything's multileveled.  It's not a one thing, you know, boost the serotonin.  That helps, but that's not always enough.  It's like their thought processes, their life patterns, the way their mother taught them.  It's like, maybe their mother's depressed and laid in bed all day, so they think that's what they ought to do, because that's a program.  So, you gotta do more than just eat right, and eating right is real important.  

And I think across the board, I don't care whether you're ADHD, depressed or have cancer.  It's essentially, eat whole, natural, organic foods and get away, as you can, from the toxins, which in today's world is utterly impossible.  The toxins are everywhere, the pesticides are everywhere.   I buy organic foods and then I wash them with s special wash, and then I hear this, mmmmmmm, in the background in my kitchen, and I know that they're spraying for mosquitos.  Which does nothing but drive the mosquitos into my garden, so it doesn't work!  But it's filled my area and my driveway and everywhere I wonder around bare footed, with pesticides.  So, you gotta do everything you can do to counteract the world we're living in.  And so one of the small things we can do is organic foods.  And people say 'oh, but they're so expensive'.  Yeah they are, but you know what?  Go to Costco.  Costco has wild fish, not farm raised with all kinds of hormones and stuff.  And they have lots of organic foods.  Most people don't know that about Coscto.  And read labels!  Stay away from high fructose corn syrup.  Stay away from things like aspartame.  Do not have soft drinks.  I mean now they're really finally talking about the poisons in fluoride.  They've been painting your mouth with fluoride every time you went to the dentist for years.  And I go to my dentist and they say 'ok you're all done, now we're going to go get your fluoride!'  And I say 'no you're not, it's poisonous.'  And they look at me like I've lost my mind.  But you have to educate yourself.  The doctors are not going to educate you.  One they don't have time, and two, most of them don't know.  That's why I love the A4M conference because they are the doctors that mostly know.  They're the functional medicine doctors, the integrative medicine doctors, the doctors on the cutting edge, the doctors that are open minded.  And I just get so excited about what I hear the doctors say here, because I live in Houston, with the Houston Medical Center.  And we are the fundamentalists of medicine.  And it's like, oh, come on, open your mind, you know?  So it's a trip.