Depression (2) & useful for OCD, cancer & others

While I'm focusing on depression this information will be useful for people grappling with the problems of mental illnesses such as OCD, borderline, anxiety, attention deficit, autism, plus the physical illnesses such as cancer.

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When I was young, in the 1950's and 1960's, people still marveled about the miracle of life. Science was just beginning to understand some of the basic principles of human development, anatomy and evolution, and with every discovery both the professionals and the average citizen would marvel at what a wonderful organism is the human body and mind. It was not all that long ago that people made the most elementary discoveries about the structure and complexity of the brain, for example, knowledge we now take for granted.

The world had just gone through the horror of World War II, and while problems continued (for example the growing power of Communism) there was an undeniable air of optimism in society. While there are always a few people very stimulated by war, the vast majority of people could not wait to get back to a normal life where they could have a safe home, marry, raise a family, and pursue education or work at a job or career.

To better understand my point, please read this article about France's oldest man, a WWI (not II) vet who just died. It's a short article but with the few comments you get a real perspective about the men of those two generations and their attitude toward the stimulation of conventional warfare as it collided with modern warfare such as bombs and chemical weapons. This is not a political statement, but an attitude about how these men sought to get home to normal family and community life, even as they patriotically did their duty:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/frances-oldest-man-dies-one-world-war-one-survivor-left/2008/01/21/1200764115820.html

In the 1940's and 1950's people were still eating fresh food, without preservatives, even folks who lived in cities. "Convenience food" had not yet been developed, and the frozen or canned things that were purchased tended to nontheless be fresh food in its foundational ingredients with few preservatives and chemical enhancements. By the way, canned goods were invented as a war convenience to feed the soldiers, and was not envisioned for family usage. Canned goods can be traced back to the Napoleonic wars in the 1800's. So think about that for a moment. Canned and convenience foods were not "thought of in the lab as a way to help out the housewife." They were first envisioned by people trying to keep soldiers alive and adequately fed during wartime. Until very recently people preferred fresh real unchemicalized and unplasticized food and it did not occur to people that they needed to be "liberated" from the kitchen and wholesome food! So there's quite a difference between adding a preservative and putting something in a can or plastic in order to send it into the field of war as a temporary measure, versus a steady diet of food that has been extremely altered to be "preserved." Think about the type of chemicals that have to be added to food to keep it from rotting or to keep the flavor and appearance in a certain form and imagine that same chemical constantly being added to your body, starting even in the womb as youngsters born since the 1960's have now received.

Human bodies did not evolve to process food that has been chemically altered. It is one of the miracles of life that the organs of the body can process the unbelievable complexity of chemicals that have been poured into food since the 1960's. But if you are eating food that has been altered in order to "preserve it or enhance it" you are basically applying those chemicals to your own body from the inside out, so to speak. And despite there being a vacuum to deter chemical reaction, you are still eating food that has some particles of the plastic and metal packaging within it and you are doing that constantly. Prior to the 1960's - 1970's food tended to arrive wrapped in paper waxed or butcher style, cardboard and glass bottles. These are all clean and harmless surfaces that do not deposit plastic or metal molecules into the food.

Human bodies evolved to work optimally with unadulterated fresh food AND to eat food that naturally preserves itself. For example, people used vinegar, salt, sugar and the process of fermentation in order to preserve food. This is one reason that alcohol is in a different category than mind altering drugs. Fermentation of beer and wine provided the ability to have antiseptic and clean beverages during the many years of poor hygiene and dirty water in human history. My grandfather was not kidding when he said that he was having a beer for "medicinal purposes" ha. Moderate alcohol use actually made civilization possible because it provided clean fluids in very unclean circumstances for thousands of years in human development. However, it has of course the inherent danger of addiction. Mind altering drugs, however, were never intended to be part of the food supply of humans because it does not provide a nutritional or preservative/antiseptic value and worse even the mildest and casual use of mind altering drugs alters the brain chemistry that promotes survival.

So to summarize this introduction, the human body is a marvel but like a car it is designed for certain fuels and certain uses. Let's use my car example. Suppose your car is good protection even in extreme circumstances such as terrible roads, storms, blizzards. Just because your car is able and well designed for those severe conditions it does not mean that you should now always drive on terrible roads, storms and blizzards half or more of your time. This is my analogy for the human body and stress and stimulation. Just because the body has the capability to handle stress and stimulation does not mean that it is designed to be constantly in that mode. This applies as much to warfare as it does living in a high crime area, being under constant economic pressure, and the stimulation of "entertainment." Just because the body can handle "as needed" stress and over stimulation does not mean it can remain in those modes for any length of time.

And for the food analogy imagine that your car takes regular unleaded gasoline. But there is also a pump of gas that contains gas full of additives for, let's say, a military tank that has to be in battle conditions and so it has a fire retardant added to it. (Engineers don't laugh, I'm just making an example!) But what if you discover that all gas stations phase out the regular unleaded gas pumps and now you can only fill your car with the battle tank fire retardant gas full of military ready additives? This is what people have done to their food, beverages, and the packaging of their food and beverages in the recent forty years!

More anon in next postings.