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C URCUMIN —T HE 21 ST C ENTURY C URE
Depressive disorder is a crushing inability to cope with life and
the world. Yet only about half of its sufferers get treatment and
80% of the treatment that conventional medicine offers is com-
pletely ineffective.
Standard medical treatment for depression is usually a series of
antidepressant pharmaceuticals with a high risk of serious side
effects and little or no effect. Research shows that antidepressants
work for only 35 to 45% of the population, and some figures sug-
gest the effectiveness rate is as low as 30%. Worse yet, antidepres-
sants like Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft have been linked to suicide,
violence, psychosis, abnormal bleeding and brain tumors.
What causes depression? Certainly short-term depression can
be the result of life events. Long-term trauma, such as sexual abuse
and a family history of depression can also be factors.
Dr. Hyla Cass, a cutting-edge integrative physician with a spe-
cialty in psychiatry, believes that the cause of depression is often
biochemical, an imbalance in brain chemistry.
The answer, says Dr. Cass in her book Natural Highs: Feel
Good All the Time, is in “a variety of nutrients that both make
up and fuel the brain, nervous system and neurotransmitters. So a
low mood may have less to do with past trauma or a faulty belief
system than with deficient nutrients.”
“Mood-lifting serotonin, motivating noradrenaline and sleep-
enhancing tryptophan are the neurotransmitters most often defi-
cient in people with depression,” says Dr. Cass.
You guessed it: Here comes the Golden Knight on his charger
again, offering solutions to brain imbalances that are at the foun-
dation of major depression. Not only does curcumin enhance nora-
drenaline and tryptophan levels, but it also increases the production
of dopamine, another neurotransmitter that controls emotional
response and the ability to experience pleasure and pain.
Numerous studies underscore curcumin’s ability to improve lev-
els of neurotransmitters and thereby improve mood.
Many people stumble on curcumin’s antidepressant action
when they take it for another condition, most typically to address