Allen darman's love for willy/ADHD/ alternate therapy

The following post by allen Darman who loves his son dearly is very useful if one believes in alternate therapy.

ALLEN DARMAN's ideas on ADHD as he believes his son's recovery is through his method.







Dear group: The material below regards concepts and ideas that I taught my sonWilly when he was thirteen years old. I made every attempt whentalking to Willy to not unnecessarily complicate what he needed tolearn about his body and his brain in order to heal himself. In allinstances I tried to word everything that I told my son in as simple amanner as I could. This copy, and other "lessons to Willy" that will follow in the weeksto come, is the most important copy that I have ever written in myentire life. Some day copy such as this may be recognized for what ittruly is; the beginning of the end of the conventional medical modelfor ADHD, bipolar disorder, and a whole host of other "garbagepsychiatric labels" as well. If a thirteen year old child can learn how to cure himself naturallyfrom an ADHD diagnosis, serious bipolar symptoms, a severe readingdisability, and a lack of general health... who needs the doctors andtheir toxic drugs any more? The copy below represents "a decent conceptual road map" for otherpersons to follow if they wish to recover from ADHD or bipolardisorder naturally (and so much else). Allen Darman How To Cure Yourself of ADHD and Bipolar Disorder; "The Big Picture" Willy, this is going to be the longest and most important lesson thatI am going to give you, such that you can cure what you have, which isan ADHD diagnosis, bipolar symptoms, and a lack of general health. In this lesson I am going to explain to you in as simple terms as Ican how your body and your brain work, and what chemistry in involvedin them working as well. I am also going to explain to you why yourbody and brain don't always work as well as they should. Lastly, I amgoing to explain to you "the conceptual essence" of what you need toknow in order to heal yourself. In later lessons I will go into more specifics on many of the topicsthat I am going to bring up today. I just can't cover all of thismaterial at once; it would be far too much for anyone to remember. Willy, the crucial key to overcoming either ADHD or bipolar symptomsis to understand what illnesses such as these are really all about.Knowledge is power in regard to correcting either ADHD or bipolardisorder symptoms. With an adequate amount of knowledge, you cancompletely cure yourself of either or both of these "garbagediagnostic labels". ADHD and bipolar disorder are not just "brain illnesses", as thedoctors would have us believe. You have a whole body illness, not justa brain illness. This is a concept that is crucial for you to realizein order for you to be cured. Yes, your brain is certainly affected. And it is not working nearly aswell as it should. However, this is not the whole story. The brain isthe master organ in the body. It is the organ that affects your mood,your thoughts, your perception, your behavior, and your ability tolearn and retain information. The brain is the only organ that wehumans can easily measure its ability to perform well, or its lackthereof. If your brain is running at substantially less than itspotential to perform, this is usually obvious, both to you, and topeople around you. However, if any of your other organs are running atsubstantially less than their potential to perform, this lack offunction is often hidden, and you might not even know that you have it. Can you tell when your brain does not work quite right? (The answerwas "Yes".) Can you tell if your thyroid gland, your adrenal glands, your liver,or your pancreas are not working quite right? ("No.") This is one way that conventional medical doctors continue to get awaywith calling ADHD and bipolar disorder "mental illnesses" or "brainillnesses", and the general public does not realize how so wrong thesedoctors are. If your brain is not working quite right because its chemistry isbelow par in some way, the chemistry of all of the other organs inyour body are also below par in some way as well. These other organshave names such as the thyroid gland, the adrenal glands, the liver,and the pancreas. I will teach you a little bit about these organs andglands over time. However, you don't need to know hardly anythingabout them at all in order to cure yourself of what you have. CuringADHD or bipolar disorder is not that complex. I guarantee you that youwill be really surprised at how simple it is. I would like to tell you one other reason that many illnesses getdiagnosed as "mental illnesses", rather than the whole body illnessesthat they are. The brain is a very nutrient dependent organ, and ituses, and uses up, a surprising amount of the nutrient chemistry thatyou take into your body. On average, a human brain weighs only about two and a half percent ofthe weight of a human being. Science tells us that the brain usesabout 25% of the oxygen that we breathe. Science also tells us thatour brain uses about 15% of the glucose that our entire body uses.(Glucose is a simple sugar that all of the cells in our bodies rely onfor energy.) And science tells us that the brain also uses, and usesup, roughly 20% to 25% of the essential nutrients from all of the foodthat we eat. All this nutrient use comes from a small organ that isonly two and a half percent of our body weight, assuming that we areabout average. The brain is the master organ of the body. As such, it is a very busyorgan, and it does a great deal. According to science, our brain usesup a great deal of our nutrient intake. And when we are under a higherdegree of stress than normal, or our brain is performing a lot ofmental tasks of any sort for long periods of time, this brain will useup even more nutrients than it normally does. (This last point is justplain common sense.) From the standpoint of simple logic, if a person is seriously nutrientdeficient, or is even borderline nutrient deficient, such deficienciesare likely to show up in what is arguably the most nutrient dependentorgan in their body; the brain. This is another reason that doctorscontinue to get away with all of their diagnostic labels of variousbrain illnesses. No mental illness whatsoever is just a brain illness;all mental illnesses are whole body illnesses, without exception. Willy, do you remember what your test results were way back in thefall of 1997 in regard to your mineral and amino acid levels? (Analternative doctor by the name of Dr. Charles Gant had Willy's mineraland amino acid levels tested via RBC in September of 1997, when Willywas six years old. The testing laboratory was Metametrix.) Yes, you were low "across the board" in your amino acid levels. Andyou were low "across the board" in your mineral levels, with theexception of copper, which was very high. Nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, and amino acids are essentialfor the proper function of every cell and every organ in your body. Ifyou don't have enough nutrients, all of your cells, and all of yourorgans, will not be able to work quite right. This includes the organcalled your brain, and it includes every other organ in your body as well. You have not been taking in and/or absorbing enough essentialnutrients for many years. As a result of this, you have low levels ofmany essential nutrients in your body, and in all of its organs, toinclude your brain. Treating low levels of essential nutrients in yourbody requires the use of nutritional supplements. And perhaps needlessto say at this point, treating low levels of essential nutrients inyour body by being prescribed, and then taking, toxic drugs is nuts. No drug in the world can cure any nutrient deficiency. And you have alot of nutrient deficiencies, as the test results that you had yearsago clearly showed. Nothing has changed from 1997 to now (this wasbeing said in 2004), because nothing has been done to fix yournutrient deficiencies. You probably have as many nutrient deficienciesnow as you did when you were younger. Isn't this obvious to you?(Willy answered "Yes" to this question. He knew that he was seriouslynutrient deficient. We had been discussing natural health topics foryears. However, as a non-custodial father, I was unable to do anythingto help my son, until he asked me to do so at the age of thirteen.) This should be one of your health goals, and it should be a goal thatyou apply to yourself for the rest of your life; to never be nutrientdeficient of any essential nutrient inside yourself, as much as it ispractical or possible. Another health goal that you should have forthe rest of your life should to be to never have an excess of anyessential nutrient, if at all possible, such that this excess iscausing a problem to your body, or it is unhealthy for it in any way.However, nutrient excesses are a very small part of your currentnutrient situation. Willy, copper may be the only nutrient excess thatyou have at this point in time. You are likely to be nutrientdeficient in everything else; you are like to be deficient in theentire essential nutrient range with the exception of copper. In order for you to be able to get more essential nutrients into yourbody, without losing too many of these nutrients in your poop the nextday, you must understand how your GI tract works. (GI tract means"gastrointestinal tract", and I often just shorten this to the word"gut".) You must also learn how to recognize when your gut does notwork, such that it is not able to digest your foods and/or absorbessential nutrients well. And once you recognize that your gut doesnot work, you must learn how to fix this by yourself at home. It is not just what you eat, or what you take in supplement form, thatcounts as far as your health is concerned. It is what digested andabsorbed into your body that counts as far as your health, and yourhealth recovery, is concerned. Your gut has to be able to digest thefoods that you eat well, or you can lose a good deal of the nutritionthat you take in your mouth. And your gut also has to be able toabsorb nutrients into the body. Neither digestion nor absorption are agiven; much can go wrong here, and I will teach you how to correct forthis over time. If your gut does not either digest or absorb well,many essential nutrients just get pooped into the toilet a day or twolater. Besides the problem of your body being way too low in essentialnutrients, you have a second major chemical problem as well. Your bodyis way too high in toxins, most of which are created in your gut. Forthe rest of your life, you should learn whatever you need to learn,and then apply this knowledge to yourself, in order to keep the amountof toxins in your body as low as you possibly can. And never forgetthat most of the problematic toxins that are hurting you are usuallyones that are being created in your own gut. I will go into moredetail on this in another lesson. Increasing your nutrient status, correcting your digestive status,correcting your absorptive status, and reducing toxins produced inyour gut are all issues that are rather easily correctable by youyourself, once you know what you are doing. In fact, you are the verybest person to correct any nutrient, allergic, or toxic issue insideyour body. You can do a better job at these tasks than any doctor inthe world, no matter how many medical degrees they may have. It isyour diet, your gut, and your body, after all. You need (1) learn toeat the "right foods", (2) learn how to take care of your digestivestatus, (3) learn how to take care of your absorptive status, and (4)learn how to decrease the amount of toxins in your body in order torecover your health. And I can teach all of this to you, but you haveto do the work to get the job done. I cannot take care of your bodyWilly, only you can. Willy, the bottom line of your lack of health and wellness is that allof your organs and glands are simply starving for enough essentialnutrients in which to work right. And all of your organs and glandsare exposed to too many toxic substances as well. Think of them as allbeing poisoned to some degree. Organs and glands that are starving forthe nutrients that they need to run on, while being poisoned by toxinsin your body at the same time, obviously cannot work right. This isthe case with you, just as it was the case with me, until I learnedabout this stuff and got better years ago. You have already learned how to "not cure" what you have; by usingdoctors and their toxic drugs (lesson #2). Now let us talk about the other side of the coin; how to cure what youhave by using nutrients, by using other natural measures, and by using"just plain common sense". Before I begin teaching you how to cure yourself, I need to teach youa little bit about the chemistry of the human body, and how the humanbody works in a practical everyday sense. Willy, the chemistry of the human body is not that hard to understand.Any teenager can learn enough about the chemistry of their own bodyand their own brain, such that they can learn how to effect profoundlypositive biochemical change in both. Despite the fact that you may besomewhat learning impaired, and you cannot read very well at themoment, you definitely have what it takes to learn what I am going toteach you. (Willy was thirteen years old when this was said to him.) Do you remember the point that I made the other day in regard to "ifyou understand a single human cell, in a very big way you alreadyunderstand the entire human body", as far as your chemical correctionand your health recovery is concerned? (Willy replied "Yes".) And do you remember the three basic classes of chemicals that affectall cell function in every form of life? ("Yes.") What are they? Nutrients, allergens, and toxins, of course. Any chemical substancethat influences any and every single cell in your body can becategorized into either a nutrient, which means a substance your cellsneed, an allergen, which means an allergic substance, or a toxin,which means a poison as far as your cells are concerned. It is important for you to remember that these three basic chemicalclasses of nutrients, allergens, and toxins affect all cell functionin every form of life, to include every single cell in a human being. Nutrients, in a reasonable quantity, are good for your cells, if notactually needed by them in order to survive. Allergens and toxins areboth bad for your cells as far as their health or their function isconcerned. In the simplest of terms, to get better from what you have, and toregain your health, you only have to ask yourself one simple question;what is my nutrient, allergic, and toxic equation? and then learn howto fix this equation when it is not up to par. Fixing this equationmeans boosting your nutrient status until it is functional andhealthy, and lowering the level of allergens and toxins in yourself asmuch as you possibly can. If you learn how to correct your nutrient, allergic, and toxicequation, you will become healthy and you will completely walk awayfrom whatever brain illness the doctors may have labeled you with. Andif you learn how to correct your nutrient, allergic, and toxicequation very well, you can achieve a level of health and wellnessthat is way beyond the norm. This I know for a fact, from both my ownrecovery from over thirty years of bipolar symptoms, and from my manytrials in the last half dozen years or so as "a guinea pig for the world". It is time for us to talk about the chemical class called nutrients alittle more. Nutrients are essential to life itself. That is why they are calledessential nutrients, and there are roughly 90 of them. A level of zeroof even one essential nutrient means death; it means that you will diebecause you don't have any of it. That is how important essentialnutrients are; as I said a moment ago they are essential to life itself. It is wise for you to consider the entire essential nutrient range asbeing essential to both your physical and your mental health. Now it is going to get a little more complicated. I need to take thechemical class of essential nutrients and subdivide it into fourdifferent sub-classes of essential nutrients. This is all stuff thatyou need to learn and to understand if you are going to get better. The four sub-classes of nutrients, from the largest amount in yourbody to the smallest, are (a) amino acids, (b) essential fatty acids(these are essential nutrient fats), (c) minerals, and (d) vitamins. Water represents roughly 70% of the weight of an average human being. If one could take all of the water out of an average human being, theremainder by weight is roughly 70% amino acids, 20% by weight of fats,5% by weight of minerals, and a small percentage by weight ofvitamins. There are also a small percentage of toxins in the humanbody as well. I am going to use some words that you may not be familiar with, but Iwill try to make this as simple as I can. The functional chemistry of the body can be divided into three basicclasses of substances. The three basic classes of functional chemistryin the body are called (1) neurotransmitters, (2) hormones, and (3)enzymes. Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers involved in brain function,and there are roughly 100 of them that are known at this time. Hormones are regulating chemicals secreted by various organs in yourbody, such as the thyroid gland, the adrenal glands, and the pancreas. And enzymes are chemical catalysts that help certain chemicalreactions in the body to occur. Don't let these big words confuse you. The only thing that you reallyneed to know about neurotransmitters, hormones, and enzymes in yourbody in order to cure yourself is that they are all made out ofessential nutrients. In an accurate conceptual sense,neurotransmitters, hormones, and enzymes can simply be consideredcollections of various amino acid molecules that may have used avitamin molecule or a mineral molecule in order for them to be formedin the body or the brain. You don't need to know hardly anything aboutneurotransmitters, hormones, and enzymes in order to become wellWilly, but you do need to know about, and learn how to use, theirnutrient precursors in a practical sense. For you to be healthy, you need to be taking in enough essentialnutrients to build whatever neurotransmitters, hormones, and enzymesthat your body and brain may need in order to function properlywithout having any problems. Neurotransmitters, hormones, and enzymesdon't last forever in the body or any of its organs, to include thebrain, which is an organ as well. And neurotransmitters, hormones, andenzymes are constantly being used, and used up, in your body and yourbrain as you go about your day. When these body and brain chemicals are used up, you want to haveenough nutrient chemistry on hand in your body in order for it to makenew neurotransmitters, hormones, and enzymes when it needs to. This isjust common sense. If you don't have enough nutrient chemistry in your body and brain,this is where problems arise. Your body or brain may need to make upmore neurotransmitters, hormones, and enzymes, but it can easily fallshort in the nutrient department in which to do so. You need to learn how to adequately fuel yourself with essentialnutrients daily, such that you don't run short of the raw material tobuild whatever your body and brain may need to function as theyshould. This is a large portion of the proper cure of either ADHD orbipolar disorder; you need to learn how to properly fuel yourself withessential nutrients, as much as it is practical or possible to do so. Do you remember what the four kinds of essential nutrients are? Yes, amino acids, minerals, essential fatty acids, and vitamins. The essential nutrients that you have already learned about areresponsible for the production of every single neurotransmitter,hormone, and enzyme in your body. The chemical building blocks ofevery single neurotransmitter, hormone, and enzyme in your body areall essential nutrients. What this means is that if you have a low level of any one of the 90or so essential nutrients, you are most certainly low in regard towhatever neurotransmitter, hormone, or enzyme that these essentialnutrients manufacture in your body. This also means that if you learn how to increase the level of all ofthe essential nutrients inside your body, you will be automaticallyincreasing all of your neurotransmitter, hormone, and enzyme levels aswell. The body and the brain automatically know what to do in regard toproducing whatever they may need to produce, assuming that they aregiven an adequate supply of all of the raw material that they need towork with. This raw material is essential nutrients. The body andbrain build whatever chemistry that they need to build from chemicalscalled essential nutrients. Some essential nutrient levels can be corrected rather quickly withina matter of days to a matter of weeks by the use of nutritionalsupplements. This statement applies to some vitamins, and the aminoacid class of nutrients. However, some essential nutrient levels,especially in the mineral class, can take months and months in orderto correct their low levels safely inside of you. You just can't take "all at once" an adequate amount of a number ofessential nutrients in supplement form in order to fix a low level ofsome of these nutrients inside of your body right away. Trying tocorrect many of the essential nutrient deficiencies that you havequickly is both unwise and unhealthy. Correcting many essentialnutrient deficiencies in a safe and healthy manner takes time. Willy, think of yourself as a deep well of water, and one that iscurrently very low. Perhaps there was a drought in the summer months,and this well has run nearly dry. And you only have a garden hose tofill this deep well up. It is going to take time to fill up the well,using only a garden hose in which to do so. And it is going to takeyou some time to increase the levels of many of the essentialnutrients inside your body. If you keep putting inside yourself on a daily basis a little more ofwhatever essential nutrients you may be lacking in, than your bodyuses up and excretes out in your poop and your pee, you will beincreasing the levels of these essential nutrients inside of yourbody. Doing such over a period of time can, and does, eventuallyincrease these essential nutrient levels to the point where you willno longer be functionally deficient in these nutrient substances at all. I can give you all of the supplements that you need in order tocorrect your nutrient deficiencies, and in order for you to healyourself. I have spent the last seven years of my life learning "thehard way" what I am going to teach you over the next handful of monthsor so. I can make your learning process a heck of a lot easier for youthan mine was for me. However, as a non-custodial father, I can't bethere at home to guide you. You will have to apply the supplementsthat I will give you, and the healing knowledge that I can teach you,to yourself. Let us go back to the brain and talk about the specifics of thebrain's nutritional needs a little more. Do you remember when I talkedabout neurotransmitters, and told you that they are one of the threeclasses of functional chemistry in the body, along with hormones andenzymes? And do you remember that I told you that there are roughly100 known neurotransmitters that are known at this time? ("Yes.") What do you think that these neurotransmitters are all made of? Yes,they are made out of nutrients. It may interest you to know that outof the 100 or so known neurotransmitters at this time, 99 of them areprimarily composed of amino acids. Science actually knows whatspecific amino acids make what specific neurotransmitters. Many ofthese neurotransmitters also use scientifically known and specificvitamin and mineral nutrient cofactors in order to be produced. (Thissame idea holds true for hormones; 95% of hormones are amino acids,and science knows their specifics, as well as the specifics of theirvitamin and mineral cofactors as well. No wonder conventional medicinehas to totally ignore amino acids in health or healing; for theyobsolete so many drugs.) You don't need to even know the names of hardly any of these 100neurotransmitters in order to get better from what you have, but youshould know a little bit about a few of them. I will go into thislater. Two important things that you have to know to get better fromwhat you have are (1) increasing your neurotransmitter levels involvesincreasing your essential nutrient levels, and (2) amino acids areparticularly important in regard to increasing the neurotransmitterlevels in your brain, as 99 out of 100 neurotransmitters are primarilymade out of amino acids, with a vitamin or mineral molecule needed intheir production most of the time. A person can have a relatively high level of neurotransmitters, theycan have an average level of neurotransmitters, and they can have arelatively low level of neurotransmitters. There is a very bigdifference in how you feel mood-wise and otherwise depending on therelative general level of neurotransmitters that you have. When myneurotransmitter levels are relatively high, I feel good, I can handlea lot of stress without complaint, and I can do a lot of mental workwithout feeling really tired and worn out. When my neurotransmitterlevels are average, I feel average, I can handle an average amount ofstress, and I can do an average amount of work. And when myneurotransmitter levels are low, I don't have a lot of energy, eithermentally or physically, and my ability to handle stress and to domental work is very impaired. And when my neurotransmitter levels arevery low, I am depressed, and I just want to stay in bed, watch TV,and sleep a lot. The good news that I have for you is that it is amazingly easy toboost all of your neurotransmitter levels. All you have to do is boosttheir nutrient precursors, or "nutrient building blocks", in yourbody, such that these nutrients are available to your brain. Orally taking broad based free form amino acid supplements, along withthe vitamin and mineral range, can, and does, broadly increase someone's neurotransmitter levels, with one exception. This exception isthe single missing neurotransmitter that amino acids do not make. Thisexception is a major neurotransmitter called acetylcholine, and itcomes from choline, a member of the B vitamin family. In the fall of 1997 I found that the best way to increase theacetylcholine level in my brain was to take a supplement calledphosphatidyl choline, along with an accessory nutrient calledL-carnitine. Taking these two supplements had a profoundly positiveeffect on me, and they will have a profoundly positive effect on youas well. I will go into this more in another lesson. In regard to boosting your neurotransmitter levels, the two mainthings that I want you to understand are: (1) whenever you are taking broad based free form amino acids tobroadly increase your neurotransmitter levels, you also want to takeat least a B complex vitamin and some vitamin C at the same time, ifnot the entire vitamin and mineral family as well, in order to makesure that you have whatever nutrient cofactors that these broad basedfree form amino acids may need to produce whatever neurotransmitterthat they may be involved in making, and... (2) whenever you are taking broad based free form amino acids tobroadly increase your neurotransmitter levels, you should alwaysconsider, if not always take, both phosphatidyl choline andL-carnitine at the same time to cover the single neurotransmitter thatamino acids don't make; acetylcholine. Acetylcholine is a majorneurotransmitter, and its level controls the rate of firing in yourbrain. Believe me; you don't want to run real low of acetylcholine. Ifyou do run real low of this major neurotransmitter, hyperactivity (orhypomania) is a very likely end result. Being hyperactive in yourbrain is not a good thing. It is not wise to boost neurotransmitters in an incomplete andunbalanced fashion, with some exceptions, and these I will go intolater. It is far wiser to boost all of your neurotransmitter levels,in as balanced a fashion as you possibly can. Your body and brain willtell you if you have done a good job in this regard, simply by how youfeel brain-wise and otherwise. I am not going to go into any more specifics on increasing yourneurotransmitter levels in this lesson. This is all material foranother lesson. However, I did want to give you an idea of whatessential nutrients can change your neurotransmitter levels in yourbrain, and how to go about using these essential nutrients to boostyour neurotransmitter levels in a general sense. The same principles that we just discussed a few minutes ago in regardto boosting all of your neurotransmitter levels apply to boosting allof the hormone and enzyme levels in the body as well. Broadlyincreasing the levels of nutrient precursor substances in a person'sbody will broadly increase a person's hormone and enzyme levels as well. And don't worry at all about getting your levels of neurotransmitters,hormones, and enzymes too high. Your body knows how to handlenutrients, and it can make whatever adjustments it may need to. Yourbody will only make whatever neurotransmitters, hormones, and enzymesthat it can use or that it needs. And the wisdom of the body knows howto correct for a fairly wide range of essential nutrient intake.Normal and healthy human chemistry is a fairly big and easy target tohit, it is just that there are a lot of substances involved. Do you remember the general rule of health correction that wediscussed the other day? This general rule, one that is comprised of four basic principles, isas follows: "(a) Properly maximize your nutrient status, and (b) whatever thatentails (identify and correct any common malabsorptive issues that youmay have), while (c) minimizing your toxic load (especially fromtoxins generated in your own gut), and while (d) minimizing yourallergic exposure (especially to foods) at the same time." It is not hard to deal with the first principle of the general rule ofhealth correction that I keep talking about, which is (a) properlymaximize your nutrient status. It is pretty easy to learn how toincrease the level of all of the essential nutrients inside your body.All you need to do is supplement yourself with the entire nutrientrange in a safe and balanced fashion in order to do so. What I amtelling you in this regard should be obvious; if you increase yournutrient intake "across the board", you should be increasing yournutrient status, and whatever these nutrients may make in your bodyand brain, "across the board" as well. In fact, it is so easy to increase the levels of all of the essentialnutrients in your body that it is totally nuts that conventionalmedicine is completely ignoring all of this stuff when treatingpersons that are broadly nutrient deficient, as you clearly are. Unfortunately, there is "one big catch" in regard to increasing all ofthe essential nutrient levels in your body. This catch involves item(b) in the general rule of health correction that I keep talkingabout. Item (b) states that you should be able to identify and correctany common malabsorptive issue that you may have. And take my word forit Willy; you have a number of common malabsorptive issues, such ascandida, which is a yeast in your gut, hidden food allergies, a lackof digestive enzymes, and the like. Malabsorptive issues such as thisare crippling both your mental and physical health. In future lessonsI will teach you about all of these malabsorptive issues, both inregard to how to identify them in yourself, and how to correct them inyourself as well. Why can't you just "eat your way to wellness" without usingnutritional supplements? Conventional doctors either claim or infer that the food we eat hasenough essential nutrients in it. They also claim or infer that we donot need nutritional supplements, and that many nutritionalsupplements are not very good for us. These attitudes all beg thequestion of "can you get better simply by eating more good qualityfood?" I would like to answer this question for you today. Willy, you cannot become well by just eating more food, or even moreof what is considered "good food", in order to treat serious andmultiple essential nutrient deficiencies in yourself. And this is abig part of what has caused your ADHD diagnosis and your bipolarsymptoms; you have serious and multiple essential nutrientdeficiencies inside yourself. To cure yourself, you will need to learnhow to safely use whatever nutritional supplements may be necessary inorder to fix a serious and broad state of essential nutrientdeficiency inside yourself. Why can't you just eat your way to wellness without using nutritionalsupplements? One reason is that the foods that we have access to todayare far too lacking in many essential nutrients in order to be able toheal you. In part, this is due to food processing. If it is not freshmeat, fresh fowl, or fresh fish, or it is not sold in the producedepartment, it is a processed food. Processed food is any food thathas gone through a factory of some sort, and is sold in a box, a bag,a bottle, or a can. Most foods sold in a grocery store are processedfoods, and they are not that healthy for you. Why are processed foods not healthy for you? One reason is that some food processing methods strip roughly 90% ofthe mineral content out of whatever food is being processed. Anotherreason is that processed food has often been heated or cooked in someway. Heating foods up over 120 degrees or so, or cooking foods at evenhigher temperatures, destroys some essential nutrients. Thisespecially applies to the water soluble vitamins of vitamins B complexand vitamin C. Cooking food at home also destroys the enzyme contentof foods as well. Raw food is loaded with various kinds of enzymes,and these enzymes are important to your overall state of health.Enzymes are heat sensitive, just as many B vitamins and vitamin C are;and cooking destroys them all. A diet of all cooked food, and no raw food whatsoever, is a veryunhealthy diet. If you eat such a diet for a long time, you are almostguaranteed to get very sick, if not die an early death. A fellow namedPottinger proved this. He proved that cooked food intake is unhealthywith generations of cats. The cats eating all cooked food just gotsicker and sicker from generation to generation vs. a control groupthat was fed uncooked food and remained healthy. Any time that you eat a meal of all cooked foods you should take thewater soluble vitamins of B complex and C, and at least considertaking some digestive enzymes as well. This is simply common sense; toadd to your food some of the obvious things that either foodprocessing or the cooking process has taken away, so that such foodsare somewhat healthier for you and your body can utilize them a littlebetter. Another reason that you "cannot eat your way to wellness" is that mostfoods in America are very deficient in essential nutrients due to thefact that the topsoil in the U.S. is some of the most depleted in theworld. For example, a carrot today has only about 15% of the mineralcontent that a carrot had 50 years ago. This is because the soil thatthis carrot was grown on lacked in its mineral contents as well. Thisis simply the result of the fact that the crops grown in years pasthave taken many different minerals out of the soil, and these mineralsin the soil were never adequately replaced. One result of this situation regarding depleted topsoils in the U.S.is that mineral deficiencies in the American populace as a whole aregetting worse decade after decade. Broad essential mineraldeficiencies are getting to be the norm in America; far more childrentoday have broad essential mineral deficiencies than not. In addition to depleted nutrient content, most foods today are lacedwith a myriad of toxins. Pesticides, herbicides, and exposure toenvironmental toxins in our soil, water, and air seriously compromisethe "health quality" of the great majority of food that is grown inAmerica. Willy, you should try to eat organically grown food as muchas possible, to avoid the very toxic substances that are put on ourfood by traditional farming methods. Many people about my age (50 or so) realize that our parents'generation, the WWII generation, was both stronger and healthier thanours. And most people my age also realize that children today are farless healthy than we are. Many of us in our 50's can rather readilysee a substantial decline from generation to generation in regard tooverall human health. The foods that we eat, and their essentialnutrient content, has to be a major part of this substantial declinein health from one generation to the next. Greater exposure to a widerrange of toxins in our drinking water, in the foods we eat, and in ourenvironment have to also be major contributors to this substantialdecline in health from one generation to the next as well. As a some examples in regard to the above, autism, ADHD, childhoodbipolar disorder, childhood depression, and childhood obesity ratesall over the U.S. are going though the roof. In every single statethese rates are increasing, and increasing exponentially. Far morechildren today in America are seriously compromised health-wise thanthere ever were before. Very few children were seriously compromised health-wise, eithermentally or physically, when I went to through grade school and highschool in the fifties and sixties. Being seriously health compromisedas a child in the fifties and sixties was fairly rare; now it is quitecommon. Unfortunately, what is the conventional medical model doing to addressthis rather obvious decline in children's health from one generationto the next? They are ignoring virtually every nutritional and toxicfactor whatsoever in these seriously health compromised kids, andsimply prescribing them lots of drugs. Doctors are even prescribingvery powerful and brain damaging anti-psychotic, anti-depressive, andanti-anxiety medications to children as young as three and four yearsold. Willy, this is totally nuts. You were a victim of this crazymedical practice yourself, when a doctor prescribed you Ritalin at theage of seven years old. Son, you should try to always eat as healthy as possible and as bestthat you can. Other than what I have already said about foods, I amnot going to go into foods any more today. We will cover food issuesand food choices in another lesson. No matter what I say about food, either now or later, the followingstatement is true; foods, no matter how good they may be, cannotadequately correct many of the serious essential nutrient deficienciesthat you have; only the use of nutritional supplements can. I willteach you how to properly and safely apply nutritional supplements toyourself in another lesson. I'd like to conclude the lesson for today with an overview of the bigpicture as far as most "mental" or physical health correction isconcerned. For the rest of your life, if you do not feel very well for whateverreason, or if you feel noticeably worse than you did a day or twobefore, or if you have developed any serious "mental", physical, ordegenerative health problem of any sort and you do not know the causeof this, you should always consider the following four questions. Youshould consider these four questions on a daily basis when it feelsnecessary for you to do so, as things can change so quickly in regardto both your functional nutrient status, and the status of your gut. The following four questions are very important in regard to both yourphysical and your mental health: (a) Do your cells have enough of all 90 or so essential nutrients tofunction properly? (b) Are your cells overexposed to toxins of any sort or sourcewhatsoever, to include toxins generated in your own gut, such thattheir performance is impaired? (c) Are your cells overexposed to allergic substances, especially fromfood that you may have eaten, such that their performance is impaired? (d) Is your GI tract (gut) overexposed to too many allergic foods, oris it overexposed to too many toxins in your gut, such that itsabsorptive ability is seriously impaired? Willy, these four questions, dealt with by you at home and answeredproperly, will completely cure your ADHD diagnosis, your bipolarsymptoms, and your lack of general health. Son, you have learned more today than any doctor that went to anyconventional medical school in the U.S. is taught about the basics ofthe human body in regard to curing what you have. It is not that hardto cure yourself. And don't be afraid of making mistakes. Mistakes canbe lessons too. It is only a matter of time before you will get thingsright. You can do this Willy. I know that you can. Allen Darman