Ray Peat on depression

"The Blood Brain Barrier, BBB, has sometimes been treated as something unique, but it’s just a special case of the cellular resistance that exists everywhere. For example, after intense exercise that produces fatigue and damage to muscles, a unique brain protein, S100B, that is considered a crucial part of the BBB, can be found in the blood stream. The exchange of substances, even proteins and nucleic acids, between cells and their environment, increases during stress. The detection of substances such as S100B in the blood is now recognized as evidence of depression and brain damage"

- September 2019 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The reduction of parathyroid hormone by increased calcium and vitamin D is closely related to reduced obesity, and to the health problems associated with obesity—hypertension, insulin resistance, heart arrhythmias, depression, and various inflammatory conditions."

- September 2017 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"While progesterone might seem to cure almost everything, we should be careful to use it only when the biochemical mechanism is fairly evident. A progesterone deficiency can be misdiagnosed, as (for example) epilepsy, Brights disease, multiple sclerosis, or even estrogen deficiency (as in menopause). It can affect susceptibility to many conditions including herpes infections, dizziness, dysperception, varicose veins, mastitis, fibroma, and endometriosis. Cyclic edema, depression, and migraine are, in my experience, always stopped by progesterone."

- Nutrition For Women

"Just as veins in the forehead shrink immediately if a large amount of sugar is taken for a migraine, I have seen veins (back of hand) disappear with progesterone treatment, just when a suicidal depression is lifting. This suggests that there may be a migraine condition in the blood vessels of the limbic system of the brain, but there are also very rapid shifts in brain chemistry."

- Nutrition For Women

"If gas is a problem even when change of diet isnt responsible, a thyroid deficiency should be considered. Lack of stomach acid is typical in hypothyroidism, but is only one aspect of a generalized digestive depression."

- Nutrition For Women

"Aromatase, the enzyme that produces estrogen, is present in muscles, fat, blood vessels, and many other tissues, and its activity is increased by cortisol, and decreased by progesterone. The changed activity of these two steroids at menopause can account for the sudden increase in the degenerative diseases, inflammation, depression, etc."

- November 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Low serum cholesterol has been associated with depression, suicide, violence, and increased cancer mortality. Since statins enter the brain, and inhibit the synthesis of cholesterol there, decreased mitochondrial function is undoubtedly a factor in the mental side effects that they can produce."

- November 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Drug company manipulation of information about estrogen has been more extreme than its treatment of serotonin. Activated by stress, along with serotonin, it is one of the major activators of the corticotropin release hormone, CRH, which activates the pituitary and adrenal glands, and promotes inflammation, and is a major factor in PPD (Glynn and Sandman, 29014, HahnHolbrook, 2016), as well as in other types of depression, and aging, and Alzheimer’s disease."

- May 2019 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"If it weren’t for the advertising culture, it would probably be generally recognized that both estrogen and serotonin have important roles in causing depression, migraine, and Alzheimer’s disease, all of which occur much more often in women than in men."

- May 2019 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Several studies have observed an association of lower postpartum cholesterol with symptoms of anxiety and depression"

- May 2019 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"With insufficient cholesterol, the normally high postpartum concentration of progesterone isn’t likely to be maintained, and instead of brain restoration, the various pro-inflammatory effects of serotonin and estrogen will predominate, with effects such as depression, joint pain, anxiety, and brain edema."

- May 2019 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"All animals use body language to communicate—when a facial expression or gesture or stance is perceived, the ability to mimic means that the feeling behind the gesture is simultaneously perceived."

- May 2018 - Ray Peats Newsletter

"Inflammation is involved in the chronic degenerative conditions, especially atrophy and cancer, and even in depression"

- March 2019 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Hypothyroid people, with low production of CO2, are very susceptible to stress-induced hyperventilation, and they are often in a state of physiological hyperventilation. They are susceptible to over-production of ammonia (De Nardo, et al., 1999; Marti, et al., 1988) and lactate (Zarzeczny, et al., 1996), and to psychosis, especially depression and mania."

- July 2017 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Lithium has been used for many years to treat various mood disorders, including anxiety and depression, and it reduces activation of the NMDA system, possibly by binding ammonia."

- January 2017 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"a San Francisco study by Kristine Yaffe and co-authors found that free estrogen, the active form of the hormone, was higher in more of the people who had better cognitive function. Yaffe, et al., also found that dementia is associated with both depression and osteoporosis. There isnt really such a thing as free estrogen, which is defined in terms of a particular laboratory situation that doesnt correspond to anything in the body."

- 2001 - February

"Serotonin doesnt cure depression, and both serotonin and nitric oxide impair circulation and are toxic to brain cells. Both of them poison mitochondrial respiration."

- 2001 - February

"Increased adrenaline, like increased cortisol, is a feature of depression, stress, and inflammation; mobilizing fats, it can become part of a vicious circle, in which free fatty acids cause insulin resistance, activating the stress reactions."

- 2001 - February

"The consistency with which oxygen becomes deficient in aging, stress, and estrogen excess suggests that a basic coordination mechanism may be involved, jn which there is a shift toward the conditions which will activate the expression of certain genes - possibly the hypoglycernia-stress-heat-shock proteins, or possibly simply the proteins of cell division and growth."

- 1992 - June - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"In PMS, edema is a common problem, and it used to be thought that edema of the brain was responsible for the irritability or depression or other nervous symptoms, and diuretics such es ammonium compounds and urea were commonly used. (Premenstrual salt cravings are the result of the estrogen-disturbed water balance, and salt-restriction for PMS is as inappropriate as it is for pre-eclampsia or toxemia of pregnancy.)"

- 1991 - July - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Unopposed cortisol is immunosuppressive in several ways, including thymic hypoplasia,*°depression of the histaminolytic activity and monooxygenase activity of the liver, contributing to chronic allergies, and it can induce the expression of some types of retrovirus."

- 1989 - November - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Both vitamin A and carotene, like any unsaturated oil, will tend to inhibit the thyroid, so it is important to balance supplements of vitamin A and thyroid; a sluggish thyroid will more easily be suppressed by large doses of vitamin A, but a high level of thyroid activity causes vitamin A to be used more quickly. It is an interesting expression of this biological relationship that one blood protein carries both vitamin A and thyroid hormone."

- 1988 - January - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Although a physiologically balanced amount of cortisol induces enzymes of detoxification, for example in the intestine, an unopposed excess causes destruction of these enzymes, eliminating much of the intestine’s barrier function, and leading to allergies.? This action of cortisol against the thymus and against the bowel’s detoxifying enzymes very likely accounts for the common association of allergies with virus infections. Since cortisol has a destabilizing, pro-convulsant effect on the nervous system, there are likely to be psychological symptoms — anything from compulsive behavior to depression or seizures — associated with the other chronic conditions."

- 1988 - August.September - Ray Peat's Newsletter