Don Wiss writes:

>Grant Magnuson asked:
>
>>Is a Neanderthing style diet suitable for a person suffering from panic
>>attacks?
>
>A gluten-free and dairy-free diet does wonders for depression and bipolar
>mood disorder. Is this close enough to panic attacks?

Well, here's my experience as a former panic-attack sufferer, and my views
on the diet connection. I used to have the most severe panic attacks of
anyone I have ever talked to. They could last for hours at a time. Symptoms
were doubling or tripling of heart rate with hard pounding (still amazed I
did not have a heart attack), inability to move my rib cage or breathe
hardly at all (felt like some sort of muscular paralysis almost), and real
feelings that I might suffocate, subjective feelings of utter terror that I
could die from the effects; and once this phase passed I would get the
sweats and then the cold shakes. It was like being a fish out of water and
gasping for your very life.

It is quite clear to me that the panic attacks I had were due to physical
causes--apparently exhausted adrenals, which somehow led to them becoming
oversensitive without a lot of resilience to where they could easily
overreact, flooding my system with arenaline, which then drove the panic
attacks. Given the experimenting I have done since with diet, the
precipitating factors in my own panic attacks seemed quite clearly related
to years of both excessive sugar and caffeine consumption (both of which I
have since learned whip the adrenals into action and can eventually exhaust
them), and high-stress work in advertising under unrelenting deadline
pressures. The adrenals are sometimes known as the "stress glands," and so
any factor which excessively stresses the body long-term will also begin to
adversely affect them as well.

For me, the panic attacks stopped fairly quickly by simply ceasing caffeine
intake and limiting sugar intake including that from fruits to a manageable
level my body could handle; in combination with limiting stress so as not
to overtax the adrenals. (Even now I can bring on symptoms of near
panic-attack simply by drinking 12 to 16 oz. of caffeinated soft
drink--which of course I almost never do anymore, and even then just as an
experiment to see how things are coming along as a gauge of how my progress
is going.) Also exercise was very helpful in helping to rebuild my stress
resilience somewhat (although in the beginning I was between a rock and
hard place and had to be careful not to overdo, because during the initial
rebuilding phase, exercise itself could be enough of a stressor to impact
the adrenals leading to another round of panic attacks). This managing of
panic attacks was successful on a vegetarian diet before I switched to a
more paleolithic-type diet.

Also strenuous aerobic exercise (for me, distance running) has been very
successful in regulating my blood sugar. In fact, I find that the more I
exercise, not only the better can I tolerate sugars and carbs, but the more
my body seems to *demand* them, and I cannot stay away from more carb
volume when exercising at consistently high levels. (I have also been
wanting to say here on the list that my opinion is the perceived need for
low-carb diets by those into these types of food philosophies may be as
much an indictment of how little we exercise these days as it is a true
need for such low-carb diets. While it is undoubtedly true we eat more
carbohydrates and sugars than is necessary these days, I sometimes wonder
if the low-carb advocates don't take it too far--or may be *forced* to take
it so far simply because modern-day lifestyles by all but the most
extremely athletic come nowhere near the levels of physical activities our
ancestors would have been engaged in out of necessity; and this, thus,
hampers our carbohydrate processing capacities.)

Anyway, my feeling is that panic attacks probably have a much more
profoundly biological basis than most people realize (including physicians
and even so-called "specialists" in mood disorders). I have thumbed through
a number of books by specialists on panic attacks, and not one that I can
remember really focused on or even hardly mentioned the role of the
adrenals, or really looked closely at the biological pathways by which
excessive sugar or caffeine or stress can exhausting them. Due to our
constant go-go society and the high levels of stress most people are under,
and the high sugar and caffeine consumption (among other stimulants than
can exhaust the adrenals when used long-term) people use to keep themselves
going in lieu of being chronically short on sleep, I tend to believe most
panic attacks are from physical causes (that can be exacerbated by mental
stresses, rather than the other way around). There are some naturopathic
physicians who are coming to believe that adrenal insufficiency is a much
more common problem in our culture than anybody realizes, and way
underdiagnosed.

It is too bad the diet connection is not more widely seen or known, but on
the other hand, I don't think it has necessarily to do with things specific
to Paleolithic diet. I think the reason a Paleolithic diet would help panic
attacks is simply that it is a low-carb-type diet that limits the amount of
sugar (and of course no stimulants), but with that being more a by-product
of the overall philosophy than intentional.

I am personally looking for long-term rebuilding of the adrenals through
nutritional inputs and other strategies, as I am still very sensitive to
sugars and stress, and can get into panic attack trouble again if I am not
very careful about managning these things. I have been told by some that
red meats may contain factors to rebuild the adrenals better than other
foods, but have never seen any hard evidence as to what these might be, and
so far in my experience red meats have not proven to be any magic bullt
that I can see. If anybody has any practical suggestions about rebuilding
adrenals through nutritional factors that might not be present in
high-enough levels in a half-ass Paleolithic diet (the version I follow :-)
), I would appreciate ideas on the subject. Thanks.

--Ward Nicholson <[log in to unmask]>