1. Alcoholism and other chemical abuse effects nearly 1 in 7 people in the United States today.
2. Combined Attention Deficit and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder numbers are rising and are predicted to reach 1 in 3 in the United States.
3. Research linking stress to physical disease has been the subject of no less than 20,000 scientific studies accomplished over the last five years. Obesity, high blood pressure, ulcers, migraine headaches, strokes, alcoholism and even outbursts of anger are all found to be the effects of long-term stress. Current case reports indicate over 75% of all illnesses treated by both doctors of family and internal medicine, are stress related.

These three problems are closely related to a person's brain chemistry in that:

1. Addiction is physically "set up" by a genetically caused insufficient production and/or amounts of certain brain chemicals called neuro-transmitters. These include the opioids, dopamine, serotonin and gamma amino butyric acid (GABA).
2. In approximately 2 out of 3 hyperactivity cases, the individual's genetics causes a shortage of the opioids, and commonly related shortages of serotonin and GABA. Individuals with Attention Deficit have related shortages of dopamine, as well as one or more of the other neuro-transmitters.
3. Modern day stress often forces the brain to use up neuro-transmitters (opioids, dopamine, serotonin, GABA, norepinephrine and epinephrine) faster than the body can replace them from a normal, balanced diet.

The following research synopsis provides an insight into the internal workings of the over stressed individual, and how nutritional supplementation combined with an understanding of one's own neurochemistry can inhibit the effects of stress.

THE PROBLEM:

The Stress Cycle shows the brain's neurochemical pathway as the body reacts to stress. The subsystems shown are an essential part of man's survival and have been used over the millennia to produce the psycho-physiological mechanisms necessary for a person to defend him or herself. Under continuing stress, The Stress Cycle shows how the interrelationships among the systems form an unstable feedback loop. A demonstration of an unstable feedback loop occurs when a speaker steps to a microphone and snaps his/her fingers to test it. This sound is amplified and then is reproduced by the loud speakers. The reproduction travels back to the microphone at the speed of sound. There it is picked up and re-amplified. As this process continues, a loud whine is heard making the auditorium unusable by the very public address system designed to make the auditorium useful. Turning the volume down solves the problem.

All the functions of the stress cycle are very useful to a person who is threatened by a predator or mortal enemy. However, they are harmful to the modern person whose mortal enemy is long-term stress.

Stress causes the opioids (endorphins and enkephalins) levels to decrease. The lower opioid levels create a sense of urgency. This sense of urgency is usually expressed as the need to respond to certain physical demands. For example, if one drinks a couple of quarts of iced tea at 10:00 in the evening, he or she will usually awaken in the middle of the night with a very strong sense of urgency. As soon as the body's need has been taken care of, the sense of urgency quickly goes away.

If the sense of urgency is initiated by continuing stress, the stress "signal" goes from the opioids to GABA to norepinephrine to serotonin back to the opioids. This forms an unstable feedback loop like the public address system. The result is a continued loss of "volume control" neurochemicals until all control is lost. The individual becomes irritable, easily angered and finds him or herself suffering from easy loss of temper. Some find relief in the artificial opioid release provided by the conversion of alcohol into tetrahydroisoquinoline (TIQ). Persistent self-medication with alcohol has been shown to lead to alcoholism.

The lowering of the opioids causes an increase in dopamine levels and a decrease in GABA levels. These actions cause a combination of alertness and anxiety. Dopamine is responsible in large part for the feelings of exhilaration associated with an "adrenaline rush" or cocaine use. Prolonged release of dopamine causes emotional fatigue or anhedonia. In an extreme case, anhedonia limits or removes one's ability to enjoy beauty, music, or experience love for oneself or for another. A continual release of GABA can lead to depression and feeling of inadequacy. Many times individuals with depleted GABA will self-medicate by carbohydrate bingeing.

The lowering of GABA levels causes the levels of norepinephrine to increase and serotonin to decrease. The increased norepinephrine causes adrenaline to be released and the reduction in serotonin makes sleep difficult or impossible. Once the levels of serotonin increase the body will demand the sleep it badly needs (serotonin is the sleep enabling neuro-transmitter). However if long-term stress continues, the lack of sleep can cause a great deal of damage to the body.

The increased level of norepinephrine encourages quick, emotional responses and discourages slower, deliberate logical thinking. The release of adrenaline causes the heart to beat faster and harder, and causes red blood cell reserves to be released into the blood stream. In addition, energy and nutrient reserves and oxygen are diverted away from nonessential regions (digestive tract) and made available to the skeletal muscles, heart and the brain. This results in the person being able to make an almost super human physical response to a threat. Over a long period of time, our heart working harder and longer leads to the condition of high blood pressure. The continual diversion of energy, nutrient and oxygen from "nonessential organs" may cause these organs to become diseased over time.

The reduction of serotonin further modulates the opioids downward. The cycle therefore repeats with increasing intensity. The analogy of the whining public address system is complete. However when the feedback system in the hypothalamus of the brain causes continuing adrenaline release and shortages of other neuro-transmitters, the human can be injured or even killed. Fortunately the human body has the means "of turning down" the brain's internal volume.

THE SOLUTION:

Decades of university research have been required to find the means by which the brain's "internal volume" is turned down. As early as 1928, Dr. Hans Selye's research showed that when stress is long-term in nature, the "stress management chemicals" (as he called them), which enable the body to "turn down the volume," are depleted. Ultimately the volume correction can no longer be made. Selye showed that once these chemicals are totally depleted the subject dies!

The last 20 years of research by notable scientists such as Dr. Gerald Kozlowski, Dr. Terry Neher and Dr. M. L. Barbaccia found that levels of neuro-transmitters would be slowly replenished from a normal, balanced diet. Their research found that the slowness was not due to a "lack of production facilities" but rather a" lack of raw materials." While the quantities required vary from one individual to another, acquiring these additional nutrients from food is generally difficult. The average person would require several pounds of exotic fish, a quart of milk and a variety of other high cholesterol and high fat foods daily. Concentrated nutritional supplementation is required during modern, long-term stress. This can be accomplished by taking a handful of individual supplements, or by taking a single capsule formulation patented by NeuroGenesis, Inc., called beCALM'd.

Whether through numerous single component capsules, or the patented "all in one" capsule formulation, the supplements must contain: d/l-phenylalanine, l-glutamine, Vitamin A, Vitamin B6, calcium, magnesium, chromium and folic acid. This formulation of amino acids, vitamins and minerals has been clinically proven to enhance the availability of the opioids, GABA, serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine.

In the original formulation of beCALM'd, a large amount of d-phenylalanine was required to inhibit the opioid destruction enzyme, enkephalinase. Enkephalinase inhibition was the primary means to increase opioid level in the brain. Through a new, patented discovery by NeuroGenesis a small amount of d/l-phenylalanine combined with folic acid provides significant additional production of enkephaline in the brain. This allows the opioid shortage to be quickly normalized rather than controlled by patent demand.

The net effect of this nutritional supplement, is the ability to "turn down the volume" in the brain. The individual is able to handle the long-term effects of modern stress by using the brain's own internal control systems.

CONCLUSION:

Today's preferred treatment of stress related disease is not a new miracle drug, or even a significant life style change. Increasing ones intake of very specific foods, and accepting the additional health risks of obesity, high cholesterol and high triglycerides can accomplish the goal of managing the effects of long-term stress.

In the final analysis, nutritional supplementation is perhaps the safest (most of the components found in beCALM'd are water soluble allowing the excess or unused quantities to be naturally eliminated from the body), most practical and effective means of managing the effects of long-term stress, ADD/ADHD and abuse of alcohol and other substances.

Contempt of this issue because it is not conventional medicine may do more than keep man in ignorance - it may be fatal.