Worshiping the Brain While Neglecting the Body: Health Consequences

Introduction

Scientific emphasis on the brain has been baked into our culture for millennia. The Western world even before the Greek civilization, has been patriarchal, giving rise to a hierarchical social structure. The same vertical system has been unconsciously adopted in medicine and science in general. The brain is glorified sitting at the top, like a king on a throne while the rest of the organs such as the heart, liver, etc. are bellow, as are other tissues and cells.

Medical doctors and scientists working in the medical field think of the body as a strictly one way, mostly top-down, rarely bottom-up communication system. The latter is usually perceived as negative, giving us nothing but trouble like duodenal ulcers or heart attacks. Add to this the Church’s jaundiced view of the genitalia and you hesitate to spend too much time contemplating the lower chakras.

Implications

It is therefore not surprising that one of the major obstacles to achieving progress in treating many diseases is the lack of appreciation by doctors, scientists and particularly, researchers in the pharmaceutical industry that the brain, heart, gut do not function separately from each other. I shall cite some recent research to demonstrate what I mean.

Atherosclerotic plaques are deposits of cholesterol, fibrous tissue and immune cells that form on the inner lining of arteries. These plaques progressively choke the lumen of the arteries, decreasing the amount of nutrients and oxygen that can reach body tissues. Heart attacks, strokes and peripheral circulatory problems are among the known consequences. In recent decades nobody has asked whether there is a direct connection between the plugged up artery and the brain. Recently, Saraj K Mohanta and his team at the Institute of Cardiovascular Prevention, Ludwig‐Maximilians‐University, Munich, asked that question and discovered that atherosclerosis is more than just a plaque. In fact, it is a chronic inflammatory disease of the entire artery. The peripheral nervous system responds to such inflammation and sends signals to the brain. The brain processes the signals and sends a stress signal back to the inflamed blood vessel reinforcing the inflammation resulting in an even larger plaque. This previously unknown communication circuit between the arteries and the brain is potentially of enormous significance and represents a completely new understanding of atherosclerosis.

And here is another example, still on plaques but this time the amyloid plaques of Alzheimer’s. According to a new study in the journal PLOS Biology, by John Mamo of Curtin University in Bentley, Australia, amyloid protein made in the liver can cause neurodegeneration in the brain. Since the protein is thought to be a key contributor to development of Alzheimer's disease, the results suggest that the liver may play an important role in the onset or progression of the disease. If this is the case, rather than focusing all research on the brain, might it not be more rewarding to find ways to either prevent the liver from making the amyloid plaques or, to at least destroy the amyloid protein as it enters the circulation, that is, before it reaches the brain?

University of South Australia scientists have uncovered a link between mental illness and widely fluctuating blood pressure, which can lead to cardiovascular disease and organ damage. These findings may have important implications for patients suffering of mental illness highlighting the need for comprehensive cardiovascular risk reduction.

There is a rapidly increasing amount of evidence showing the extent to which the microbiome (the sum of all the bacteria and viruses residing in the gastro-intestinal tract) interacts at virtually all levels of complexity, ranging from direct cell-to-cell communication to extensive systemic signaling, and involving various organs

and organ systems, including the central nervous system. Furthermore, these bacteria produce metabolites which support a wide variety of important functions in our bodies.

More than 40 million Americans take statins, the most common type of prescription drug. While statins have been shown to effectively lower cholesterol levels and reduce the risks of stroke and heart attack, they do not work the same for everyone.

Researchers from Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle found that the composition and diversity of the gut microbiome is predictive of the efficacy of statins and the magnitude of negative side effects.

Over 250 million Americans live with depression. Unfortunately, the drugs used to treat depression also kill beneficial gut bacteria, and this may cause unpleasant side effects, including nausea, vomiting or diarrhea. People may even stop taking their medication because of these effects.

In a new study published in Scientific Reports, scientists examined the antimicrobial properties of different antidepressant drugs on common gut microbes. Studies continuing from this research could enable us to minimize these unpleasant side effects. Looking at someone’s gut bacteria might also allow clinicians to select the ideal antidepressant treatment.

Depending on a person’s microbiome, certain drugs may benefit some people but not others. No doubt, assessing an individual’s microbiome before commencing treatment will be an important lab test in the future.

Final Thoughts

I think it is imperative for science including the health sciences to adopt a more nuanced, nonbinary attitude towards the brain and other organs, tissues and cells. Failure to recognize this is blocking research, the imagination and curiosity of scientists and discovery of new and better treatments of many physical and mental diseases.

Key Takeaways

• Scientists up to now have failed to understand is that atherosclerosis is more than just a plaque, rather it is a chronic inflammatory disease of the entire artery. Therefore, you need to treat the whole body.

• One of the major obstacles to making progress in treating many diseases is the current practice that restricts the care of sick people to separate medical specialties. Neurologists focus on disorders of the brain and nervous tissues. Cardiologists deal with diseases of the heart. And seldom do they talk to each other.

• Organ‐centered, blinkered perspectives do not take into account the many physiological systems that operate simultaneously and in synchrony in our bodies.

• Everything is connected.

References

Ait Chait, Y., Mottawea, W., Tompkins, T. A., & Hammami, R. (2020). Unravelling the antimicrobial action of antidepressants on gut commensal microbes. Scientific reports, 10(1), 1-11.

Gillespie, A. L., Wigg, C., Van Assche, I., Murphy, S. E., & Harmer, C. J. (2022). Associations between statin use and negative affective bias during COVID-19: an observational, longitudinal UK study investigating depression vulnerability. Biological psychiatry.

Lam, V., Takechi, R., Hackett, M. J., Francis, R., Bynevelt, M., Celliers, L. M., ... & Mamo, J. C. (2021). Synthesis of human amyloid restricted to liver results in an Alzheimer disease–like neurodegenerative phenotype. PLoS Biology, 19(9), e3001358.

Mohanta, Sarajo K. , Peng, Li , Habenicht, Andreas J. R. et al. (2022). Neuroimmune cardiovascular interfaces control atherosclerosis. Nature.

Wilmanski, T. M., Kornilov, S. A., ... & Gibbons, S. M. et al., (2021). Heterogeneity In statin responses explained by variation in the human gut microbiome. medRxiv