I have always been a fan of the intensive study of outliers in medicine. I feel that focusing our attention solely on average responses buries much of the potential learning we can derive from data and individual cases.
No story hits this point home more than a recent Sunday new york times article entitled, “Waking Chris — A surprising drug has brought a kind of consciousness to patients once considered vegetative — and changed the debate over the pulling the plug”. The article describes patients in vegetative states, who respond by awakening when treated with sleep medications such as Ambien and its generic twin, zolpidem.
Paradoxical awakening responses to sleep medications, Parkinson’s drugs such as amantadine, and anti-anxiety medication Ativan, are well described, and it is now felt that up to 5 to 10% of brain-injured patients may experience such types of effects.
What is the relevance of this phenomenon to our everyday lives? To me, there are a few great lessons here: 1) sometimes a small intervention can have a huge effect — a relatively minor alteration in brain chemistry induced by a CNS medication produces a profound change in cognition; and 2) the concept that neuroplasticity is active throughout our lives. It was once felt that the brain had no inherent ability to repair itself; we now know that our nervous system’s ability to heal itself is profound, even after severe head trauma and major stroke. Several studies have now definitively shown how meditation can modify brain architecture, demonstrating that normal brains demonstrate the same plasticity as brains trying to heal injury.
With the right biochemical change, or with the right energetic pathways stimulated, we can enable the brain to regulate itself.
What we do best at Anatara is practice individualized medicine. We accept that most patients are treated with medications that have been prescribed based on their average effect in the population. Yet, to get results where others cannot, we go further and identify individual metabolic, physiologic and energetic pathways — then optimize, optimize and optimize again.
Give us 6 months and we will give you back your optimized pathways, enabling your body to regulate itself. With positive lifestyle choices, this approach leads to improved performance, cognition, nutrition and well-being.