The Science & Treatment of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

I've been experimenting a bit with taking 900 mg of myo-inositol, either alone or in combination with that sleep kit, and I must say, the sleep I've been getting on inositol is extremely deep and does seem to lead to enhanced levels of focus and alertness during the day.

One of the key things for someone with OCD to come to understand if they're going to experience any relief of their symptoms... is that thoughts are not as bad as actions.

It does appear that 900 milligrams of inositol can improve sleep, and can reduce anxiety, perhaps, when taken at that dosage or higher dosages.

Unlike an itch that you feel and then you scratch it and it feels better, OCD is more like an itch that you feel, you scratch it, and the itch intensifies.

OCD is extremely common. In fact, current estimates are that anywhere from 2.5% to as high as 3 or even 4% of people suffer from true OCD. That is an astonishingly high number.

Here we have a situation in which the pattern of hormones in females and males with OCD are different from those in people without OCD such that GABA transmission is altered, and the net effect would be an overall reduction in GABA. Now, GABA, as an inhibitory neurotransmitter and broadly speaking, is associated with lower levels of anxiety, and it tends to create balance within various neural circuits.

These two features—first the fact that the obsessions are intrusive and recurrent as well as the fact that the compulsions (the behaviors) provide, if anything, only brief relief for the obsessions but in most cases simply serve to make the obsession stronger—are the hallmark features of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

OCD is currently listed as number 7 in terms of the most debilitating illnesses. Not just mental illnesses or disorders, but all types of illnesses—including things like asthma and cancer, etc.

For people with OCD... the compulsion to avoid anxiety is such a powerful driving force that it should now make sense to you as to why being able to tolerate anxiety and really sit with it and do the exact opposite of what you're normally compelled to do is going to be the path to treatment.

Despite the fact that the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors can be effective in reducing the symptoms of OCD... there is very little, if any, evidence that the serotonin system is disrupted in OCD.

Serotonin and the general systems of serotonin... have been shown to impact cognitive flexibility and inflexibility, which are kind of hallmark themes of OCD. So, in animals that have their serotonin depleted or in humans that have very low levels of serotonin, you can see evidence of cognitive inflexibility, challenges in task-switching...

In male patients with OCD, there was evidence for increased cortisol ... There were also significant reductions in testosterone.

They describe [how] effects of 5-HTP and tryptophan... might impact OCD. What you find is that they do have significant effects in improving or reducing the symptoms of OCD in somewhat similar way to some of the SSRIs.

About 40-50% of OCD cases have some genetic component.

Needless to say, suppressing anxiety is exactly the wrong direction that one should take if the goal is to ultimately relieve or eliminate the OCD.

Ketamine therapies are being explored for OCD. As of now, the data look somewhat promising, but there's still a lot more work that needs to be done.

In females with OCD, there was evidence for significantly elevated cortisol and DHEA.

Superstitions are beliefs that we, on an individual scale, come to believe are linked to the probability of an outcome when, in fact, we know, we actually know in our rational minds, they have no real relationship to the outcome.