Daniel G. Amen, MD
is a well known psychiatrist, author of several best-selling books, and is also a dually credentialed specialist in nuclear medicine brain imaging.
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Among other things, I think that, in this forum, it is also reasonable to note that Dr. Amen is a "born again" Christian and was among the first class of medical doctors to graduate from ORU.
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He is somewhat of a unique but growing number of psychiatrists that do not rush to prescribe drugs, but also considers and prescribes nutrition, healthy mental habits, healthy lifestyle and natural products for the treatment of psychiatric disorders and other organic diseases of the brain.
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This is from his recent publication in the Opinion Section of the Los Angeles Times:
What do Rudy Giuliani's messy personal life, John McCain's temper and Hillary Clinton's inability to seem authentic have in common? Maybe nothing. They may be just overblown issues in the otherwise normal lives of candidates under the political microscope..Such symptoms, however, may mean a lot -- such as evidence of underlying brain dysfunction. Sometimes people with messy personal lives have low prefrontal cortex activity associated with poor judgment; sometimes people with temper problems have brain damage and impulse control problems; sometimes people who struggle with authenticity have trouble really seeing things from someone else's perspective..As a neuropsychiatrist and brain-imaging expert, I want our elected leaders to be some of the "brain healthiest people" in the land. How do you know about the brain health of a presidential candidate unless you look? The brain is involved in everything humans do.....Three of the last four presidents have shown clear brain pathology.....Functional scans, such as Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography, provide a window into the brain. Doctors can now see healthy or dysfunctional brain patterns, much as we can assess the strength of a heart or measure hormone levels, and recognize trouble.....A national leader with brain problems can potentially cost millions of people their lives....Ensuring that our president has a healthy brain may be more than an interesting topic of conversation. It can be important information to put into the election equation. A president with brain problems could wreak havoc on the U.S. and the world at large..Maybe we shouldn't leave the healthof our president's brain to chance.~~~We have the tools; shouldn't we look?
excerpts from
LA Times Opinion - Editorial
December 5, 2007
Daniel G. Amen, a neuropsychiatrist and director of the Amen Clinics,
is the author of "Change Your Brain, Change Your Life."
