Lifting Your Depression: How a Psychiatrist Discovered Chromium's Role in the Treatment of Depression

More than a decade ago, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Malcolm McLeod discovered a new cause of, and treatment for, the type of depression associated with carbohydrate cravings, weight gain, unexplained exhaustion, and sensitivity to rejection. This type of disorder, known as atypical depression, begins early in life and can last a lifetime unless treated. As many as one-half of depressed people--an estimated 30 million people in the United States alone--have this type of depression for which, up to now, there has been no effective treatment that is free of unwanted side effects.Dr. McLeod’s discovery that chromium, an insulin-sensitizing trace mineral, was more effective and faster acting in some patients than even the strongest antidepressant drugs, ran counter to conventional wisdom. Dr. McLeod himself was initially skeptical. Yet, he was not able to dismiss the effects he had observed. He continued to carefully evaluate his patients’ responses and let the evidence speak for itself.By piecing together hundreds of clues from therapy sessions with patients, results from his own single-blind studies, and findings from an in-depth study of the medical and scientific literature on chromium, glucose metabolism, and insulin resistance, Dr. McLeod eventually derived an explanation for chromium’s powerful therapeutic effects. In the last several years, the medical and scientific communities have begun to confirm Dr. McLeod’s pioneering findings.In Lifting Your Depression, Dr. McLeod combines his personal narrative and scientific observations with a fascinating exposition of his discovery, and a five-step program for making use of it to reverse the causes of depression.

Dr. McLeod is credited with one of the major medical breakthroughs in depression treatment. Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill, where he also maintains a private practice in psychiatry and psychoanalysis.