How many of you are stuck?

Do you feel stuck in depression, sadness, or anxiety? Or are you just a little confused, overburdened, or unhappy?

Maybe you are one of the 25 percent of Americans who experience a major depression in their lifetime.

Or maybe you are taking one of the 189 million prescriptions written for depression, at a cost of $12 billion a year, and wondering if there is another way.

Perhaps, like most people who take antidepressants, you find that they don’t work, lose their effectiveness over time, or give you only slight relief from symptoms.

Or maybe you quit your antidepressant regimen after a few months, like 60 percent of people who take them do, because of side effects such as weight gain, loss of sex drive, or worse.

Are looking for a way to reconnect to your life’s meaning and purpose and emerge from a life that feels half lived? Are you looking for a way to overcome the depression that’s been haunting you?

If you are, I guarantee you are not suffering from a Prozac deficiency. In fact, I want to challenge you to consider that depression, as we understand it, does not really exist.

“Depression is not a disease…” That is how the remarkable new book, by James Gordon, MD, begins. It is called “Unstuck: Your Guide to the Seven-Stage Journey Out of Depression.”

James Gordon, MD, was recently given an award by the Bravewell Collaborative for being one of the most pioneering medical thinkers of our time.

Ideas that can change a culture come only a few times in a generation. “Unstuck” is such an idea. It provides an answer to the leading cause of disability -- depression -- that until now has had very poor solutions.

We are too heavy -- and I don’t mean overweight.

You see, we’re heavy with metals, not fat. Nearly 40 percent of us have toxic levels of lead in our bodies. And we don’t even know it.

That doesn’t mean we don’t have symptoms.

You may have headaches, insomnia, irritability, a low sex drive, or tremors.

You may have mood problems, nausea, depression, memory difficulties, trouble concentrating, poor coordination, or even constipation.

Yet most of us attribute these symptoms to other problems. We don’t recognize that they may be caused by lead poisoning.

I just returned from a medical conference on heavy metals and health. Although I have been treating toxicity from heavy metals for more than a decade (including in myself) I was surprised to hear about new research that has been completely ignored by the media.

A study published in 2006 in the conservative medical journal Circulation, for example, should have been on the front page of the New York Times.

Let me tell you about why the study was so important -- and why you probably won’t hear about it from your doctor.

Is being heavy in your genes?

Not so fast.

Obesity genes account for only 5 percent of all weight problems.

But what about the other 95 percent of weight problems?

And why are we seeing such an epidemic of obesity in America today? It is the single most important public health issue facing us.

If genes do not account for obesity, is our high-fat diet to blame?

Wrong again!

But fat contains 9 calories per gram, so shouldn’t eating more fat (and more calories) make you gain weight?

Nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, pioneering research by Harvard Medical School’s David Ludwig shows us the real reason that low-fat diets do not work -- and reveals the true cause of obesity for most Americans.

He correctly points out that careful review of all the studies on dietary fat and body fat -- such as those done by Dr. Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health -- have shown that dietary fat is not a major determinant of body fat.

Let me repeat that.

==> Dietary fat is not a major determinant of body fat.