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By Serge Kreutz (2004, thereafter edited several times)
I know what is most important in my life, and I know what should be most important in any man's life.
I do not think that life, my life, is really important. If I could be dead just now, this would be fine with me. I mean dead, not dying.
I cannot simply commit suicide. It would be unnatural. I am not genetically programmed to do it. I avoid it just as I avoid holding my hand into a flame of fire.
So, then... what?
Only sexual desires and their fulfillment makes my existence worth-while. When I am engulfed in sexual desires, and approach, and then achieve, not just sexual satisfaction but sexual fulfillment, I don't care whether my existence makes, or has, any sense.
Thus, for philosophical, metaphysical reasons, my sexuality is a matter on which I cannot compromise.
But what do these initial considerations have to do with cheese? Or with migraines?
I have suffered from migraines for decades.
They are very unpleasant, to say the least. They start with an aura, or rather a non-aura: a loss of vision. Yes, I know, this is caused by cramps of cranial blood vessels. Because of tightened blood vessels, not enough oxygen gets to my visual apparatus... just enough for the processing of some peripheral vision. And in front of me: a black hole.
After half an hour, when the blood vessel cramp is over, the headache starts. I have very sharp vision then, because, of course, the cranial blood vessels are wider than would suite my well-being. The blood vessels supply ample of oxygen this way, but put constant pressure on the nerves lining them, thus the headache.
Certainly, I don't like my migraines, and I know what to do to minimalize them. But there still is something more important in my life than the avoidance of migraines, and that something is sexual desires and their fulfillment.
Since I wrote the first version of this article, in 2004, I have edited it several times. The first version was published under the strange headline: Can I, please, have my migraines back
And here is how I went on:
"It has been suspected for some time that particular foods can trigger migraine attacks... food such as cheese, red wine, and chocolate.
"I have had migraine attacks since age 21. Initially, they always occurred during my sleep, so I had no awareness of an aura. Only a few years later, they happened during the day, and it was the vision loss aura, not the headaches that made me seek medical advice.
"When I consulted headache specialists at the Klinikum Grosshadern in Munich (end of the seventies), I was told that I could maybe avoid migraines by not eating cheese and chocolate, and by staying off red wine.
"I was not pleased with the advice that I should forgo those. They were always the three that excited my taste buds more than any other food. Cheese, in particular. During my years in Munich, I was an ardent consumer of very Bavarian, strong-smelling, hearty cheeses. Actually they were the staple of my diet with some 300 to 400 grams a day.
"The idea that my cheese consumption would trigger the migraines seemed, at that time, so strange to me that I never took it seriously, even though I had clear indications to support this hypothesis, as I know from hindsight. (Anyway, at that time, even those headache specialists seemed not fully convinced that migraines are a negative reaction on certain foods.)
"Rather than the cheese, for as long as I lived in Munich, I blamed the weather there for the headaches, which is common practice in Munich. I then considered this to be obvious because I suffered from migraines when in Munich but not during my travels to Southeast Asia, which, end of the seventies and in the early eighties, I first undertook every few months, and then every few weeks.
"Of course, in Southeast Asia, the weather is different from Southern Bavaria. But apart from that, the food that then was available to me in Southeast Asia was also very different. No cheese.
"The migraines were a major reason why, at the beginning of the eighties, I left Munich for good to settle in Southeast Asia.
"Financially, it first didn't work out. I may even say that I had a hard time for a few years. But I sure, too, didn't have a headache problem. The migraines ceased completely.
"Until a few years later, when I was well established and again could indulge in cheese, even though Gorgonzola, Camembert, and Roquefort could only be bought at five-star hotels and at prices matching the prestige of the shopping environment.
"My migraine attacks also returned in full force. While it is quite obvious to me now that they were caused by those generous servings of cheese, I was blind to that fact at the time the attacks reoccurred. That time around, I didn't blame the weather, though.
"Rather, I suspected as culprit the stress of professional success. My streak of good luck in business didn't last long and I soon had to start all over again. Gone were the stress of being successful, the migraines, and the cheese platters.
"That's how I saw it then. Today I know that I should put it this way: Gone were the success, and the means to buy expensive selections of cheese, and, because of the modified diet, the migraine headaches.
"But I was not ready yet to realize the cheese migraine connection.
"Rather, I remembered that the headache specialists at the Klinikum Grosshadern in Munich, to console me, predicted that my migraines would cease all by themselves after some twenty years.
"That seemed an awfully long way off for a young man who felt so brain-damaged that he wondered whether he would make it for another two, not twenty years."
The first version of this article, written about a decade ago, continued with a rhetoric wake-up:
"Now, those twenty years have passed, and I want my migraine attacks back. Surprised? I bet you are.
"Actually, it's not the migraine attacks I want back, but the general state of health, or the pathological condition that accompanied them.
"Why? Because during all those years when I suffered from migraines, I nevertheless enjoyed a perfect sex life.
"But end of the nineties, when I was completely migraine-free, I experienced the problems associated with the male midlife crisis.
"And these problems (a decline of sexual parameters) were, for philosophical and metaphysical reasons, just not acceptable to me.
"I tried a lot. I tried all kinds of herbs: ginseng, muira puama, gingko biloba, you name it. I tried all kinds of vitamins, minerals, and amino acids. All useless.
"I tried yohimbe and yohimbine. They gave me erections alright. But the side effects were terrible.
"The only herbal that I have found worth-while, and which I use up to now, is the testosterone booster tongkat ali. It may make sex more aggressive, but for sure it helps to stay focused. (I have covered tongkat ali in many other articles so no need to elaborate further in this piece.)
"I tried Viagra and Cialis. Sure, it is easy to engineer erections with these. But my orgasms on phosphodiesterase inhibitors are disappointing.
"I have also tried dopaminergic drugs such as cabergoline, lisuride, bromocriptine, and pergolide. They all make me nauseated just as migraine headaches do, but yes, I can have sex on them.
"Beyond that, the self-experimentation with dopaminergic medications gave me important clues, not just on the cheese migraine connection, but also on how both relate to libido. For on dopaminergic medications which in France has been prescribed for impotence before Viagra became available, I can provoke the same nausea I know from migraines.
"But while they have, in France, been physician-prescribed for libido problems, all of the above primarily are Parkinson's medication. And all Parkinson's medications work by enhancing dopamine levels via the inhibition of dopamine re-uptake (the storage of dopamine for eventual later use) or the inhibition of dopamine breakdown.
"Drugs that inhibit dopamine breakdown typically are MAO inhibitors. MAO stands for, no, in this case not the Chinese Cultural Revolution but "monoamine oxidase", an enzyme (-ase is the common ending of the scientific names of enzymes) in the human body.
"Dopamine and other neurotransmitters are monoamines by chemical structure. Monoamines not only occur as neurotransmitters. They are also a common constituent of aged and fermented foods. The most important monoamine in food is tyramine, and, you guessed it, cheeses typically clock in for highest levels on lists of tyramine-rich foods.
"Classic MAO inhibitors are a dangerous medication. They don't only inhibit the MAO that breaks down dopamine (the wished-for effect in the treatment of Parkinson's). They also inhibit the MAO in the digestive tract where it is responsible for foods such as cheese. And MAO inhibition in the gut can be very dangerous because the tyramines of food can then make it into the nervous system where they mimic noradrenalin and cause increased blood pressure and heart rate, possibly leading to death. Even physicians refer to this condition not with a strange Latin euphemism but in plain English as the "cheese effect".
"Wow, cheese as a deadly poison.
"It took me a long time to realize the connection between cheese and migraine. But I now see not only the connection between the two, but also between cheese, migraine, tyramines, dopamine, and being hyper-sexed.
"Migraines are a discomfort, but being hyper-sexed is a wonderful condition. Previously, I considered it funny that while being bed-ridden with migraines, and nauseated to a level where walking ten meters would make me vomit, I could still have sexual intercourse.
"But it's not funny. It belongs together. I found out because it's the same when I am nauseated by dopaminergics.
"Being nauseated from dopaminergics and being nauseated from migraines in each case are indications of an overly stimulated dopaminergic system, and so is the wonderful state of being hyper-sexed.
"I said in the headline of this article (the first version) that I want my migraines back. No, not my migraines, but a general state of health that can be characterized by a susceptibility to migraines.
"I want to be sexually agitated like a typical migraine sufferer. I want my life driven by sexual desires. And I want optimal sexual pleasure.
*****
So far the original version.
I have to add that in spite of these similarities, dopaminergics are not the solution to low libido. Unless you keep upping the dosage tremendously, their effect on sexual desire will wane quickly. And in the long run, they will damage your brain just like amphetamines. They also do not heal Parkinson's but just provide relief for a certain time, until the patient dies because dopaminergics no longer work.
For Parkinson's patients, the brain damage from prolonged use of dopaminergics is, compared to dying earlier, the lesser evil.
So, all dopaminergics are prescription drugs for good reasons. Don't abuse!
As for me, for many years now, I only have used the testosterone booster tongkat ali. The effect on libido may not be as dramatic as that of some dopaminergics when used the first time, but tongkat ali is practically free of side effects, both short- and long-term.
Apart from the tongkat ali, I am careful with what I eat. I can fine-tune the monoamine tone of my body by just ingesting the right amount of amines-containing food like cheese. The right amount isn't always easy to determine, and too much amines in too much protein will still make me sick. The trick, for me, is to ingest enough amines to enhance dopamine and other biogenic amins to a level where they support sexual function and enjoyment, but to stay below a level where headaches and nausea would impact on my well-being.
I can do this with the food I eat because I am lucky enough to be a migraineur.
*****
Reviewing this article again after a few years, let me add this:
In my theories on food, I have meanwhile gone far beyond just playing with the right amounts of nutritional tyramine and other biogenic amines to design the right dopamine tone of the physiological environment of my mind, though this is what the Serge Kreutz food philosophy started with.
Food has such a tremendous impact on our lives. Food is the most underestimated drug. And like all drugs, food in wrong dosages is a poison. So many diseases have their origin in food, whether immediate, as with the contamination by microorganisms, or in the distant future, as with carcinogens.
But food does not only form, or deform, our bodies. Food also shapes our characters. And yes, food has an impact on our intelligence.
In spite of all this, people just don't know how to handle food.
I know.
It's not just what you eat. It's how you eat.
The "Serge Kreutz diet", covered in many other articles I wrote in recent years, teaches an entirely new, and truly sensible, approach to food.
It guarantees not only the absence of obesity but also the easy achievement of ideal body weight for everybody. It allows optimal pleasure from the consumption of unlimited amounts of food. Beyond that, the Serge Kreutz diet works against depression, whether clinical or just ordinary, better than antidepressant medications, and it will simply make everybody smarter.
And it's free. (But donate a dollar if so inclined.)
See you soon as a food kreutzer.(flo*r)
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Copyright Serge Kreutz