I received this inbox via Facebook earlier this month (August 2014):
“When I read your post about GABA and anxiety, I thought back to my appointment with the psychiatrist, when I showed him the formulas I had been given and the tests he had ordered. He told me very harshly that it's the psychiatrist who understands depression and anxiety, and that all these tests you'd told me to do were just to waste my money and were useless. He told me to stop everything and prescribed these diazepans. The worst thing is that the doctor is reputable.
Conclusion: I haven't been back since. I'm grateful to have met you. I feel much better now and I haven't even come back with my test results yet. But God is wonderful because, in my desperation, I asked him to help me find someone who would find out what I had and solve my 20-year ordeal of suffering. He did.
Dr. Ícaro, thank you so much for everything. All the professionals you referred me to are wonderful and they are also helping me a lot. I never imagined that such simple things as breathing, drinking water, eating better, practicing physical activity and sleeping well, together with the supplements, would work so well. God bless you.”
My comments on this beautiful and very useful message:
1️⃣ - Congratulations to the patient! She has improved her lifestyle habits, which are the basis for anyone to have, maintain or regain health. That's why she was successful: the credit goes to her and to God. I only helped with some guidance - after all, a “consultation” is for you to get the opinion of the professional consulted, according to their knowledge, but it's the patient who decides what to do with the information received.
2️⃣ - The overbearing attitude of the doctor I mentioned is not an example to anyone, so for ethical reasons I won't even comment on it...
I can only assure you that never I've seen a really good health professional (especially as a human being and in dealing with their patients) who is also overbearing or arrogant on a regular basis. The arrogant ones are precisely the ones who start to make the most mistakes and thus harm their patients throughout their careers, when they don't change their behavior - not least because they are the ones who soon stop updating themselves on good sources (as every health professional should constantly do) and therefore tend to treat their patients in an increasingly inappropriate and/or outdated and/or prejudiced way, damaging not only the patients, but also their own careers and reliability.
Nowadays, “titles” (certificates, diplomas, “Drs.”, among others) no are a guarantee of positive authority, good knowledge and good clinical practice with the patient - but a lot of regular study in good sources and good human, multidisciplinary treatment. Remember that.
3️⃣ - As a rule (of course, there are rare exceptions), except in urgent or emergency situations, no health professional should resort to medication first before providing guidance and helping to improve the patient's lifestyle habits.
And after that, the correction of intoxications, deficiencies and excesses of nutrients, neurotransmitters, hormones, among others. I say this based, above all, on 15 years of medicine (and a lot of study, of course), during which I have observed that when the body is given these basics to function, the vast majority of its symptoms and disorders improve or disappear, mainly by stimulating the body's ability to improve and heal itself, naturally. It's as simple as that.
In other words, to make it clearer: give your body the conditions to function by taking better care of itself and providing it with what it needs, and all your symptoms and illnesses will improve or disappear.
Medicines, therefore, should only help this basic process and should never be prescribed to try to replace the natural process, under penalty of treatment failures and many undesirable effects, in addition to the potential for many medicines to lead to chemical dependency. After all, who wants to be a drug addict?
4️⃣ - Let's be careful: many famous people out there, in the most diverse areas of society, talk dangerous nonsense to anyone who believes them. Remember that every “famous” person is, first and foremost, a human being. And human beings are fallible, making mistakes thousands of times in their lives.
Always keep yourself well-informed and filter any information you receive through your good critical judgment (which gets better and better as you keep yourself well-informed, regularly, by consulting good sources - the internet helps a lot, if you look hard enough!) before accepting it as truth and applying it to your life or the lives of those you love!
5️⃣ - Healthy lifestyle habits are the basis of everything in life and always bring good results for those who apply them to their routine. If you're not getting better at something, you can be sure that in 99% of these cases, at least one lifestyle habit (of the ones I suggest) is going wrong. In other words, improve it and, possibly, your complaints will improve too. It's as simple as that. Learn about these healthy lifestyle habits here and change your life for the better:
(This material is free to use and may be reproduced in whole or in part, without any reference to me or my website. The teachings on healthy living habits belong to humanity, to God, and therefore access to them should be broad and unrestricted. Ok?)
Health and success to all!
Dr. Ícaro Alves Alcântara
Português do Brasil 
English 