Trudy Scott

The Anxiety Summit – Anxiety: The Link Between Low Cholesterol and Low Oxytocin

June 8, 2016 By Trudy Scott 33 Comments

Dr. Kurt Woeller, DO, integrative medicine physician, was interviewed on the Anxiety Summit by host of the Anxiety Summit, Trudy Scott, Food Mood Expert and Nutritionist, author of The Antianxiety Food Solution.

Anxiety: The Link Between Low Cholesterol and Low Oxytocin

The functions of cholesterol and some of the many health consequences of low cholesterol
Fat malabsorption, and other causes of low cholesterol
Oxytocin: bonding, trust and social anxiety and why it can be low
The relationship between oxytocin and cholesterol and anxiety/depression
How to naturally raise low cholesterol and low oxytocin

Here are some gems from our interview:

As I mentioned in my practice, most of the kids that I test are anywhere between 110 to 120. Now to give you a reference point, the National Institutes of Health states that levels less than 160, with regards to cholesterol, increases the rate of cancer, increases the rate of mental health disorders and even early death in some studies. So that target zone we’re typically using is to try to get those total cholesterol levels at least above 160. I usually shoot for around 170/175 if possible. So in some of the kids the cholesterol levels come up with the Sonic Cholesterol, but not all. What was interesting when I first started using the Sonic Cholesterol in practice sometimes within a week to two weeks I would get reports back by parents of autistic kids that their kids were calmer; they were more focused; they were happier; and what was most interesting to me was that they actually had improved eye contact and many of them were just appearing to be more social. Now as you know in autism the social component is a big problem.

The Pitocin/synthetic oxytocin discussion was fascinating:

And there’s a theory Trudy, I don’t know if you’ve heard this that the Pitocin, which is synthetic oxytocin, which is given to women who are not naturally going into labor, it’s meant to action speed labor up. Pitocin being synthetic oxytocin may short circuit in some susceptible kids the natural production of oxytocin, therefore slowing down or turning off those areas in the brain that are normally being developed at that time, with regards to socialization. So essentially those nerve cells don’t reach their full potential in those areas of the brain. That’s at least a theory, but it seems to hold true if you look at the biochemistry. So one of the other effects then of oxytocin in all of us is what they call the love hormone or the bonding hormone is that it increases feelings of trust and harmony and pleasure in that it’s in involved in our ability to make connections with people on a one-on-one basis, not only through touch but facial expression recognition, voice emotional recognition.

Here is one of the studies: A link between oxytocin and serotonin in humans: supporting evidence from peripheral markers

Given the several activities mediated by both OT [oxytocin] and 5-HT [serotonin] , such a relationship might provide new perspectives and insights into psychiatric disorders and/or social relationship disturbances, as well as novel treatment strategies overcoming and/or integrating the serotonergic paradigm.

Here is information on the Sonic Cholesterol product, dosing and other relevant information.

Here are some of my blog posts on oxytocin, pyroluria, anxiety and depression:

Dr. Woeller offers extensive training programs for health professionals: Adrenal Mastery, GI Mastery and Autism Mastery.

I mentioned that we’ll both be presenting at IMMH/ Integrative Medicine for Mental Health in Washington DC in September – here are the details

If you are not already registered for the Anxiety Summit you can get live access to the speakers of the day here: www.theAnxietySummit.com

Missed this interview or can’t listen live? Or want this and the other great interviews for your learning library? Purchase the MP3s or MP3s + transcripts and listen when it suits you.

You can find your purchasing options here.: Anxiety Summit Season 1, Anxiety Summit Season 2, Anxiety Summit Season 3, and Anxiety Summit Season 4.

The Anxiety Summit – Gluten and anxiety: the testing conundrum solution

June 8, 2016 By Trudy Scott 26 Comments

Dr. Tom O’Bryan DC, CCN, DACBN was interviewed on the Anxiety Summit by host of the Anxiety Summit, Trudy Scott, Food Mood Expert and Nutritionist, author of The Antianxiety Food Solution.

Gluten and anxiety: the testing conundrum solution

How gluten damages the gut lining and why gut healing is key for brain health
Alpha-gliadin and the limitations with current testing
Cyrex array 3: 10 peptides and 3 types of transglutaminase
Transglutaminase-6 and the brain on fire
Cyrex array 5: cerebellum, myelin and other brain antibodies
Cross-reactive foods: spinach, milk, coffee, chocolate
Autism: testing kids and their moms

In season 2, Dr. O’Bryan presented on this topic: Gluten’s impact on the inflamed brain: reducing anxiety and depression

“No human on the planet can digest gluten”
Terminology and why it’s not called gluten intolerance but sensitivity
Is gluten sensitivity just a fad and the recent FODMAPs research
The multitude of diseases and symptoms caused by gluten sensitivity
Gluten sensitivity as a contributing factor to psychiatric manifestations/anxiety/depression and new 2014 research from Italy
Suicide rates in kids with celiac disease (even when they quit gluten
We touched on the conundrum with testing

This interview goes deeper into testing and offers a solution to the conundrum.

Here are some gems from our interview:

The most common peptide from poorly digested wheat is 33 pearls long. It’s called alpha-gliadin, 33 pearls. It’s a big peptide. And 50 percent of people with celiac disease have alpha-gliadin elevated but the others don’t. But wait a minute. We know that celiac disease is a sensitivity to wheat. How come these other people don’t have elevated antibodies to the 33 pearl peptide? It’s because the immune system is fighting other peptides of wheat, not the 33. It might be the 17. It might be the 9. It might be the 11. It might be the 22. There are over 60 different peptides of wheat that have been identified to cause or trigger an immune response, over 60. And every lab in the country is only testing one called alpha-gliadin, the 33 pearl. Now that’s an important one to test but it’s not the only one to test.

So what happens when people have one of those peptides that the immune system is fighting that’s not the 33 and you do a blood test for gluten sensitivity. If your doctor orders the common blood test for gluten sensitivity and it looks for alpha-gliadin and it comes back negative and your doctors says you’re fine eating wheat. See, here’s the blood test. Well you can get a false negative meaning it says there’s no problem when there really is because your body’s fighting other peptides of wheat.

Here are the arrays that Cyrex offers. We covered parts of arrays 3, 4 and 5.

Gluten Summit gifts – register here and get these audio interviews:

Natasha Campbell-McBride: The Critical Nature of Gut Health and its Impact on Children’s Brains
David Perlmutter: Eliminating Gluten as the 1st Step in Preventing Brain Conditions.

Here is the link to the Certified Gluten-free Practitioner training we discussed

If you are not already registered for the Anxiety Summit you can get live access to the speakers of the day here: www.theAnxietySummit.com

Missed this interview or can’t listen live? Or want this and the other great interviews for your learning library? Purchase the MP3s or MP3s + transcripts and listen when it suits you.

You can find your purchasing options here.: Anxiety Summit Season 1, Anxiety Summit Season 2, Anxiety Summit Season 3, and Anxiety Summit Season 4.

The Anxiety Summit – Nutrients that Fuel Brain Power and Reduce Anxiety

June 8, 2016 By Trudy Scott 35 Comments

Dr. Drew Ramsey, M.D., psychiatrist, farmer, author of Eat Complete, was interviewed on the Anxiety Summit by host of the Anxiety Summit, Trudy Scott, Food Mood Expert and Nutritionist, author of The Antianxiety Food Solution.

Nutrients that Fuel Brain Power and Reduce Anxiety

The nutritional psychiatry movement and food as medicine
The impact of food on brain health, neurogenesis and BDNF
The hippocampus and your diet
The 21 nutrients that are key for brain health
The impacts of low zinc, low B12 and low choline diets
How to get these nutrients in your diet

Here are some gems from our interview:

One, oftentimes mental health symptoms stem from dietary insufficiencies. So people can feel more down, more anxious, more cloudy in their thinking based on the types of food that they’re eating. And then secondly the strongest data is in terms of prevention. So if you do have a disorder – if you have an anxiety disorder or you do really struggle in a way with your mood there’s some data that both the development of depression and the recurrence of depression – it’s very highly correlated with your dietary pattern. And so nutritional psychiatry in summary is looking at mental health through the lens of food and then adding nutrition as a tool to our toolbox as clinicians. I suspect most folks who are listening, maybe you’ve seen a mental health clinician. If you think back to that initial intake was there really detailed dietary history that understood you as an eater? And usually the answer is no. And even in my own practice until a number of years ago that was no. And I’ve trained at some of the best places when it comes to mental health.

No fault of those organizations but it feels to me that this has been a tremendous blind spot for us both in medicine and in mental health. So I’m very excited to see this growing movement. We have the new International Society of Nutrition and Psychiatry Research. There’s been tremendous interest from the American Psychiatry Association in terms of how do we get this into our treatment standards. So it’s a very exciting moment I think in mental health. And I also personally like it because it allows me to talk about some other subjects besides psychotherapy or medications with my patients. And so it’s a lot of fun to be talking about kale salads and do you know how to make ceviche and have you ever made mussels at home.

I love that Dr. Ramsey says: “I eat for a bigger hippocampus.” The hippocampus is an area of your brain involved in emotional regulation and learning. We talked about this in the context of the research published by Dr. Felice Jacka and her team: Western diet is associated with a smaller left hippocampus and anxiety

Dr. Ramsey talks about zinc and animal protein:

Zinc is a mineral and minerals tend to be more absorbable in animal forms. I think a lot of people are very confused about meat and seafood and often intimidated and scared. And then we’ve had this message to go plant based and even vegan which is not a diet that is healthy for the brain.

And low choline and anxiety:

And if you look especially in terms of anxiety really there’s not a lot of data, not a lot of scientific data about anxiety disorders and food. There’s some but the clearest data signal comes from the Hordaland study that looked at correlations of anxiety disorders and different nutrients and found people with lower choline had much higher rates of anxiety.

Dr. Ramsey has written some wonderful books. Here are two of them:

Eat Complete: The 21 Nutrients That Fuel Brainpower, Boost Weight Loss, and Transform Your Health

The Happiness Diet: A Nutritional Prescription for a Sharp Brain, Balanced Mood, and Lean, Energized Body

Here is Dr. Ramsey’s 7-Day Brain Boost

If you are not already registered for the Anxiety Summit you can get live access to the speakers of the day here: www.theAnxietySummit.com

Missed this interview or can’t listen live? Or want this and the other great interviews for your learning library? Purchase the MP3s or MP3s + transcripts and listen when it suits you.

You can find your purchasing options here.: Anxiety Summit Season 1, Anxiety Summit Season 2, Anxiety Summit Season 3, and Anxiety Summit Season 4.

The Anxiety Summit – Anxiety and the Importance of Community

June 7, 2016 By Trudy Scott 24 Comments

James Maskell, creator of Functional Forum, was interviewed on the Anxiety Summit by host of the Anxiety Summit, Trudy Scott, Food Mood Expert and Nutritionist, author of The Antianxiety Food Solution.

Anxiety and the Importance of Community

The definition of community and examples
The Functional Forum and a medication talk by Dr. Hyla Cass
The effect of social support on HPA axis function during pregnancy.
Social support for parents of autistic children
An interview with Kelly Brogan: the role of community in mental health
Community and social anxiety/introversion

Here are some gems from our interview:

…the solution to chronic disease is integrative or functional medicine because it’s preventive, it’s proactive, it’s participatory on behalf of the patient. And so our goal and our vision is big Trudy. The first thing has been to increase the supply of these functional medicine doctors because you need them and they can’t be replaced by technology. The human element is a really big part. But the first step is to get enough of those doctors and then the next step is to galvanize those practitioners into a really efficient system that takes the best use of technology. It takes the best use of human interaction and uses practitioners in the most efficient way to be able to keep and get people well as effectively as possible.

What we need is people to work together. We need collaboration, not competition. We need people to really see the gifts of everyone. And really we need it to be a meritocracy [definition: a social system in which people’s success in life depends primarily on their talents, abilities, and effort].

Here is the big take-away from James – when it comes to community:

…the real results that we see that are most powerful Trudy is where people have been able to pair getting together into a community with other healthy behaviors. So getting a group of people together to go on a run or to go on a walk together. You get the power of the community plus you get the power of everyone getting the exercise together

Just going back to your idea of supporting each other, doing something together with a common goal. Going back to the Benzo Buddies story. Imagine if that group had local groups getting together. So they’ve got this online forum supporting each other but if they got together and cooked a meal together and also meditated together and then supported each other getting off the benzodiazepine. So that would be what you’re talking about the getting together and also supporting each other online.

Here are some of the studies we discussed in the interview:

The aim of this study, Effect of social support on HPA axis function during pregnancy, was to assess whether individual differences in social support alter psychological distress and cortisol during pregnancy. There were 82 pregnant women in the study. Psychological distress and cortisol were assessed in all three trimesters. It was found that:

Pregnant women receiving inadequate social support secrete higher levels of cortisol in response to psychological distress as compared with women receiving effective social support. Social support during pregnancy may be beneficial because it decreases biological sensitivity to psychological distress, potentially shielding the fetus from the harmful effects of stress-related increases in cortisol.

New research also shows that for parents of autistic children, more social support means better health, protection against stress-induced immune problems and reduced inflammation

Dr. Hyla Cass, MD, integrative psychiatrist shares how to safely get of SSRIs and antianxiety medications and how to maintain good mental health once you are off them. She is addressing physicians but the information is valuable for anyone. This was filmed at the Functional Neuropsychiatry meeting of the Functional Forum in January 2016.

Dr Kelly Brogan, integrative psychiatrist, another past speaker on the Anxiety Summit and author of the brilliant new book “A Mind of Your Own” discusses the role community can play in mental health.

I tied community and social anxiety/introversion together with the discussion about pyroluria.

Here is the link to the next Functional Forum , a wonderful resource for integrative practitioners in the world of functional medicine (doctors, therapists, nutritionists etc).

If you are not already registered for the Anxiety Summit you can get live access to the speakers of the day here: www.theAnxietySummit.com

Missed this interview or can’t listen live? Or want this and the other great interviews for your learning library? Purchase the MP3s or MP3s + transcripts and listen when it suits you.

You can find your purchasing options here.: Anxiety Summit Season 1, Anxiety Summit Season 2, Anxiety Summit Season 3, and Anxiety Summit Season 4.

The Anxiety Summit – Opening: benzos, electroshock, blueberries, sauerkraut and the vagus nerve

June 7, 2016 By Trudy Scott 56 Comments

The host of the Anxiety Summit, Trudy Scott, Food Mood Expert and Nutritionist, author of The Antianxiety Food Solution opens up the Anxiety Summit Season 4.

Anxiety Summit opening: benzos, electroshock, blueberries, sauerkraut and the vagus nerve

My vagus nerve story and how GABA helped
Why we need an integrative approach: Electroshock, LSD, BPA, zinc deficiencies, medication side-effects
An update on benzodiazepines and what we can learn from the Swiss and Blue Zones
Anxiety: new research on blueberries, gluten, sauerkraut, low vitamin B6 and iron, foods rich in polyphenols
An overview of the speakers and topics on this summit

My vagus nerve story – the videos document the journey with GABA and vagus nerve exercises 3-6-6 breathing and happy birthday humming.

This article published just last month is just so distressing to even contemplate: American Psychiatric Association Lobbies FDA to Electroshock Children

While the APA looks to seizure-inducing, brain-disabling, electricity as a form of ‘treatment,’ lobbying the FDA to make ECT available for children, no one in medicine, let alone psychiatry, has a clue how ECT machines ‘work’ or how passing large amounts of electricity into a child’s brain ‘treats’ the subjective mental disorder.

Also published last month is an article in the New York Times called: LSD Like Drugs Are Out of the Haze and Back in the Labs.

modern scientists are picking up where their forerunners of the ’50s and ’60s left off. They are studying hallucinogens’ potential to help smokers kick the habit, to undo addictions to drugs and alcohol, to cope with cluster headaches and depression, and to deal with obsessive-compulsive and post-traumatic stress disorders.

Earlier this year a bill was put forward in Massachusetts proposing informed consent for benzodiazepine use. They will be submitting it again in a future session.

Here is the blog post and research on blueberries and serotonin: Blueberries boost serotonin and may help with PTSD and anxiety

Rats that were fed blueberries saw an increase in serotonin levels and the study authors suggest that the neuroprotection offered by the blueberries may offer support for those with PTSD. Presumably this could help those with anxiety and depression too, since low serotonin can also be an underlying factor.

Here is the blog post and research on gluten and OCD: Integrative Medicine Approach to Pediatric Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Anxiety

The 7-year-old boy was put on a gluten-free diet and they saw a huge reduction in his OCD symptoms and anxiety and an improvement in social behavior and school work.

A paper published in August 2015: Fermented foods, neuroticism, and social anxiety suggests that:

consumption of fermented foods that contain probiotics may serve as a low-risk intervention for reducing social anxiety

Here are some of the other papers I mentioned:

Here is the master blog with all the speakers, their topics and their individual blog posts with additional information, links to studies, books and other resources – The Anxiety Summit Season 4: All the speakers and topics (keep in mind that the speaker blog links will be live/active from the day of the speaker interview)

If you already have my book The Antianxiety Food Solution: How the Foods You Eat Can Help You Calm Your Anxious Mind, Improve Your Mood, and End Cravings, I recommend that you skim through it again and review the chapters on the food basics, gluten, amino acids, pyroluria and digestion. If you don’t yet have a copy, I highly recommend getting a copy so you can be educated as well as empowered.

Here is my gift to you, a song called Top of the World (grab the mp3 at this link)

A new beginning, a brand new day
All of my fears are gone away
I feel so calm, so free, so whole
Right now, I’m feeling on top of the world

On top the world
Right now, I’m feeling on top of the world

And here is another special gift: transcript of this entire talk!
Download the transcript here (right-click on the link and select “Save link as” or “Save target as” to download the file to your computer)

If you are not already registered for the Anxiety Summit you can get live access to the speakers of the day here: www.theAnxietySummit.com

Missed this interview or can’t listen live? Or want this and the other great interviews for your learning library? Purchase the MP3s or MP3s + transcripts and listen when it suits you.

You can find your purchasing options here.: Anxiety Summit Season 1, Anxiety Summit Season 2, Anxiety Summit Season 3, and Anxiety Summit Season 4.

The Anxiety Summit – Anxiety: the SCD diet, carbs, adrenals and leaky gut

June 7, 2016 By Trudy Scott 25 Comments

Steven Wright, creator of SCDlifestyle, was interviewed on the Anxiety Summit by host of the Anxiety Summit, Trudy Scott, Food Mood Expert and Nutritionist, author of The Antianxiety Food Solution.

Anxiety: the SCD diet, carbs, adrenals and leaky gut

The Specific Carbohydrate Diet /SCD: the history and the basics
The GAPs diet – the similarities and differences
Stressful times and panic attacks and recovering
Adrenal health and restricting carbs too much
Leaky gut and glutamine

Here are some gems from our interview (I really enjoy Steve’s common-sense advice, especially when you are feeling overwhelmed):

And so if you can adopt the mindset of hey, you know what, this is just an exploration of food. I’m just going to throw out all my beliefs for six months and I’m going to try buying that weird fruit at the grocery store; I’m going to buy a new pan; I’m going to burn some things and just try to make it an exploration, like try to mess it up. If you can do that, if you can get some sort of mindset shift there where it becomes a fun little game, what I would do is I would have a spice of the week and I would put that spice on everything. I don’t care what they say in cookbooks or chef schools, I’ve never been to chef school actually. I would like love to go maybe sometime. But I would just take like oregano and I would put oregano on everything. I’d put it on my vegetables; I’d put it on my fish; I’d put it on the beef; I’d put it on the chicken I cooked just to see what it tasted like. Like somebody says you should never put rosemary on your whatever you’re cooking. Well how do they know? Why don’t you make up the choice for yourself?

We cover leaky gut, autoimmunity and anxiety:

So your immune system is concentrated in your gut. It’s remarkable to think of that, but the reason why is in case these different molecules of the wrong size or the wrong type get into your gut then they gum in and they just kind of like start to attack it and it creates a war. And so if your gut is chronically leaky, like it is for essentially anyone with an autoimmune condition, because that’s per Dr. Fasano’s theory, that’s essentially the way in which you become autoimmune, you’re going to have a war raging in your bloodstream, in your body, in your gut for all day all night. And so that consumes a lot of resources; it creates a lot of inflammatory cytokines; it also regulates some other pathways, which can be circulated, end up in the brain and end up causing anxiety and depression. And so I do believe that there is a subset of people who have anxiety who have either leaky gut as one of their main causes or at least it’s contributing to it. And so digestive health is really important for anxiety in my opinion.

This article: Diet and Inflammatory Bowel Disease, discusses the diets commonly recommended to IBD patients and reviews the supporting data for the low-fermentable oligosaccharide, disaccharide, monosaccharide, and polyol diet; the specific carbohydrate diet; the anti-inflammatory diet; and the Paleolithic diet. The authors of this paper do say that the role of dietary interventions in the management of IBD still needs to be tested vigorously in patients.

Here is the SCD Quick Start Guide

And for health practitioners wanting to learn how to get their message out in a bigger way and help more people: The Practitioner Liberation Project

If you are not already registered for the Anxiety Summit you can get live access to the speakers of the day here: www.theAnxietySummit.com

Missed this interview or can’t listen live? Or want this and the other great interviews for your learning library? Purchase the MP3s or MP3s + transcripts and listen when it suits you.

You can find your purchasing options here.: Anxiety Summit Season 1, Anxiety Summit Season 2, Anxiety Summit Season 3, and Anxiety Summit Season 4.