The Anxiety Summit 4

The Anxiety Summit – A functional medicine approach to eliminate Lyme disease and the anxiety it often causes

June 13, 2016 By Trudy Scott 13 Comments

Dr. Jay Davidson D.C., PSc.D., host of the Chronic Lyme Disease Summit, is interviewed on the Anxiety Summit by host of the Anxiety Summit, Trudy Scott, Food Mood Expert and Nutritionist, author of The Antianxiety Food Solution.

A functional medicine approach to eliminate Lyme disease and the anxiety it often causes

The incidence of anxiety in Lyme disease
Lyme bacteria and methyl group depletion
A functional medicine approach to eliminate the Lyme disease infection
Balancing minerals and methyl donors
Healing the gut and detoxing heavy metals

Here is the initial study I shared: Panic Attacks May Reveal Previously Unsuspected Chronic Disseminated Lyme Disease

The author describes the histories of three patients with panic-like episodes that turned out to be related to underlying, previously unsuspected tick-borne diseases. Each woman experienced symptoms that are not usual in panic disorder but are typical of neurological Lyme disease, including exquisite sensitivity to light, touch, and sounds, joint pain often in combination with cognitive changes including mental fogginess and loss of recent memory, and some degree of bizarre, shifting, and often excruciating neurological pain. Because these symptoms are atypical of primary panic disorder, they were very helpful in alerting the clinician to suspect an underlying physical illness.

Here are some gems from our interview:

So when you look at anxiety I look at it from an integrative standpoint – like the brain, nervous system has a huge piece in that, the neurotransmitters, and obviously the gut. So there’s multiple pieces of the body that seem to have a link with it. But if you have something that’s actually affecting the brain, which is the organ that’s running everything in the body, which Lyme disease or the bacteria borellia is one of those factors I really think that that in itself can cause anxiety – just due to the bacteria. And what’s interesting about the bacteria of Lyme is it’s not uniform – it can change forms and the main form that it’s known for is called the spirochete where it basically looks like a corkscrew, a spiraling shape. And so Lyme doesn’t like to just really float around in the bloodstream. It loves tissues. It loves joints and that’s where some of the symptoms are, like joint pain, and especially moves around the body. But it loves the brain too and it loves to be in those tissues.

Dr. Jay shares that chronic Lyme disease does exist and discusses testing issues:

…the standard testing that’s still done today, the ELISA and Western blot, they call it the two tier method. So if one shows up positive then they’ll run the other one. That methodology was actually designed and recommended as an observational population method for Lyme. It was never intended for a clinical diagnosis. And somehow it became the clinical diagnosis tool that if you run the test and if you come up negative there’s no way you could have Lyme.

Rresearch has shown that 40 to 60 percent of those tests are wrong which means you could almost flip a coin and get a better result. So you definitely want to find a practitioner that knows Lyme disease, that understands it.

My favorite test right now is from a lab called Pharmasan Labs … a test called iSpot. So instead of B cell antibodies which traditional tests uses it’s using T cells and it’s a lot more accurate. And studies basically show that this test is not 100 percent by any means either. But it’s 86 percent sensitive and 94 percent specific. And basically all that means is if you get a positive result on an iSpot Lyme test there’s a six percent chance that it’s wrong. If you get a negative on the iSpot Lyme test there’s a 16 percent chance that it is wrong.

Here information on the Chronic Lyme Disease Summit he hosted earlier this year. It was excellent!

Here is Dr. Jay’s book: 5 Steps to Restoring Health Protocol: Helping those who haven’t been helped with Lyme Disease, Thyroid Problems, Adrenal Fatigue, Heavy Metal Toxicity, Digestive Issues, and More!

Here are the gifts from Dr. Jay:

5 Steps to Restoring Health Protocol” audio book
Lyme Disease: Why an Antibiotic Bug Bomb is Not the Answer eBook
Heavy Metal Toxicity: A Modern Day Epidemic Not Being Addressed eBook

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 – Serotonin and anxiety: tryptophan, 5-HTP, serotonin syndrome and medication tapers

June 12, 2016 By Trudy Scott 64 Comments

Dr. Peter Bongiorno, ND, author of Holistic Therapies for Anxiety and Depression, is interviewed on the Anxiety Summit by host of the Anxiety Summit, Trudy Scott, Food Mood Expert and Nutritionist, author of The Antianxiety Food Solution.

Serotonin and anxiety: tryptophan, 5-HTP, serotonin syndrome and medication tapers

What is the serotonin hypothesis and serotonin syndrome
Concerns about tryptophan and kynurenine and neurotoxic quinolinic acid
When to use tryptophan and when to use 5-HTP
Working with a prescribing doctor to do a SSRI (and benzo) taper
John’s Wort, saffron and venetron for anxiety and depression
Hydrotherapy and hugs

Here are some snippets from our interview:

Here are some gems from our interview:

As far as St. John’s Wort I would honestly put that in a different category because St. John’s Wort is not just another type of serotonin enhancer or SSRI. It has many, many other activities. It supports the thyroid. It really helps digestion. It’s a good anti-inflammatory. It calms the nervous system. And it also supports other neurotransmitters too. So to me St. John’s Wort is more like a beautiful food that has these very pleiotropic effects and really helps the whole body kind of cope and gain resilience. Years ago St. John’s Wort was originally used to ward off evil spirits in olden times. And so it has a tremendous history of supporting people with mood and especially people who are very fatigued in the process and they can’t cope and they have no resilience. So I think St. John’s Wort is definitely more than just a serotonin enhancer.

We also cover carnitine:

One of the things I like to check is something called carnitine which is an amino acid which plays a role in how energy is carried in the body. And many women get much depleted in carnitine as they move through pregnancy through the trimesters. And that’s actually quite safe to take during pregnancy and I’ve seen that be very, very helpful in women with mood issues either during pregnancy or postpartum. And there are plenty of studies that show the safety of carnitine. So that’s one of the things I definitely like to look at along with taking some magnesium which is also safe during pregnancy.

We discuss medication tapers of SSRIs:

And the weaning process would have to be different for everyone. Some patients who have been on some of these mood altering medications for many years you can’t just wean off quickly. You have to go exceedingly slow. And depending on how they do then we can support their brain and their body with more nutrients to help that process go as easily as possible and minimize any kind of withdrawal effect. The body will tell us what to do as we go along. But again the most important thing is that we really establish all the basics and that they’re in the healthiest place possible. Because if those aren’t there, if a patient just gets off the medication and we haven’t really done anything to change the underlying reasons why they got to the place where they had the mood issue. In most cases they’re going to go back there again.

Here are two of Dr. Bongiorno’s books:

How Come They’re Happy and I’m Not – The Complete Natural Program for Healing Depression for Good

Holistic Solutions for Anxiety & Depression in Therapy: Combining Natural Remedies with Conventional Care

And his most recent book: Put Anxiety Behind You

Here is his digital gift: 10 Ways to Balance Serotonin Naturally http://www.drpeterbongiorno.com/serotonin/

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 heavy metals: chelation of mercury and lead

June 12, 2016 By Trudy Scott 45 Comments

John Dempster, ND, is 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 heavy metals: chelation of mercury and lead

The connection between toxic metals (mercury and lead) and anxiety
How to effectively measure toxic metals with a provoked urine challenge
The do’s and don’ts of chelation and watching for mineral depletion
A bipolar/anxiety case study

Here are some gems from our interview:

So I kind of want to shed some light on some of these areas and how it can affect anxiety directly. One of the big areas is mercury itself is a neurotoxin. So how does that impact our biochemistry and our physiology? Well what it’s going to do it’s going to start to disrupt on an endocrine and a neurotransmitter level some of our pathways. And one of the big pathways is actually the glutamate connection and the glutamate pathway. And glutamate is something that’s known as an excitatory neurotransmitter and this is something that if we have too much of it or it’s not being reuptake properly in our synapses we start to exhibit different types of symptoms of anxiety. And of course that’s just one possible trigger for anxiety.

….to speak of mercury specifically amalgams are a source. Silver amalgam fillings are a source of metal, metal mercury. But we are also seeing that there are trace amounts in certain vaccinations. There are trace amounts in certain food groups such as fish. And this may not come as a surprise to many of you listeners but it is still a problem and we’re still seeing people – high amounts of mercury come into my clinic pretty much every day that are continuing to be exposed to these levels. And there are a number of other different possible source that are on a smaller scale. We might actually be breathing it in which is scary but depending on where you live in the world we may be exposed to some industrial sources of mercury as well. But the biggest ones that we can take charge of immediately are what’s in our mouth, what’s in our food and what goes in or on our body.

Blood lead levels and major depressive disorder, panic disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder in U.S. young adults

In this sample of young adults with low levels of lead exposure, higher blood lead was associated with increased odds of major depression and panic disorder. Exposure to lead at levels generally considered safe could result in adverse mental health outcomes.

Dr. Dempster describes the chelator DMSA as a magnet:

DMSA is a very safe but effective way of dragging metals out of the body. And what we want to do is when we provoke that we actually drag this compound through our tissues. Not just our bloodstream. It goes through – it kind of rinses through our tissues and acts as a magnet and it draws these metals out at the other end that we can collect.

Here are some studies on heavy metals and chelation with DMSA:

Here is information on the Mental Wellness Summit that Dr. Dempster and Ross McKenzie co-hosted

And Ross McKenzie’s incredible movie Bipolarized

Here is the Wellness Without Limits ebook

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 – Addressing Anxiety in Individuals with Autism

June 12, 2016 By Trudy Scott 15 Comments

Julie Matthews, CNC, author of Nourishing Hope for Autism, 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.

Addressing Anxiety in Individuals with Autism

How common is anxiety in autism and medications commonly prescribed
Autism prevalence and the exponential growth and why this is important beyond those with autism
Underlying biochemical factors that contribute to anxiety in autism
The microbiome and gut involvement
Sensory sensitivity, light and sound sensitivity, weighted blankets and more
Foods, food compounds and nutrients like GABA and zinc
The far-reaching benefits of a BioInidividual Nutrition approach for autism, anxiety, ADHD and many chronic diseases

This is the first paper we discussed: Treatment of comorbid anxiety and autism spectrum disorders

Clinically significant anxiety occurs frequently among individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) and is linked to increased psychosocial, familial, behavioral and academic impairment beyond the core autism symptoms when present.

Up to 80% of children with ASDs experience clinically significant anxiety, with high comorbidity rates for social phobia (30%), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) (35%), obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) 37% and separation anxiety disorder (SAD) 38% having been observed (30, 35, 37 and 38%, respectively).

Patients with ASDs and anxiety are at increased risk for social avoidance, difficulties establishing and maintaining peer relationships, sleep problems, disruptions in family functioning and at school.

SSRIs have NOT been consistently linked to improvements in core ASD symptoms (e.g., communication and social skills deficits, repetitive behaviors and stereotypies) or anxiety and repetitive behaviors in youths

High rates of behavioral activation (e.g., agitation, irritability, aggression and disinhibition) and diminished tolerability have been reported across trials, which may suggest that youths with ASDs are more vulnerable to side effects compared with their typically developing peers.

Here is the initial multisystem study Julie covered at the start – Pathway Network Analyses for Autism Reveal Multisystem Involvement: Major Overlaps with Other Diseases and Convergence Upon MAPK and Calcium Signaling

Julie covered folate receptor autoantibodies and cerebral folate deficiency (common in autism and now found in anxiety too):

It was a concept that in the autism community was brought forward by Dr. Fry and Dr. Rosignol and Dr. Quadros looking at this particular condition. And so there’s a condition called cerebral folate deficiency. And it’s a neurodevelopmental disorder where the baby doesn’t get enough folate to their cerebral spinal fluid in their brain. And so they don’t get the proper development that they need. And the reason for that is they looked into what could be causing that and they found that children with autism have a high rate of folate receptor autoantibodies. And so what happens is the folate receptor is basically taking folate from the bloodstream and puts it into the cerebral spinal fluid. It gets it to the brain basically.

And these folate receptors are basically what take it across the membrane. But in children with autism they have these autoantibodies and that blocks their ability to get the folate into the brain. So they have neurodevelopmental issues and then during their lifetime as well they still don’t have enough folate they need on a daily basis to do the things that they need to do. So it’s an ongoing challenge for them as well.

Here are the folate receptor autoantibody studies:

Cerebral Folate Receptor Autoantibodies in Autism Spectrum Disorder (serum folate receptor autoantibody concentrations as a prevalence of 75 percent of the children with autism)
High milk consumers have an increased risk of folate receptor blocking autoantibody production but this does not affect folate status in Spanish men and women.

Most of the research regarding these folate receptor autoantibodies are around autism. But now it seems like we’ve seen this new animal study that actually mentions anxiety as well – Exposure to Folate Receptor Alpha Antibodies during Gestation and Weaning Leads to Severe Behavioral Deficits in Rats: A Pilot Study

Here is Julie’s wonderful book – Nourishing Hope for Autism: Nutrition and Diet Guide for Healing Our Children

Here are the digital gifts from Julie

Using Food and Nutrition to Improve ADHD and Autism
Integrative Medicine and BioIndividual Nutrition webinar (for practitioners)

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 in children, adolescents and young adults: an integrative psychiatric approach

June 11, 2016 By Trudy Scott 23 Comments

Dr. Zendi Moldenhauer, PhD, NP, RN, is 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 in children, adolescents and young adults: an integrative psychiatric approach

The incidence of anxiety in children: official stats and real life numbers
How to identify anxiety in children and the IBS-anxiety connection
Medication over-prescribing, hidden side-effects and electroshock
Food, toxins, gut health, the adrenals and an integrative approach
How to use calming theanine and GABA

Here are some gems from our interview:

…anxiety disorders in children are probably the most common psychiatric disorders that start in childhood. And depending on studies and depending on how anxiety is defined the rates are anything between 10 to 30 percent. Less common in younger ones and more common in teenagers. But really the lifetime prevalence of that is a child or teenager developing anxiety sometime up to age 18 is somewhere between 25 and 30 percent. That means one in three to one in four children or adolescents at some point during that time period which is very high.

…when somebody has an anxiety disorder they’re more like to have more than one anxiety disorder because they could have generalized anxiety disorder or social anxiety disorder or separation anxiety or panic disorder. So it’s really very common like up to 60 percent of patients with anxiety disorder can have another anxiety disorder or depression or ADHD.

And that’s just sort of more the mental health disorders. There’s also an incredibly high association between anxiety and IBS. In fact nearly half to three-quarters of children with IBS can have anxiety. So there’s a huge relationship between anxiety and other mental health disorders but anxiety and other physical disorders like gut issues or headaches for example.

Here are some of the studies we discuss related to IBS and anxiety:

Dr. Zendi shares that children can’t necessarily identify that they’re anxious:

Children with anxiety can often not express that they’re anxious. And if you can imagine a five or six or seven year old they don’t necessarily come to us and say mommy, I feel anxious about whatever is going on in their lives. So often with children we see it through their behavior. So children who are either nonverbal at all or haven’t yet developed the emotional language to describe anxiety act out anxiety. So you might see a child that’s more withdrawn and doesn’t want to participate, doesn’t want to leave the house, doesn’t want to get on the school bus, doesn’t want to go to school, doesn’t want to participate in activities. There’s a lot of avoidance kind of behavior.

We discussed this article in Scientific American – The Hidden Harms of Antidepressants: Data about the true risks of suicide and aggression for children and teens taking these drugs have been suppressed

And this one about ECT: American Psychiatric Association Lobbies FDA to Electroshock Children https://www.cchrint.org/2016/05/05/apa-lobbies-fda-to-electroshockchildren/

We covered organic food and the EWG dirty dozen list for fruits and vegetables

Dr Zendi’s go to nutrient for anxiety and adrenal dysfunction is theanine:

which is an amino acid derivative from green tea and it’s thought to really cross the blood brain barrier and exerts a variety of neurophysiological and even like pharmacological effects on the brain in terms of its anxiolytic and calming effects because it actually upregulates inhibitory neurotransmitters like GABA and possibly modulates serotonin and dopamine in specific areas of the brain. It actually also increases alpha wave activity. So children can either sleep better because they’re sleeping at a deeper level or they feel more calm and focused during the day without feeling drowsy so there’s no side effect to L-Theanine which is great.

Here are two of the theanine papers we discussed:

Here is Dr. Zendi’s digital gift: Practical Tips for Parents of Children and Teens with Anxiety and Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)

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 – Antibiotic Induced Anxiety – How Fluoroquinolone Antibiotics Induce Psychiatric Illness Symptoms

June 10, 2016 By Trudy Scott 60 Comments

Lisa Bloomquist, fluoroquinolone toxicity patient advocate, is interviewed on the Anxiety Summit by host of the Anxiety Summit, Trudy Scott, Food Mood Expert and Nutritionist, author of The Antianxiety Food Solution.

Antibiotic Induced Anxiety – How Fluoroquinolone Antibiotics Induce Psychiatric Illness Symptoms

Fluoroquinolone antibiotics and what they are prescribed for
Why fluoroquinolones are more dangerous than other antibiotics
How they can cause serious psychiatric problems, including anxiety.
Ways fluoroquinolones cause psychiatric problems: GABA inhibition, gut destruction, piperazine molecule, mitochondrial destruction, oxidative stress and magnesium depletion.
Fluoroquinolone toxicity and fibromyalgia, ME/CFS, autoimmity and thyroid disease
Recovery from fluoroquinolone damage

Lisa describes how she was floxed after taking the Cipro antibiotic:

I felt like a bomb had gone off in my body. My hands and feet swelled up and became incredibly painful. I went from doing CrossFit to barely being able to walk. I had big floater going across my eye. My mouth was extremely dry. I stopped sweating. Massive amount of anxiety, just huge amounts of anxiety. I had other central nervous system problems as well. Things like I lost my memory and my reading comprehension. I felt a very profound sense of weakness and fatigue. And it was just very bizarre. Like I had gone from being incredibly healthy. I was very, very healthy prior to taking the Cipro. And after I took it I felt like I could barely move, I could barely move and I could barely think. And it was horrible. It was a really horrible. It was a very, very hard time in my life.

This is the 2016 paper we discussed: Fluoroquinolone-related neuropsychiatric and mitochondrial toxicity: a collaborative investigation by scientists and members of a social network.

The 3 fluoroquinolone (FQ) antibiotics – ciprofoxacin, levofoxacin, and moxifoxacin – are commonly administered to oncology patients. Although these oral antibiotics are approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for treatment of urinary tract infections, acute bacterial sinusitis, or bacterial infection in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, they are commonly prescribed off-label to neutropenic cancer patients for the prevention and treatment of infections associated with febrile neutropenia. New serious FQ-associated safety concerns have been identified through novel collaborations between FQ-treated persons who have developed long-term neuropsychiatric (NP) toxicity, pharmacovigilance experts, and basic scientists.

For the survey, 93 of 94 respondents reported FQ-associated events including anxiety, depression, insomnia, panic attacks, clouded thinking, depersonalization, suicidal thoughts, psychosis, nightmares, and impaired memory beginning within days of FQ initiation or days to months of FQ discontinuation

The authors of the paper recommend: revised product labels describing a new serious adverse drug reaction, levofoxacin-associated long-term disability.

Here is the new FDA Drug Safety Communication: FDA advises restricting fluoroquinolone antibiotic use for certain uncomplicated infections; warns about disabling side effects that can occur together

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

Here are some additional links that Lisa mentioned:

the Fluoroquinolone Effects Study
the Fluoroquinolone Vigilance Foundation
the Fluoroquinolone Wall of Pain
Floxiehope Lisa’s site (with stories of recovery)
Fluoroquinolonethyroid

Here is the link to Hacking Fluoroquinolones – an ebook

And the book Lisa mentioned, written by Kerri Knox: The Fluoroquinolone Toxicity Solution

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.